A possible second major wind power project for eastern Shasta County is at least a year away from being proposed, but the Southern California company behind it is building temporary towers to check wind patterns in the area.

Padoma Wind Power of La Jolla doesn't have plans to build wind power towers yet but is testing the potential for such a project, said spokesman David Knox.

He said the company does such tests for a minimum of a year to "see how it goes for four seasons."

Shasta County is set to issue building permits to Padoma next month. The permits allow the firm to build three 200-foot temporary meteorological towers near Burney, said Brett Hale, building division manager for Shasta County.

The Padoma wind test towers will be on Sierra Pacific Industry-owned land south of Highway 299 along Tamarack Road, said Bill Walker, senior planner for the county.

Hale said those permits will cost about $1,000 each and Padoma should have the towers up by winter.

"They are just going through the standard building permit process," Hale said.

Construction by another company is already under way on Hatchet Ridge above Burney.

Workers on Hatchet Ridge are scratching roads into the woods, starting the ridge's transformation into a wind power project.

"Road building is under way," George Hardie, senior developer for Pattern Energy Group, said last week.

The company plans to start full construction - including pouring concrete pads - next month, once it receives construction permits from Shasta County, he said.

It will then erect 44 towers and turbines next spring on the ridge off Highway 299 just west of Burney.

The 102-megawatt project should start producing power next summer, he said.

Along with the towers and turbines, the project will have a switch yard, substation and transmission line, Hale said. Each piece of the project will need its own building permit, he said.

The permit application includes plans that are hundreds of pages thick, Hale said, and the total cost for the permits likely will be about $300,000.

The cost of the entire project - which will produce electricity for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. - is $200 million, Hardie has said.