Wind turbine crash causes oil spill
When a wind turbine collapsed last Thursday east of Paxton, a substantial amount of oil spilled from the turbine hub into the ground.
Ford County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Terry Whitebird said Austin, Texas-based RWE Renewables, which operates the Prairie Trail Wind Farm, where the turbine collapsed, filed a report with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency about the spillage, and he received a copy of the report.
Whitebird has been on site and said a crew is ready to begin dismantling the turbine but has to wait until the area dries out from Wednesday’s rains.
“Those things house hundreds of gallons of oil,” Whitebird said. “At this point there’s no definite amount of how much was spilled,” and that information won’t be available until the hub is dismantled.
As a result, it is not known if the spillage would pose an environmental problem.
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There is some irony to an oil spill from a supposedly clean energy source.
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