Wind plant site plans on the way, HNWD says

MONTEREY — A key ingredient in the plans to construct Virginia's first industrial wind energy plant is imminent.

Highland New Wind Development attorney John Flora told county supervisors Tuesday, "We expect to have the site plan to you by the next meeting."

Local and state officials required a final site plan in conditions attached to the company's permit to build and operate its proposed 39-megawatt electric utility.

Flora also announced HNWD is close to purchasing the turbines that would sit atop towers on Allegheny Mountain. "We are about 90 percent there," he said, and explained negotiations were ongoing with potential vendors he declined to name.

"Last year at this time we could not get a turbine, now we are inundated with calls for turbine sales," he added.

The company has not yet secured investors to help pay for the roughly $65 million project, however. "We are not certain about a funding source," Flora told the board. "I'm not at liberty to tell you exactly who they are. We are still working on that."

He said HNWD would submit an application for a Federal Aviation Administration permit at the same time it submits the site plans. An FAA permit is required due to the height of the towers, which, with its blades, would stand about 400 feet above the ridgeline in a military operations flight zone.

"You said you will have a site plan by the May meeting," said county attorney Melissa Dowd. "Does that include the final (Erosion and Sediment Control) plan as well?"

"We plan to have the whole package," Flora replied. Alleghany Power has been working on a substation location, he said, and HNWD hopes to have the turbines up by next summer. "By the May meeting, we hope to have more details," Flora added.

Later in the meeting, former supervisor Lee Blagg told the board, "I voted for the wind project."

He said he had met privately with HNWD owner H.T. "Mac" McBride at McBride's home when the conditional use permit application for the project first came up. Blagg said he avoided meeting with McBride in public because he was concerned about adverse publicity.

"We've got to increase the tax base," Blagg told supervisors. "Don't worry about the environmental aspects of him putting these things up. He (McBride) will not destroy anything on that mountain. You don't destroy what you worked your whole life for. Don't worry about that, it's not going to happen."