County Grants Wind Farm Easements
The Glasscock County Commissioners’ Court (Commissioner Marck Schafer absent) at a special meeting April 24 granted easements to Wind Plus of Irving, TX to build an electrical transmission line along portions of three county roads: Sherrod Rd., Schafer Rd., and Hamby Rd. They also formally granted the same company permission to build the wind farm project and agreed to create a reinvestment zone for the project. Formal action granting tax abatements will follow at a later date.
According to Ray Boothe of Wind Plus, the project, which was to have begun two years ago, has now been greatly expanded and is supposed to ultimately consist of more than 500 wind turbines, each the height of a 30-story building, including the rotor in a vertical position. The project will include more than 40,000 acres and will extend from northeastern Glasscock County southwest to just north of Garden City, then west and northwest several miles.
Boothe said the project’s construction phase should create some 150-200 jobs, and 25 other jobs will be permanent after construction. He said the project needs to be pretty much up and running by December 2008, when important federal production tax credits are due to expire.
In other action (with Commissioner Schafer present), the court agreed to pay $3,500 for repairs to a pickup belonging to Joe D. Schwartz after his employee ran into a county-owned pile of caliche which had no barricade or warning sign in place. They also adopted an official county road maintenance map.