By Wiley Wood

The noise of heavy equipment near Flagg Hill is constant. The access road has been widened, a three-phase power line installed, and a tall yellow crane pokes up above the treetops. Turbine parts have been trucked through Norfolk to a staging site in East Canaan, including giant rotor blades.

The Flagg Hill site is being readied for the construction of two 500-foot wind turbines. The turbines are expected to be in place by the end of August and in operation by the end of the calendar year, according to First Selectman Tom McKeon of Colebrook.

The road leading up to the BNE Energy site, a former farm, is heavily trafficked, emphatically marked as private and guarded, according to McKeon, by a watchman during the day. It leads to a high ground in Colebrook’s lower left corner, south of Route 44, near where the Norfolk, Colebrook and Winchester lines meet.

A large crane loomed above the treetops at the entrance to the BNE Energy property.

The turbine’s hub will stand as high as 328 feet off the ground and the radius of its rotor blades could be up to 164 feet. “BNE Energy has got to get a permit from the [Department of Energy] to truck the parts in,” said McKeon, “and DOT will also give them a route.” As Colebrook’s first selectman, McKeon receives notification when the parts are on the move.

BNE Energy filed its Flagg Hill petition with the Connecticut Siting Council in 2010, and the council approved the site for three turbines in 2011. The petition was in the first wave of siting requests for wind turbines in Connecticut.

In 2014, the council developed a set of regulations that would henceforward govern wind turbines in Connecticut. The Flagg Hill turbine site falls short of the setback requirements established by the new regulations but is exempt from them.

As formulated in 2014, a turbine must be located at a distance at least 2.5 times the height of the tower from the nearest property line. Two of the Flagg Hill turbine sites are closer to the nearest property line than the approved height of the tower (328 feet), and the third is within 1.5 times the tower height.

Prominently cited in the council’s decision to grant the permit was Colebrook’s low population density and a State of Connecticut directive to develop more renewable energy.

The photo at top was taken on August 5, looking northwest from Dennis Hill, by Norfolk Now staff photographer Bruce Frisch.