14-Year-Old Casper Wind Farm Has Not Turned A Blade In At Least 3 Years
Casper — For the past 14 years they have loomed over the landscape of northeastern Casper, once the symbol of the county’s first step into green energy. Now some say they are just an eyesore.
Casper resident Terry Wingerter said he was one of the Natrona County commissioners who approved the initial project in 2009. He wishes now he would have voted differently on the wind farm.
“They were the first towers in this area, and we had several neighborhood meetings out there,” he said. “Some of the neighbors were terribly against it and some of the others just didn’t care. It was the first one in this area so we voted for them.”
The wind turbines were erected on the north side of the North Platte River across from where the old Texaco refinery once stood. Wingerter said both the EPA and Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality considered the entire area contaminated from the refinery operations over six decades.
At the EPA’s website, it states that entire site of the refinery’s footprint needed cleanup. The 880-acre area north of the river had evaporation ponds used to treat refinery wastewater that contained polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons that did not require removal but were designated as a “Use Control Area” to restrict the property’s future use.
