The Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm. <br><I>Staff photo by Sarah Britain

Starting next week, Gilliam County plans to add another resource to its agriculture base: wind.

Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy officially opened Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm near Arlington on Thursday, staging a ribbon cutting in front of a wind turbine propeller blade before inviting more than 100 attendees to sign it. The signed propeller will later spin among the rest in the 8,500-acre farm.

Though many of the project’s planned 49 turbines still stand unfinished, the site will begin producing and commissioning energy next week, said Horizon Director of Project Development Arlo Corwin, who works in the company’s Portland office. He said its latest wind farm takes advantage of ideal wind conditions in the Columbia River region.

“Eastern Oregon is one of the great resource areas in the country, really,” Corwin said.

Planning for the Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm project began in 2002, and Horizon took ownership in 2006, Corwin said. Once fully operational, the farm will have a capacity of 103 megawatts of power – enough to power about 30,000 average homes, according to Horizon.

After years of planning and study, construction of the turbines only began in May, Corwin said. The farm hopes to be fully operational by the end of this year, he said.

“Once construction starts, the construction process is very short,” Corwin said. “You can sit here for an afternoon and watch a couple of turbines go up.”

Thursday’s ceremony included representatives from Horizon, Gilliam County and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. CTUIR Board of Trustees member Les Minthorn addressed the gathering by taking a different perspective, first giving credit to the conditions that make wind farms in the area possible.

“No one’s thanked the earth yet,” he said. “The natural way of the earth is going to produce this resource that we’re going to harness into power.”

Tribal representatives later presented planners and project officials with honorary blankets and songs.

Stuart Harris, director of the tribe’s Department of Science and Engineering, said he has long been a proponent of climate change preparedness and using cleaner energies. Though he did not address the ceremony, Harris commended the planning and research that’s gone into the Rattlesnake Road farm. He added he appreciates the growing opportunity for people to purchase clean energy from windmills.

“Something like this, if it’s done right, could be the cornerstone of wind energy in the Northwest,” Harris said.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San Francisco has already purchased most of the Rattlesnake Road farm’s energy, Corwin said. Horizon owns and operates several other wind farms across the country, including the Elkhorn Valley Wind Farm in Union County.