What’s happening with the two burned wind turbines?

Credit: February 7, 2025 · Kaylee Lindenmuth · shensentinel.com ~~

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For the past four years, two burned wind turbines have sat seemingly abandoned, towering eyesores above the Ringtown Valley.

Part of the Locust Ridge I wind farm in Mahanoy Township, the adjacent turbines burned in December 2020 and March 2021 respectively.

A burned wind turbine in Mahanoy Township is seen from East Union Township on Jan. 22, 2025. The turbine burned in December of 2020. (KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL)

Flames can be seen within the generator and blade of a wind turbine as debris falls at Avangrid’s Locust Ridge I wind farm on Dec. 28, 2020. (KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL)

Flames and smoke are seen billowing from a wind turbine at the Locust Ridge I wind farm in March 2021. (FIRE AND FILM)

At least five of them have burned in Locust Ridge I and Locust Ridge II near Raven Run since they were installed beginning in 2007. Turbines that burned in 2009 and 2014 were replaced. The latter’s replacement was the one involved in the 2021 blaze.

Another that caught fire in 2018 in Union Township was demolished around 2022.

Today, you can still see the charred remains from the Brandonville and Sheppton areas, rising 400 feet atop Locust Mountain.

Avangrid Renewables, of Portland, Oregon, operates the wind farms on land leased from various property owners. They have not responded email inquiries sent by The Sentinel through January.

The Girard Estate owns the property the two burned windmills are situated on. They, too, did not respond to Sentinel emails.

They did, however, respond to a Right-to-Know request. The Girard Estate is administered by the Board of City Trusts on behalf of the City of Philadelphia and, as such, is subject to Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know law.

The Sentinel requested records pertaining to wind farm activities on land owned by the Girard Estate in Mahanoy Township, specifically the parcel the burned turbines are on, including documents relating to the two fires and any activities regarding those turbines since then.

Joseph P. Bilson, Executive Director of the Board of City Trusts, said Thursday in a formal response to the Right-to-Know request that they have no such records.

Mahanoy Township officials told The Sentinel they have received email correspondence from contractors planning to bring down the burned turbines over the past few years, but nothing has materialized.

The most recent correspondence indicated the turbines would have been razed by August 2024. That didn’t happen.

According to a fact sheet on Avangrid’s website, the Locust Ridge wind farms consist of 67 wind turbines producing two megawatts of power each or a total of 128 megawatts. That, they say, is enough to power over 38,000 homes.

Source: February 7, 2025 · Kaylee Lindenmuth · shensentinel.com

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