By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin
Published: September 24. 2009 
 

To provide comments to the BLM on the West Butte Wind Power proposal, write to Steve Storo, project manager, BLM Prineville Field Office, 3050 N.E. Third St., Prineville, OR 97554; e-mail sstoro@or.blm.gov; call 541-416-6885 or fax 541-416- 6798.
 
With conditional approvals from Crook and Deschutes counties in hand, a company hoping to build a wind farm capable of powering 50,000 homes is now applying for the Bureau of Land Management's OK to build a transmission line and realign a 3.7-mile road on public land.
 
West Butte Wind Power is proposing to install between 34 and 52 wind turbines in southwestern Crook County and small areas of Deschutes County. The turbines would produce about the amount of electricity it takes to power all the homes in Central Oregon, said Sarah Rankin, project manager with the company.
 
And although the plant would be on private land, the parcel is surrounded by public land, and so the company needs a right of way to access the site and put in transmission lines to deliver the power to the grid, Rankin said.
 
“Using the existing road has the least environmental impact,” she said.
 
The BLM is currently taking public comments on the proposal, and will use those to identify issues to address in its environmental analysis. The study will cover the potential
impacts to plants, wildlife, threatened and endangered species, archaeological sites, recreation and more, according to the agency.
 
While there have been previous public hearings about the wind farm project, the BLM wanted to ensure that everyone who wanted to comment on the effort had a chance to do so, said Molly Brown, Deschutes Resource Area field manager with the BLM.
 
“We wanted to do that extra effort of ensuring that those that didn't see those previous articles, or participate in those public hearings, are now having this additional time to either learn about it or comment,” Brown said.
 
Wind farms producing 105 megawatts of power or more require permits from the state of Oregon as well, but the West Butte project is just under that threshold.
 
West Butte Wind would have to build about eight miles of transmission lines to hook into the existing electrical grid, Rankin said, but only about three miles of the line would be  on public land. The company also would have to widen an existing road so that it could handle the equipment — like trucks carrying huge turbines — during the wind farm's construction, she said.
 
But after the construction is done, West Butte Wind would replant the edges of the road and return it to its original width, she said.
 
The Oregon Natural Desert Association has asked the BLM to look at the proposal's potential effect on sensitive species, said Brent Fenty, the organization's executive director. And the group has been talking with agency and company representatives about
how to restore nearby wildlife habitat to make up for any disturbances, he said.
 
But there are other transmission lines already in the area, and the proposed right of way would not break up blocks of undisturbed habitat, he noted.
 
“This particular transmission line route doesn't cut through any proposed wildernesses or existing wildernesses, and follows an existing road, so the potential for impacts is less,” Fenty said.
 
West Butte Power is hoping to start building the wind farm in the spring, Rankin said, and finish construction before the end of 2011 to take advantage of a grant program from the federal economic stimulus that could pay for 30 percent of the project.
 
“That's why there's a real drive to be able to start building by the spring of this year,” she said.
 
Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.