This has me puzzled, on a ridge top in an area I fly often. It would seem that it collapsed while they were erecting it. Hopefully, as I sure don't remember it being there standing up. It looks like the gin pole is still attached. There are no power lines around for a few miles, but if a big enough wind farm is planned I suppose they could run the lines in. I hope no one got hurt, but other then that I had to laugh when I saw it, I sure won't loose any sleep over over it's demise. I will keep an eye on this area the next few months, especially as it is so familiar to me over years of flying, giving a false sense of "I know where everything is, power lines etc". I'm also going to land there and eyeball things up close, I didn't have time today. A good wake up call to never quit looking and paying attention.

Maybe they were putting up a small tower to test the feasibility of a wind farm in that area? We had a couple of those near are farm down south. Thank goodness that idea went belly up, aerial spraying and wind towers would not mix well, plus I did not want to farm around them.

Steve

Here's a picture I took a few days ago. It's a mile and a half west of what I'm farming. You can see a strip of blacker dirt about 1 o'clock heading to a horizonal white area. That is the substation and the black strip is where all the underground wire is buried. The cousin that sold 40 acres for the substation got $25,000 an acre so went a few miles away and bought 80. I have some other cousins that are getting about 20 turbines that will pay about 7 or 8 thousand per year per turbine. Lot's of love and hate around here. I actually like the looks but hate to see the land that isn't farmable for quite awhile. Also, will have to remember not to tangle with any when out sight seeing.

Courier Guy, Now that's a crane!!!! I posted on Facebook that if I was at the top of the crane setting the generator that weighs over 100,000 lbs., I'd get dizzy and fall off but sitting in the plane---no problem.

Any chance you can post an exact location of this tower collapse? I may be able to pull a few contacts and find out who it was, what happened, and if anyone was hurt.

A more then excellent chance Dale! I have it saved on the GPS, at least when I was about 1/4 mile away. Let me hold off until I make it back there, maybe tomorrow, as I do want to land there and get some more pictures. I'll get a dead nuts location at that time. I'd be very interested to know who and why, and if they plan to clean the mess up.

Complete from beginning to end wind turbine assembly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84BeVq2Jm88

Courier guy, that photo looks a lot like the test towers they were using in northern Maine, several of them collapsed as well. Or should I say the bottom 30 ft stayed upright but the top sheared off in extreme gusts of wind. The company scrapped those locations, but never went back to clean up the mess. I found a 1000 lb bull moose that died due to getting the guy wires tangled in his antlers, reported it to fish and game never heard back from them?

I went back there and walked the site, pretty ugly. Lots of wire rope laying about, and I could see it being a hazard to wildlife.





While looking for it, I stumbled upon ANOTHER fallen over tower a couple miles away. A different type of construction, apparently relying on the weight of the concrete to keep it up right, looks like that worked real well. Both these towers look like they fell last year, maybe two years ago at most. They are not real overgrown anyway.
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And then, as I was leaving the area, I saw this about 3 miles away from the other two
[url=http://s649.photobucket.com/user/simkot/media/6-3-15%20008_zpsqxbjogym.jpg.html]

I am feeling an urge to hold the feet of the parties responsible to the fire. They came into my area and put these things up, poorly, and then abandoned them leaving the wreckage. They need to get a crew up and haul it all off, or be forced to pay after others do so. Maybe next time they'll do a better job.That's called littering, at the least. Public endangerment is another term for it. The remaining upright one needs to come down if not in use. Dale: I will PM you the lat/long the next time I fire up the GPS, tomorrow most likely.

The first 2 photos are a temporary tower, the base is "nailed" in place with some long rebar spikes to keep it from moving sideway sideways, but the guy wires actually hold it up. It could have brought down by ice or wind, but most likely the guy wires were not anchored correctly. Coming down in pieces is not surprising. The last photo is probably similar to or maybe identical to what it should have looked like when it was up. Photo 3 appears to be a "Trylon" tower, which is a low price, lightweight, freestanding 100 foot tower (I hate them). It is intended to be put up with a foundation dug 4 foot deep and filled with 10 yards (20 tons) of concrete and rebar. Trying to put one up on a "slab on grade" foundation is an invitation to the Darwin awards committee, obviously it didn't work. Whoever put these things up needs to clean up the mess, even if it costs more in fuel to go get them than they get for scrap metal. If they are on BLM or state land they would have had to get a permit to put them up, maybe the local sage brush cops can do something useful for a change and hunt them down.

CG, send me the GPS cords for those towers. I'll check with the "sage brush cops" while I'm at work Monday.

Find out who's they are. The Idaho MET tower marking law has been in effect for almost two years now. Any remaining MET tower should be marked per the law.
We will get the ITD on it if you can find the owner.

Sitting here at work with the name of blm guy to call to find out ownership. Just need the locations.

The first one pictured is on Private land. With the amount of private land up there I'd guess the others are too, I don't have their GPS coords. Not sure how to find out about the ownership of the one still standing that doesn't meet the current marking law. Guess we can get the coords and give them to ITD and let them chase ownership down.

Actually, the collapse of one of these abominations is about as good as it gets.......

MTV

I'm with you there MTV!

I'll be going that way an a few days, and I'll get the exact location of the other two, in particular the one still up.

I spotted one late yesterday that I found to out today has been inactive for 6 years! The city of Pocatello with some help from some eggheads at ISU got excited about the possibility of Poky being a wind energy producer, and erecting the tower was as far as they got. It appears just like the other, 125 to 150' tall, zero freaking markings of any kind. Worst of all right in a pass where aircraft will cross the ridge at. I talked to the Poky city engineer today, and mentioned the liability of the city, a hazard to aerial navigation, and some other buzz phrases, wrapping it up with the mention of the non existence of the now required markings.

Throwing these things up in the first place is one thing, leaving them up long after the perceived need is no more is another, pretty much reckless endangerment for no reason!

I just supplied the city with the applicable regs on the tower markings, along with an offer they they have a local crane service take the tower down. Said local crane service would provide this service to the city AT NO CHARGE Can anyone say "timber"?! My crane wouldn't be involved, just a cut off saw and/or cable cutter. There is a handy steel recycling biz right at the base of the hill, so that sucker would be recycled the same day it is taken down. The local crane service providing this free service would use the (estimated) 50 bucks or so in scrap metal money to defray their fuel, labor costs, and afterword, beer expenses. No need to involve the Idaho Bureau of Aeronautics I suggested, lets just deal with it locally, now..... and at no cost to the city. I await their response, should be interesting.

Way to go CG!

That's an excellent way to handle the situation.

Whee: I was back over that way, and have PM'd you the location of the still standing tower. That sucker really needs to come down as it is inactive.

I am still waiting on the city of Pocatello and ISU to deal with the other one, it hasn't been 30 days yet, but if they still do nothing by then I'll contact the state aero bureau.