The Oklahoma State Capital

GUTHRIE, OKLA -- A relatively uneventful county commission meeting was highlighted by a new county commissioner’s first vote on a component of the controversial wind turbine project deploying across northern Logan County.

Newly elected Logan County District 2 Commissioner Floyd Coffman voted in favor of a reimbursement request brought by Board Chairman Monty Piercy as part of his ongoing project with Invenergy's Wagon Wheel Wind Farm.

Approximately half of the wind farm—one of the largest in Oklahoma—is being deployed across the northern parts of Logan County, with a heavy concentration along the Highway 51 corridor, stretching from Highway 74 in the west to Highway 77 in the east.

Piercy has entered into an agreement with Invenergy, allowing the company to maintain county roads that are being used for the deployment of approximately 85 turbines in the northern part of the county. Without that agreement, it remains unclear whether Invenergy would have been able to proceed with the wind turbine installations in the first place.

Invenergy is paying up to $30,000 per mile for the use of Piercy’s county roads. Piercy, in turn, is covering the initial cost of an engineering firm to oversee the improvements. The item on the commission's agenda allows Piercy to pay the firm and then seek reimbursement from Invenergy.

In previous meetings, Piercy, District 1 Commissioner Mark Sharpton, and Coffman’s predecessor, Charlie Meadows, unanimously supported the project with their past votes on reimbursements, road crossing permits for Invenergy’s transmission lines, and at least two approvals of the road use agreement.

The company has also contributed several thousand dollars to the county’s emergency management operations.

The wind turbine deployments became controversial after a group called No Federal Transmission Corridors for Logan County organized in opposition to the ongoing wind farm projects and transmission line corridors, including Invenergy’s transmission line project known as Cimarron Link.

Since the wind farm project was not prominently discussed during last year’s District 2 Republican primary election contest between Coffman and Meadows, this meeting provides the first indication that Coffman appears set to continue Meadows’ policy of supporting the deployment.

In other business, in a sign that growth in southern Logan County continues unabated, the commissioners approved a series of plats for four new neighborhoods in the southern part of the county.

Former District 2 County Commissioner Charlie Meadows attended the meeting, as did former District 1 Commissioner Marven Goodman. Goodman filmed the meeting as part of his journalistic endeavor, The Sooner Sentinel. Meadows could be heard speaking at length with an audience member while the commissioners approved the plats.

The commissioners will next meet in late January.

MORE: Logan County Strikes Agreement with Monumental Wind Turbine Project.