People Hear Latest Developments For Adding Wind Turbines In Southwest Indiana

It was a packed room in Gibson County as dozens hard the latest developments on the wind power project from E.ON Climate Renewables.

They’re hoping to create 50-80 windmills around the Posey-Gibson County line. One turbine would be built every 80 to 100 acres.

Wind Development Manager Karsen Rumef says “things you look for when you’re prospecting for a project is infrastructure, transmission lines in the area that you can interconnect your project to, and available capacity on the lines.”

They must be built 1,250 feet away from a residence and 550 feet from a property line, but many are still concerned that’s too close. Scott Fisher from Posey County says “obviously if the wind is here it’s a good resource we want to take advantage of it, but it needs to be safe and not take away property values, home values, and health and safety of the public.”

Some want to make sure money for the project is invested in locally skilled labors like electricians and ironworkers to help build the project. Ryan McRoberts from Warrick County works with many people who live in Gibson County and says “there are people here that need to work, they live here, they infuse money here. We might as well let them do it than somebody somewhere else.”

The biggest thing to get the ball rolling is interested landowners. They’re hoping to finalize land acquisition in the new few months, as well as creating a layout for what roads they’d be using to bring in equipment. An agreement would be made with the county to improve those routes.

It may be almost two years until construction would begin.

There is no set date for the next community meeting.