June 8, 2012
Pennsylvania

Mehoopany wind farm project moving along

by Sofia Ojeda, WNEP | wnep.com 7 June 2012

There are big changes in store for a small community in Wyoming County.

The Mehoopany Wind Farm project is now underway in Noxen Township.

Eighty-eight wind turbines across thousands of acres will be put up from the Beaumont area to Mehoopany.

Along with the project will include lots of trucks, lots of traffic and lots of construction.

The sound of trucks whizzing by has become all too familiar for folks living in Wyoming County.

Neighbors say there are lots of changes going on in Noxen Township, but the big one is the Mehoopany Wind Farm Project.

BP is putting up close to 100 wind turbines across 9,000 acres from the Beaumont area to Mehoopany.

According to BP’s website, once complete, the farm will generate enough energy to power 40,000 homes a year.

Projects like these take time, and space and not everyone is for it.

“It’s incredible, it’s so busy anymore around here. When I was a kid I’d come through here, you wouldn’t see anything, now it’s just boom! Crazy!” says Fletch Whitesell of Hunlock Creek. “I’m an old-fashioned country boy, let them just go somewhere else.”

The massive wind turbines measure more than 200 by 300 feet. They’re sitting at a staging area on Route 29 in Noxen Township.

For Dawn Traver who’s lived in Noxen all her life, the view from her home has changed dramatically.

“You used to be able to watch out and see the deer and the little foxes and everything and now all it is the fence and wind mill parts,” says Dawn Traver of Noxen Township.

While construction has not yet started, projects leading up to it have.

Access roads have been built to make way for trucks transporting the turbines, as well as, staging areas where more work will be done.

Workers have raised the telephone poles and moved them several feet over to make room to transport the turbines on Route 29.

And while there may be days that will be very busy in the area, Traver says it’s all for a very good thing.

“It’s progress and it’s really for the good so you just have to be careful getting in and out of the driveway,” says Traver.

Workers say, the wind turbines are expected to start going up in the next two weeks, and be finished by the end of the year.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/06/08/mehoopany-wind-farm-project-moving-along/