(Greenfield) Construction is underway on the Arbor Hill Wind Farm project and crews are starting to move equipment to the Orient Wind Farm in Adair County.
MidAmerican Energy Company is building two new wind farms this summer. The Arbor Hill and Orient projects include a total of 275 turbines that will produce up to 550 megawatts of wind generation capacity, enough to power 230,000 average Iowa homes.
Adair County Auditor Mindy Schaefer said Matt Ott of MidAmerican Energy updated the Adair County Board of Supervisor’s Wednesday in regards to the project at Wednesday’s Supervisors’s meeting.
“Matt Ott informed the board that construction crews had moved into the Arbor Hill Wind Farm about one month ago and are, working on driveway entrances and clearing access roads,” said Schaefer.
Schaefer says the board was informed that construction crews were just now getting to the Orient project site and once they get settled they’ll start on the entrances and access roads in that area.
Schaefer says the Arbor Hill project is scheduled to be completed by this calendar year and the goal for the Orient project is to construct 51 out of the 99 turbines this year and complete the remainder of the project in 2019.
Additionally, company officials are addressing dust and speed limit complaints. Officials are currently taking care of the dust issues in front of the affected homes, and speed limit signs will soon be posted alongside 130th Street.
The Wind farm project will have a big impact on the counties economy. For instance; it’s estimated the project will generate $6.6 million in annual property taxes for Adair County. Additionally, the project will pay an average $4.8 million each year in landowner payments and create both construction jobs and long-term operations and maintenance jobs in the county.
