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Plans for the West Butte Wind Project won federal approval last week, bringing Central Oregon closer to its first commercial-scale wind farm. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the 104-megawatt wind turbine facility along with three other renewable energy projects in California.

The Interior touts the facilities as evidence of the success of its 鈥渟mart from the start鈥� approach, meant to expedite the paperwork for renewable energy development on public lands.

The West Butte project has been in the works for about two and a half years. The Bureau of Land Management had to conduct extra environmental analyses because the farm鈥檚 access road cut through 4.5 miles of BLM land.

Studying the effects of turbine construction and the potential noise disturbances made the approval process take longer than usual, said Steve Robertson, associate district manager of BLM鈥檚 Prineville Office.

The facility will bring as many as to 52 turbines to private land in Deschutes and Crook counties and includes an access road and transmission line that crosses about 4.5 miles of BLM property.

BLM is requiring the developer, West Butte Wind Power LLC, to mitigate 9,000 acres of sage grouse habitat by restoring a similar amount and type of habitat on BLM lands. West Butte Wind will also pay about $1.1 million to BLM for improvements to sage grouse habitat, and $300,000 to Crook County for conservation easements on private lands with an emphasis on sage grouse.

After the turbines are up and spinning, a monitoring plan will require routine carcass counting to ensure the project is not harming migrating wildlife like birds and bats.