CLINTON — As the debate about the planned wind farm for northwest DeWitt County continues, Tom Swierczewski, development director for Tradewind Energy, paid a courtesy visit Tuesday to the city council.  Among the general information Swierczewski offered to council members, he also covered some details about the towers that could be used in the project.

The Alta Farms wind project will involve between 30-50 miles of underground cable.  Most of that cable will be laid using trenches, Swierczewski said.  In some unique cases, in which cable must run under a major highway, pipeline or U.S. Corps of Engineers protected waterway, etc., boring is used.

“In most cases with township roads, we’re going to want to trench,” Swierczewski said.  “Of course, the road commissioner is going to have a say in that.”

Although the industry standard for cable depth is four feet, Swierczewski said his company was transitioning to a depth of five feet.  He said that has worked better in areas that use a large number of drainage tiles.

The project will involve two interconnections.  One will be located at the Ameren substation on Tabor Road, known as the “switching” connection.  The other will be a project “collector” substation.

A maintenance and operations building also will be erected somewhere on the project site.

Swierczewski said he hoped to be able to return to the council eventually and report Tradewind has a deal with Trinity to build the towers for the project.  Trinity Towers builds towers to fit a model of General Electric-manufactured wind turbine.

He said it was too early, however, to be able to report that.