Annette Bair, of the Southwest Regional Development Commission, at the 2012 National Rural Transportation Conference.
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2012 National Rural Transportation Conference April 25-27, 2012 Burlington, Vermont DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS Annette Bair SRDC Physical Development Director, SW CERT Coordinator, and RMEB staff, [email protected] 507.836.1631 RMEB Tour of Wind Turbines in Southwest Minnesota
Transcript
2012 National Rural Transportation Conference
April 25-27, 2012Burlington, Vermont
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTSAnnette Bair
SRDC Physical Development Director, SW CERT Coordinator, and
RDC, SW CERT, RMEB Staff I get to review projects that have regional – or – potential regional impact. I have developed a report with the state permitting staff. Being local, I already had a report with local zoning and hwy engineers who I do ask for input on projects. Over time, I realized there was a flaw in communication and put a workshop together to help improve understanding of the impacts of these projects and to improve communication. The County Engineers wanted to identify issues and develop uniform guidelines. We found that often the county engineer found out about a project the day before a project began construction. The result of this initiative is county staff have a development agreement template, State permitting staff have increased communication and require the development agreement, and the developers initiating contact with the county in advance of a project.
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I always need to reference the KW to MW to GW conversion In MN wind has developing since the 1990’s. this illustrates where it is and where it is spreading. 1999 273 MW by 2011 2.5 GW installed in Minnesota & 42.4 GW in the US 2030 20% wind installed nameplate capacity= for MNit means doubling the current installed wind.
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Over the first year, we shared best practices, permit examples, and discussed how wind counties dealt with issues. We brought in the trucking industry as well as the developers. Examples of some of the issues: was future road improvement could be limited, Developers are not familiar with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) – FHWA A turbine base takes 30 truckloads of cement We also identified lines of communication and because both the county engineers and I had limited time (no resources to cover extensive technical assistance), we wrote a Local Road and Research Board problem statement and were awarded a grant to employ an engineering firm to help complete the best practices. The Engineers asked me to continue to work with them in the process.
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Also during the first year, the group gained a better understanding of the impact of the projects. I asked a local developer for some data because we really had no numbers of truck loads. This example was for a wind farm that was of 1.5 MW machines and a 66 turbine site. Once the engineers had this information, they had an aha moment. There were a whole lot of legal loads and that perhaps they were impacting the roads that had been built for a certain level of traffic. Per turbine - 30 cement trucks 15 truckloads for aggregate for batch plant 12 truckloads for gravel on the service road 79 truckloads per turbine + Nearly 1600 general loads for the entire site. Or nearly 6800 loads for a 66 turbine site.
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It was not just the over dimension loads that were creating the issues, but the volume of legal loads also had impacts. The site permit applications often stated that the development project would not have much more impact than autumn harvest. One of the engineers converted the esals for bean and corn per section as well as the impact of a 66 turbine wind development on the same sections. You can see the impact in this bar chart for one year of crop harvest and the impact of a wind development project. Click this is the calculation of crop land ESAL per section and Turbine ESAL per Section
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So for example, The development agreement will help the county identify if / when a crane crosses the road, if it runs down the road, and address intersections – drainage, placement of signs, returning it to original returning radius. We did have an engineer report that one developer called to tell him to come get the county stop sign – the sign was returned to the county….
Crane Crossing
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Our engineers developed crane crossing guidelines
Web links and reports Sample ordinances, permits, and agreements Traffic calculator to quantify the impact on roads Policy options to recapture roadway costs Experience from current/past projects Research information
The deliverables are available at: lrrb.org
“click” on Traffic Generator Calculator located within left menu tab
LRRB Online Tool
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I continue to monitor statewide where wind projects are going in and let me peers know so they can make sure the engineers are on top of everything. Has everything gone well? There are blips. We have one developer balking at the costs identified in the agreement. And we have one project where the state will be doing road construction at the same time as the project is being developed.
