If you drive a few miles north of McIntire, you will see what appears to be a new small town on the south side of the road. In fact, at any given time during the weekday, it may have a higher population than the northern Mitchell County community of McIntire itself.

Of course, it's not a town, but sort of a "command central" for contractors and engineers working on a 300-megawatt wind farm being created by Horizon Wind Energy of Texas. Over 250 workers are stationed there, building roads, transmission lines and erecting a while bunch of wind turbines.

This is just the first phase of the amazing $600 million project called Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm. Ground was first broken this spring on the installation of 122 Vestas V82 wind turbines in northern Mitchell County.

The second phase of the project, to begin in 2009, will add 60 Vestas V82 wind turbines in the western part of the site into Howard County. The second phase should be completed in mid-2009.

"The first 120 wind turbines should be operational and producing energy by next April or May," explained Pioneer Prairie Project Manager Teran Smith. "We will be connected to the main power grid that runs southwest to northwest and delivered through a substation north of Adams, Minnesota."

All the land the turbines sit on is leased on contract for the life of the wind farm from local farmers and property owners. While land is leased from property owners, even property owners within the project boundaries without a turbine on their land may also be compensated if affected by the project.

An example might be someone "who sees turbines to the north, turbines to the south and you're unfortunately caught in the middle," said Smith

Smith said that Horizon does not yet have a contract with any major provider to purchase the electricity produced.

"We hope to have a contract soon, but if we don't by next spring, we will be a merchant power facility, selling our energy to a daily marker," said Smith. "This is a new concept for wind energy, but we expect it will grow and become common in the future as the United States reduces its dependence on foreign oil."

The Iowa Utilities Board granted a regulatory waiver in February to Horizon Wind Energy to create its Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Howard and Mitchell counties.

The waiver allows two of the 12 lines receiving electricity from the turbines to be over the 25-megawatt limit.

When all is complete, the wind farm will have 182 turbines in Wayne and Stacyville townships in the northeast part of Mitchell County and in Oak Dale Township in the northwest corner of Howard County.

The project covers about 60 square miles over the three townships and affects about 130 landowners,

Horizon Wind Energy is based in Houston with regional offices in New York, Oregon, Illinois, California, Colorado and Minnesota.