First tower goes up at Palouse Wind farm

The first section of the first tower of Palouse Wind’s $170 million wind farm in northern Whitman County was erected last Friday.

Construction was halted after the segment was put up because highway permits delayed shipment of the top segment and the naselle, the part of the turbine which generates electricity from the turning blades, according to Ben Fairbanks, western development manager for First Wind.

The project will consist of 58 turbines. Each is made of three segments that measure 25 to 30 meters long.

Crews hauled the bottom two segments of five towers to the site in the dark hours of early Friday morning. They passed through Colfax at about 1 a.m. Two of the segments were temporarily parked at Cashup while the staging operation was underway at the Baird Road site below the ridge south of Rosalia.

The first tower is located south of the project’s Baird Road headquarters, just east of Highway 195.

Fairbanks said the company needs to work out a better schedule for moving the remaining turbines, which are slated to come in at one per day beginning today, Thursday.

Tower haulers made a pre-sunset crossing into Washington Thursday night because Oregon transportation officials required the loads to be moved in daylight. The crews timed their crossing to arrive in Washington at the 7 p.m. start time for the night permits here.

Harold White, maintenance and traffic engineer for the Department of Transportation regional office in Spokane, said the permits have been issued for transport at night, between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.

That condition is placed in the permits to reduce impact on traffic flow and also reduce the chance of damage to highway surfaces. White said paving surfaces on some of the highway segments could be susceptible to heavier loads, particularly during the recent high temperatures.

White said the DOT permits are issued for limited time frames with a renewal process if needed. The towers normally move in the 50-mph range with escort vehicles and use turnouts.

The towers are being hauled north from Pasco on Highway 395, east on Highway 26 to Colfax and north on 195 to the Baird Road site.

Blades for the rotors are slated to arrive in August, said Fairbanks. The blades will measure 50 meters each.

White said the transformers are expected to be the heaviest pieces of equipment involved in the project. They are slated to come later this month.