Cedar City -- A Heber City company wants to build an array of tall, electricity-generating windmills in southern Iron County's Harmony Mountains.

And earlier this week, the public got a chance to weigh in on the Wasatch Wind proposal.

Company officials acknowledge the approval process could take several years, but they want to start now to build a relationship with county residents.

Project Manager Christine Mikell told an overflowing crowd of more than 100 people in Cedar City that the project is in the preliminary stages and does not have a definite number of towers or who would purchase the power.

The project's future depends on finding a buyer, transmission capabilities and getting the permits from the Bureau of Land Management for the 1,400 acres of public land leased by the company.

She said a year's worth of wind data has been collected, but Wasatch Wind needs more from the site located about five miles north of the Washington County line and several miles west of Interstate 15.

Mikell said technology involving higher towers and slower turning blades have made wind-generated electricity quieter and more environmentally friendly.

In addition, it will generate tax revenue for the county.

Residents attending the meet expressed a concern over whether birds would be affected by tower blades.

R. Spencer Martin, an ecologist with SWCA Environmental Consultants in Salt lake City, said his company has conducted surveys dealing with migratory raptors and songbirds and said flight patterns are usually above and below the blades' sweep.

He pointed to a wind farm built near Altamont, Calif., that used outdated technology and gave the wind industry a bad name because it did not take migratory patterns of birds into consideration.

Jim Case, who lives in Cedar City, likes the project. He said he is familiar with older California wind farms.

"My only concern is, what if the wind doesn't blow?" he said.