03/16/10

Tuesday, members of the Twin Falls Chamber Of Commerce were given a presentation on the economic impact the China Mountain Wind Project would have.

The proposed wind project, located 40 miles south of Twin Falls, would be the largest in Idaho, and have 170 wind turbines that could generate 391 megawatts of electricity; the project is expected to last about 25 years.

Nichole Hughes of Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc, says, "The 25 year life span is the turbine manufactures current understanding of the life of the machinery."

The proposed right of way lease from the Bureau of Land Management would last 30 years.

Based on the life span and the project proposal, an economist was hired to calculate the economic impact the wind farm would have. For one, it would bring a total of 750 jobs during the two year construction phase, many of them from the area.

Economist Dr. Dick Gardner, Boot Strap Solutions says, "The local jobs will mostly have to do with improving and building about 65 miles of roads, trenching and laying about 47 miles of transmission lines and fiver optic cables connecting the 170 turbines."

Workers will be needed to construct the turbine foundations which are about the square footage of a small house. 15 to 20 full time jobs could be filled to maintain the turbines during operation, which could be filled by students from CSI’s Wind Program; in addition to jobs the economist figured the tax income flowing into Twin Falls County.

According to Gardner, "The wind energy tax would be a little over 2 million dollars a year coming to taxing districts inside Twin Falls County, in terms of a present value of those 25 years of the project its 33-and-a-half million dollars coming into the counties tax coffers."

Right now the BLM is conducting an environmental impact statement. It will be available for public view and comment this summer; its not 100 percent certain when a start date is for the wind farm, but roughly spring of 2012.