USA - MidAmerican to fund roadwork for wind turbine project in Adair County

MidAmerican Energy is literally laying the groundwork for a wind turbine project in Adair County. Before the company can roll into Adair County, MidAmerican will have to ensure a considerable amount of roadwork takes place on the county’s Level B roadways. These roadways, also known as “service roads,” are usually used by farmers who need to get from one end of their property to another, and are nowhere near strong enough to handle what MidAmerican has in store for them.

Because the prospective sites for these wind turbines can be a considerable distance from highways and county roads, Level B roadways will need to be substantially beefed up to handle trucks carrying wind turbine parts weighing several dozen tons. The roadways would have to be widened to 33 feet, as well. Cass and Adair County Engineer Charles Marker said Level B roads are only equipped to handle 20- or 30-ton vehicles. Meanwhile, some of the loads MidAmerican wants to bring in would be much heavier.

“They’ve got equipment five times the legal load limit,” he said. “On B level roads, there’s not enough rock. It’ll be adding rocks to dirt roads.” Marker said MidAmerican was approved by the secondary road departments in Cass and Adair counties this week for permits allowing them to begin working on the roadways associated with their wind turbine project. He added, MidAmerican is paying for the roadwork that will also include reinforcing a small bridges.

MidAmerican Energy Communications Manager Mark Reinders said the blades for the 76 proposed 1.5 megawatt wind turbines to be peppered across northeast Cass and northwest Adair counties will have travelled across the state to get there. Reinders pointed out that MidAmerican’s wind turbine project will foster an economic upturn for the counties they’re working in. “The blades are coming from Fort Madison,” Reinders explained. “It’s more economical for the state of Iowa. In addition to that, there’ll be contracts with farmers to lease the land. “This will signal an economic upturn during construction time, because construction workers will buy gas and food locally.” Marker agreed, saying the wind project will be a “tremendous benefit to this area,” while noting the wind turbines would be owned and operated by MidAmerican.

Reinders said MidAmerican is working on contracts with landowners in northwest Adair County, but did not disclose the annual lease rate or the number of contracts already signed. However, Reinders said the minimum lease time between his company and individual land owners is 30 years.