Montgomery County officials continue to learn about proposed wind farms

By Rick Holtz, The Paper of Montgomery County Managing Editor

The Montgomery County Commissioners heard from the experts as talks of potential wind farms coming to Montgomery County continued Monday afternoon.

Matthew Kauffman, senior project developer of Stewardship Energy LLC, was on hand at the commissioners' meeting to explain what his company would like to do in Montgomery County. He told the commissioners that they wanted to be upfront with the county.

"Wind energy development is a big thing for counties to sink their teeth into," he said.

Kauffman said the company has developed wind farms for five years. He said that the proposed farm in Montgomery County would begin two miles outside of Linden and head toward Clinton County.

"A landowner committee has formed," he said.

He said that they are trying to get 10,000 acres for 100 towers in the total project. He said that so far they have 7,500 acres with letters of intent.

Even if they get letters of intent for all 10,000 acres, wind turbines will not appear over night. He said that construction would be begin until late 2009, early 2010.

"The marketplace is favorable right now," Kauffman said. "It's a changing world, hopefully for the better."

Kauffman said that the blade on the proposed turbine would be 145 feet long. Including the blade, the turbine would stand 410 feet tall. Between 350 and 450 cubic yards of concrete would be used for the foundation.

The commissioners decided to form a committee to continue to look into the possibility of the turbines coming to Montgomery County.

"There's a lot of ground work left to be made," Commissioner Bill McCormick said.

Commissioner Harry Siamas said that the subject wasn't even on the commissioners' radar 60 days ago.

"This is all pretty new to us," he said.