Investigation into Fenner wind turbine collapse nearly complete

The past several days have been a wind lover's dream, but the Fenner Wind Farm in Madison County hasn't been able to take advantage of that power since December, when one of the turbines collapsed. Our Katie Gibas tells us what's going on with the wind farm and why the investigation into the cause of the collapse is taking so long.

FENNER, N.Y. -- The winds are gusting and howling in Fenner, but their wind turbines haven't been turning since December.

"It hasn't affected us in money. It sure affected us in pride. We just love the wind farm. We want to see it up and running in a productive manner," said Russell Cary, Fenner Town Supervisor.

The wind farm's owner, Enel North America, decided to shut down the entire farm when one of the turbines collapsed in December. To be extra cautious, the turbines won't be started up until the investigation into the cause is complete. They've been testing the turbine itself, soil conditions and other turbines at the farm.

"Time and resources in terms of staff have been diverted. Obviously there's been a loss of revenue here. No one's really sat down to figure out how much that's been. We've been more focused on trying to find out what happened. But it's been a loss of revenue. It's been a distraction," said Hank Sennott, Enel North America Spokesperson.

The wind farm company's engineers and several other groups have been investigating since turbine 18 fell in December, and they say the process is taking longer than expected because there's no precedent to follow.

"The more the experts and consultants have looked, the more they've decided that they need to look a little further to check one more thing just to be exceedingly cautious," said Sennott.

"The idea that they aren't haphazardly just going in and starting them up and keeping them running, I mean this has been their track history right from the beginning. This has been a learning experience, and they're doing everything they can to make this a positive experience and I see that as a real plus," said Cary.

Representatives say they hope to have the results from their investigation in the next several weeks.