Elk River Wind back

Developer:  Greenlight Energy/HMH Energy Resources/Iberdrola Renewables
Butler County, KS

• Two page overview of project (.PDF)
• Details of policy context, visual impact analysis, and public response
• Image gallery

Project Background

The Elk River Wind Project is located south of Beaumont, Kansas in Butler County, 45 miles west of Wichita. According to the 2000 census, Butler C ounty has a population density of 44 people per square mile and a median household income of $45,000. Beaumont has a population of just eighty people. The nearest significant population to the Elk River project lies in El Dorado. This town has a population of 12,000 and is located 25 miles to the northeast on I-35.

Elk River is located in the Flint Hills, the largest remaining tract of tallgrass prairie in North America. It is difficult to estimate the full extent of the Flint Hills prairie. It is estimated  to cover 6 to 7.5 million acres from northern Kansas to northern Oklahoma. The Elk River project is located on private ranching land owned by four landowners.

Figure 1: The Elk River Project after construction.

In 2001, Greenlight Energy of South Carolina and HMH Energy Resources of California joined in a partnership to develop the second large scale wind farm in Kansas. The companies planned to site one hundred General Electric 1.5 MW turbines on nearly 8,000 acres owned by four ranchers. After the sale of the project to PPM Energy (now Iberdrola Renewables), approval from the Butler County Commission, and a number of lawsuits from opposition groups and local landowners, the Elk River Project was completed in 2005.