44
ACT
NOVEMBER 2013
with 60- and 100-ton rough-terrain cranes
to a lay-down yard 2.5 miles from the
final erection site. Most notably, the move
involved five blade cages, each holding
three blades with dimensions of 98-feet,
1-inch-long by 10-feet, 8-inches-wide,
by 6-feet-high. Each blade cage weighed
35,274 pounds.
Significant obstacles
Because the project was on private land,
no permits or regulatory approvals were
required. However, since the ranch
served as a private residence as well
as a nature preserve, Omega Morgan
needed to devise a plan that addressed
significant environmental and property
line considerations. Omega Morgan also
required go-aheads from Gamesa, the
original equipment manufacturer, and
McKinstry, the Seattle-based energy
and facility services firm that developed
the wind farm. Omega Morgan devoted
82 man-hours for project planning,
approvals, engineering and planning.
“It was important to the owners of
the ranch for the landscape to retain its
rustic character,” says Project Manager
Kai Farrar. “The transportation company
originally selected for this project
proposed excavating much of the hillsides,
and then straightening and widening the
road to accommodate the oversize load.
That plan was not acceptable to the client.
We looked at the job and considered how
to deliver the components safely and still
preserve the land.”
What Omega Morgan discovered upon
inspecting the route was a winding,
narrow, one-lane mountain dirt road,
fraught with hairpin turns, grades of as
W
hen the three
environmentally-conscious
families that own the
Swauk Creek Ranch in Kittitas County,
WA looked to diversify, wind farming
seemed like a possible way to offset the
property’s operating costs. In testimony
to county commissioners, the ranch
owners says they hoped to demonstrate
that such small-scale wind projects can be
economically viable.
Previously, the families had donated
easements on 2,094 acres of the 3,865-
acre ranch to The Nature Conservancy.
Moreover, in an unusual partnership
with the Conservancy, they are funding
ongoing research and restoration work
over the entire ranch. The protected
land includes steep canyons with forests
of Ponderosa pines and native oaks and
is inhabited by elk, cougars, bears and
a wide range of songbirds. Included in
the protected area is one mile of Swauk
Creek, which feeds into the upper Yakima
River and supports 16 native fish species,
including wild Chinook salmon.
The rugged physical elements that made
this land so appealing to the families
and The Nature Conservancy created
formidable challenges for Omega Morgan
of Hillsboro, OR, the company contracted
to move the tower components. Although
considered a small wind project, the
components were large. Each of the wind
turbines would extend 300 feet high
from the ground to the tip of a vertically
extended blade.
The project called for Omega Morgan to
receive the components for five Gamesa
850-kilowatt G58 wind turbines from a
third-party transporter and offload them
much as 20 degrees, and steeply banked
corners. Clearly, a traditional transporter
would be unable to navigate along this
path without massive excavation and road
work.
The route challenges and the client’s
environmental concerns inspired Omega
Morgan to come up with an innovative,
nontraditional solution. Omega Morgan
designed, engineered and fabricated
in-house a custom hydraulically
articulating turntable framework and
mounted it to a self-propelled modular
trailer. This allowed the nearly 100-foot-
long blades to rotate away from the steep
road banks as they were transported up to
the erection site with no environmental
impact.
The unusual nature of the job called
for especially close attention to safety
considerations. Omega Morgan provided
a site-specific safety and evacuation plan
for the duration of the project. Every
crew member carried a two-way radio
for communication, and a portable
defibrillator always was onsite.
The trailer’s fabricator and engineer
were present throughout the entire haul
to monitor the equipment’s performance.
A contingency evacuation plan for the
one-lane road included pull-outs every
1/4 mile, as well as front and rear spotters
in Gators to help spot emergencies and
facilitate a response.
Tailboard meetings were conducted at
every difficult corner. Crews stopped,
walked the corners together and discussed
execution.
The extra precautions paid off when
rain and snow on the road prior to the
haul created extremely soft shoulders. The
Terry White
reports on a
nontraditional solution for
moving wind tower blades
in an environmentally
challenging area.
SITE REPORT
TRANSPORT
A better
mousetrap
