The race to build a wind farm in Prince Edward County is a long one. So long that it's difficult for a company to know where to begin.

"It would be fool-headed to race ahead and get all your permits in place and not have a contract to sell power," said Samit Sharma of Gaia Power Inc.

The labyrinth of agencies that must be consulted for the requisite approvals, however, makes a proponent anxious to get underway.

"The project, I'm not kidding with you, has to deal with 80 to 90 different agencies, federal, provincial and municipal," he said. "Everybody has their own requirements and you have to navigate through that."

Gaia, a Kingston-based company, is one of six firms with proposals on the table to generate electricity from windmills in the county.

Sharma expects it will take about two years for his company to gain all the proper building permits and complete the environmental assessments needed to move ahead. Sharma said the company is considering a project that would generate at least 24 megawatts of power. That would require between eight and 16 turbines.

The proposed location of the Gaia project is Point Petre, a place that was used during the Second World War as a military base to test bombs.

The sparsely populated area, located in the south corner of Athol district, is Crown land, meaning the provincial government stands to gain revenue from its permit fees, which could pay for the upkeep of the local environment.

Gaia offered the highest bid out of several businesses applying to use the Point Petre land, Sharma said, but the company does not expect to have a shovel in the ground anytime soon. It is still trying to secure an agreement to sell electricity to the Ontario Power Authority. Once that happens, Gaia will begin the lengthy process of obtaining all the permits a wind energy company must acquire.

The other companies with designs for generating electricity from windmills in the county are:

* Canadian Hydro Developers Inc., which has a 12-turbine project in mind for private land between Royal Road and Army Reserve Road in the southern part of the county. County councillors voted to alter zoning bylaws to allow the project to move ahead several months ago, and it remains the only proposal to have the blessing of local politicians. The company also has a 20-year deal with the power authority to sell its electricity.

* Gilead Power Corp., a Peterborough- based company that has a 12-turbine farm planned for Crown land on Ostrander Point in South Marysburgh. Gilead also has an agreement in place with the power authority and could be running by early 2010, but it is still seeking public support before construction can begin.

* IPC Energy, a Mississauga-based company, has a 75-turbine project on the board for Athol and South Marysburgh wards, to be built in two phases. IPC is in the midst of its environmental assessment and has until Oct. 28 to file its application to the power authority.

* SkyPower Corp. of Toronto hopes to start building a 66-turbine farm north of Picton in late 2009.

* Trillium Power Wind of Toronto has a 140-turbine project planned for Main Duck Island, about 18 kilometres south of Point Traverse. It is the only one of the proposals whose turbines -though 100 metres high and capable of generating five megawatts of power each - cannot be seen from the mainland. Trillium Power hopes to have a contract in place with the power authority by the end end of the year and infrastructure in place by 2010. An underwater transmission line will connect the turbines to Lennox Generating Station in Bath.