Public to get peek at wind farm project

A plan to harness the power of wind blowing through breezy San Miguelito Canyon passes, southwest of Lompoc, and parlay it into energy will be unveiled to the public Monday.

John Stahl has been working on putting wind turbines on hillsides in the Lompoc area for the past four years. And after 3ð years of gauging wind speeds, finding land for the turbines, forming a partnership with Pacific Renewable Energy LLC and fine tuning other details, the application for the project was filed earlier this summer.

“It's the type of project the United States needs, especially if you look at all the trouble in the Middle East,” Stahl said.

Not only is wind power a renewable energy source, it's more environmentally friendly than anything being pumped out of the Middle East, he said.

The county will present Stahl's and Pacific Renewable's wind farm proposal to the public and take feedback during a 7 p.m. Monday meeting at Lompoc City Hall, 100 Civic Center Plaza. That is the first step of the process, before the county hires a consultant to draft an environmental impact report (EIR). The EIR process is expected to be completed in early 2007.

“This is the first major wind farm proposal in the county,” said John Day, a planner with the county planning department's energy division.

Stahl's vision calls for 60 to 80 wind turbines to be put on nearly 3,000 acres of ranch land. At full capacity, the wind farm would be able to generate 80 to 120 megawatts, enough to power northern Santa Barbara County.

The former Lompocan first realized in 1858, when he went to high school in town, how windy the Valley gets. He convinced some of his former classmates, who now own ranches in Miguelito Canyon, to go along with his wind farm idea.

Former classmates and other ranchers have agreed to give up small swathes of grazing land for a cut of the wind farm's royalties, once the turbine blades get going. About six property owners have agreed to be part of the wind farm, including Joe and Sylvia Signorelli; the Scolari family; and John and Marlene Larsen.

“I don't know why it took so long,” Stahl said about his idea. “Fortunately for me, I've ended up with the best sites.”

Before choosing Miguelito Canyon for the wind energy project, Stahl looked elsewhere, including Vandenberg Air Force Base. The base, which probably has three or four locations where a wind farm would work, was receptive to the idea, but navigating the Defense Department's bureaucracy became too daunting, he said.

“There have been plenty of other wind projects in the state,” Day said.

Those other wind farms have given the county and Stahl some idea of the drawbacks.

The visibility of wind turbines, which in this case will be up to 490 feet high from the top of the blade to the ground is a common problem, and bird deaths are another potential drawback, Day said. Bird deaths were common in the Altamont Pass, near the Bay Area, but this project is different, he said.

These turbines will not be visible from Lompoc and to people looking across the Valley from Vandenberg Village, they will look like toothpicks, Stahl said.

Turbines at the Miguelito Canyon wind farm would be spaced farther apart than the thousands of earlier-generation turbines dotting the Altamont Pass. The blades are also slower moving on the newer turbines, and the site where Pacific Renewable wants to build it's project doesn't have many birds, Day said.

After years of work, Stahl is optimistic the wind farm will be running sometime in 2008. He already has a deal to sell power to Pacific Gas & Electric.

“It's been a long time,” Stahl said. “I've been working on it for four years. The county is taking an aggressive stand on moving the project forward.”

Mark Abramson can be reached at 737-1057 or mabramson@lompocrecord.com.