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The Lower Snake River Wind Facility’s 149 wind turbines are now producing electricity for Northwest homes and businesses.
Wind Power NewsLower Snake River
A newsletter about the Lower Snake River Wind Facility
Spring 2012 | Phone 509-382-2043 (Dayton) or 509-843-5062 (Pomeroy) | PSE.com
Garfield County is the Pacific Northwest’s newest producer of wind-powered electricity. After five years of weather studies, planning, community interaction, permitting and construction, the Lower Snake River Wind Facility-Phase I on Feb. 29 began sending clean, renewable power to homes and businesses across the region.
“With the residents of Garfield County as partners, we’re now operating the largest wind-power site in Washington,” said Kimberly Harris, president and CEO of Puget Sound Energy, the wind facility’s owner. “We are grateful for the support of Pomeroy and the surrounding community, and look forward to producing clean energy for years to come.”
The wind farm’s 149 spinning wind turbines are spread across six ridge-top “strings” in western Garfield County. Together, the turbines produce enough electricity, on average, to meet the electricity needs of about 100,000 homes.
“I’m proud of what our local community, Puget Sound Energy and our development and construction partners have accomplished here.” said Paul Smith, PSE’s Lower Snake River
plant manager. “This is a great achievement for us all.”
Since construction began nearly two years ago, more than 250 workers were on the project site on a given day. They began by building the facility’s access roads, then moved to lay underground electric and fiber-optic communications cable between turbines; pour the turbines’ massive foundations; assemble the turbine towers, nacelles and rotors; build the wind farm’s substations and high-voltage transmission lines; and finally, restore lands disturbed by the construction activity.
“Wind power has come of age,” said Paul Wiegand, PSE’s senior vice president of Energy Operations. “With the advanced technology, size and efficiency of today’s turbines, wind energy is now a mainstream part of our utility’s power portfolio.”
Smith is one of about 25 permanent employees of PSE and turbine manufacturer Siemens Energy who now maintain and operate the new wind facility. They’re based out of PSE’s newly built Lower Snake River Operations & Maintenance Building on the west edge of Pomeroy.
Lower Snake River Powers Up Wind Turbines
The Lower Snake River Wind Facility-Phase I, PSE’s third wind farm, is the largest in Washington and third-largest in the Pacific Northwest. PSE also owns and operates the Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility in Columbia County, and the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility in Kittitas County. Together, the three PSE wind farms produce enough electricity, on average, to power almost a quarter of a million homes.
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Latest Wind-Project Video Now Available
The third in a series of short video documentaries on the Lower Snake River Wind Facility is now available for viewing. The latest installment focuses on the construction of Lower Snake River-Phase I, and its importance to Puget Sound Energy and its customers. Visit PSE.com/LowerSnakeRiver to watch. You also can check out PSE’s online Flickr site to see some great new photos of the wind project.
1 State rank of the Lower Snake River Wind Facility (LSR), in generating capacity
2 Number of LSR substations (Phalen Gulch and Dodge Junction)
2.3 Maximum power output of each wind turbine, in megawatts (= 2.3 million watts)
6 to 16 Revolutions per minute of an LSR wind-turbine rotor
8 Miles of new, overhead high-voltage transmission line for carrying LSR power to the Bonneville Power Administration’s new Central Ferry substation
64 Miles of buried power lines and communications cable between turbines
149 Number of LSR-Phase I wind turbines
160 Length, in feet, of an LSR wind turbine’srotor blade
262 Height, in feet, of each wind-turbine tower
316 Weight, in tons, of each wind-turbine assembly
331 Diameter, in feet, of each turbine rotor (31 feet longer than a football field)
343 Maximum power output of LSR-Phase I, in megawatts (= 343 million watts)
430 Turbine height, in feet, from the ground to the tip of a vertical blade
600+ Weight, in tons, of each wind turbine’s foundation
21,610 Acreage within the Phase I boundary (all in western Garfield County)
100,000 Number of homes that LSR-Phase I, on average, can power
PSE Foundation Supports Local Nonprofits
Lower Snake River - By the Numbers
Spring 2012 | Phone 509-382-2043 (Dayton) or 509-843-5062 (Pomeroy) | PSE.com
New to Puget Sound Energy, Collin MacLeod joined the Lower Snake River team as a project coordinator in early January.
Originally from Marysville, Collin grew up in Ephrata and began building muscle cars at the age of 14. After a couple years of building hot rods and taking his prized 1968 Plymouth GTX to the biggest car show in Las Vegas,
he decided it was time for a change. At just 18, Collin became a wind-turbine technician. He traveled the country, visiting 30 states and climbing wind turbines every day. “It’s not your average job,” Collin said. “I got to do something different than what most people do.”
After about a year and half of traveling the country as a wind technician, Collin was tired of
Meet Our Team Collin MacLeod
Supporting the good work of local nonprofit organizations is one of the ways Puget Sound Energy and the Puget Sound Energy Foundation strive to be good neighbors. Here in Southeast Washington, a number of worthy groups received more than $26,000 in grants from the foundation over the past year. They include the Garfield County Food Bank, Touchet Valley Arts Council, the Pomeroy School District, Columbia County Senior Citizens, Quality Behavioral Health,
Garfield County Super Citizens, the Dayton Development Task Force, Pomeroy Community Center, and the Garfield County Courthouse renovation project.
April 1 is the first deadline for submitting 2012 grant applications to the foundation. Programs that advance community safety and emergency preparedness are the foundation’s top priority for grant support this year. You can find more information online at www.psefoundation.org.
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The environmental benefits of wind power are substantial, but every form of power generation leaves some mark on our natural surroundings. At the Lower Snake River Wind Facility, we’ve worked hard to minimize the operation’s footprint on the local landscape.
Aside from the property on which permanent wind-project facilities now lie, all the lands disturbed by construction have undergone restoration. Following construction of the wind-turbine foundations, access roads, substations and high-voltage transmission lines, we placed previously stockpiled topsoil back around these facilities. After contouring and cultivating the replaced soil, a drill seeder planted various local seed mixes. Lastly, we laid down a mulch to help hold the seed in place. We employed hydro-seeding, followed by mulching, in areas not conducive to drill-seeding. Weed control was performed numerous times throughout construction.
“I’m pleasantly surprised by the minimal disturbance the turbine construction caused on my land,” said Bob Cox, manager of the Pomeroy Grain Growers and a wind-project leaseholder. “A couple of years from now, because of the leveling and re-seeding they
did, I don’t think I’ll even be able to tell where my land was disturbed.”
Nearly all 21,610 acres of Lower Snake River-Phase I are private, locally owned lands. The wind farm’s turbines, access roads and support facilities take up only about 200 acres – less than 1 percent of site’s property; the rest remains available for farming or grazing.
Land Restoration A High Priority Hunting Still
On HoldHunting remains closed – for now – at the Lower Snake River Wind Facility, but PSE is working with local landowners to establish a hunting program by this fall. Nearly all of the new wind farm’s property is privately owned, primarily by wheat growers and ranchers. We anticipate a hunting program for Lower Snake River similar to the one in place at PSE’s Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility. There, hunters need to obtain written hunting permits authorized by individual property owners. Stay tuned for more on this.
Crews hydromulch along a turbine access road after the soil was previously seeded.
living in hotels and wanted to give traveling a rest. That’s when he discovered the Lower Snake River wind project.
Editor: What interested you in the Lower Snake River Wind Facility?
Collin: “I was interested because PSE is the leading wind-power producer in the Northwest. I thought it’d be great to work for such a reputable organization and one that was in Washington.”
Editor: What makes the Lower Snake River Wind Facility unique?
Collin: “The work PSE does on the site. I’ve been to a lot of wind projects and none has ever been as well taken care of as the site here. Everything is very well constructed and set up.”
Editor: What’s your favorite thing to do in the Pomeroy area?
Collin: “I enjoy hunting and fishing.”
Editor: What are some things you’d like to accomplish professionally in the next 10 years?
Collin: “Keep doing what I’m doing, stick with PSE and keep moving up in the ranks. Hopefully I’ll be running one of these sites in the next couple years.”
307 E. Main Street, Dayton, WA 99328
Wind Power NewsA newsletter about the Lower Snake River Wind Facility
Lower Snake River
Learn More
PSE is the developer and owner of the Lower Snake River Wind Facility. Phase I involves 149 wind turbines in Garfield County, capable of producing 343 megawatts of electricity – enough to serve 100,000 homes. PSE also owns the Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility in Columbia County and the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility in Kittitas County.
For more information about the Lower Snake River Wind Facility, please visit PSE’s local community offices in Dayton and Pomeroy. On the Web, please see PSE.com/LowerSnakeRiver.
In Columbia County:
Anne WalshSr. Environmental/ Communications Manager Puget Sound Energy307 E. Main St.Dayton, WA 99328 Tel: 509-382-2043 [email protected]
In Garfield County:
Jay TakemuraEnvironmental/ Communications Coordinator Puget Sound Energy910 Main St.Pomeroy, WA 99347Tel: [email protected]
Our MissionThe Lower Snake River
Wind Power News is
published by Puget Sound
Energy, Washington’s
oldest local energy utility.
It is a source of project
and community news
during the development
and construction of the
Lower Snake River Wind
Facility.
