October 1, 2014
Texas

Wind farm developer to go ahead with project

October 1, 2014 | www.kristv.com

A company that wants to build a wind farm in the south side of Corpus Christi says no matter what city leaders decide, the wind farm will be built.

The land in question is part of the Chapman Ranch area. Right now, the city is poised to annex the land in direct opposition to the project by Apex Clean Energy. The company has worked for 6 years on the plans for the wind farm.

“It actually wouldn’t affect our ability to move forward with the development of the project,” says Jeff Ferguson, Vice President at Apex.

Ferguson says the only thing the city can do if they annex the land is tax it. He says that tax will throw any hopes of working with the city to address their concerns out the door.

“If we didn’t reach an agreement with the city, we’d actually have to build the entire project to accommodate the additional cost structure.”

The city’s main concern is the location, which according to officials, could hurt future development on the south side of town.

There have also been concerns expressed about the wind farm interfering with NAS Corpus Christi flight training and local media broadcast services.

To address those concerns Apex has offered to not build in the area the city wants to annex. They say they would build less turbines in their construction area, and reduce the life of the wind farm from about 100 years to just 30.

But all this is dependent on if the city comes to an agreement with them and does not annex the land.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/10/01/wind-farm-developer-to-go-ahead-with-project/