Workers build pieces of FPL's new solar plant near Indiantown.

These frames will eventually hold mirrors to collect the sun's energy.

With the first mirrors set to arrive this week, that promise is starting to take shape.

“We want to harness all that free energy,” said John Gnecco, FPL’s director of project development.

The idea of solar-thermal energy sounds easy enough, and it is. Kind of.

In the most basic terms, the process works like this: The sun’s light strikes a mirror and is beamed into a pipe, which “catches” the energy and moves it, via molten liquid, into a power plant where it boils water into steam. The steam is used for power.

Jose Suarez, a spokesman for FPL, explains it this way: “When the sun comes up every day, you’re able to take your foot off the gas and let the sun generate steam.”

What seems simple on paper, though, is far more complex on the ground. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — Beyond the taqueria and past the cattle ranches here, more than 700 workers are busy building the largest solar-power plant in Florida.

They’re assembling giant aluminum frames that stretch 40 feet long and weigh 2,800 pounds apiece.

When the frames are finished, they will fit them with 192,000 mirrors.

And, eventually, they will attach steel pipes to hold liquid that the sun will heat to 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

To see the scene at Florida Power & Light Co.’s solar-thermal plant in western Martin County is to think that a new era of clean energy has finally dawned in the Sunshine State.

But not so fast.

Despite lots of talk about the need to be green, state lawmakers dragged their feet on proposed legislation this year. They never managed to pass a renewable-energy bill.

FPL says it has more solar projects ready to go — but it can’t build them until the state approves a law allowing it to recover the costs of construction. (more…)

Land doesn’t get cheaper than this.

Two years ago, Martin County commissioners approved plans for a 139-acre industrial park in Indiantown under rules that allow for quick development.

Now, Venture Park is still empty — and a developer is offering 2.6 acres for free in a bid to jump-start the local economy.

The parcel has a value of about $679,000, or about $6 per square foot. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — For years, the owners of J&R Outfitters ran a hunting lodge featuring exotic game such as Asian water buffalo, Nilgai antelope and Pere David deer thinking they had all the required Martin County permits.

But several code violations were discovered at J&R Outfitters last fall after the opening of a shooting range that outraged nearby homeowners with incessant gunfire.

Now Bill Richey and Joe O’Bannon are aiming to keep their hunting lodge open by jumping through all the regulatory hoops that apply to their business at 7600 S.W. Fox Brown Road.

“We never dreamed that what we were doing was illegal and we never tried to get away with anything,” said Richey, a former state prosecutor. “We have been no secret in Martin County. We have been here for 20 years.” (more…)

Charges that a Buffalo Bills player exposed himself outside a woman’s home in Port St. Lucie have been dismissed, authorities said today.

Corey McIntyre, 30, who played football at South Fork High School in Stuart and lives in Indiantown, was arrested on a warrant charging him with indecent exposure related to a March 20 incident in which a woman said she saw him performing a sex act on himself.

The State Attorney’s office dismissed the charge because the woman who reported the incident now says she didn’t see the man exposing himself and couldn’t give other details, said Officer Tom Nichols, a spokesman for the Port St. Lucie Police Department. (more…)

Detectives with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Unit in partnership with the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco conducted an undercover operation on Thursday, when they checked 17 convenience stores throughout Martin County to see if they sold alcohol to minors.

One-hundred percent compliance was reported on that date. No sales were made to the concerned citizen volunteer that worked with detectives.

This operation was the second conducted in the past thirty days. Two arrests were previously made on May 7, 2009. These operations continue year-round.

INDIANTOWN — A 14-year-old boy is accused of animal cruelty after his dog was dragged by a vehicle the boy had left him tied to, sheriff’s deputies say.

An officer with the Martin County Sheriff’s animal control unit spotted the injured dog Sunday morning by Mac’s Grocery in the Booker Park area.

A sheriff’s deputy recalled seeing the dog, uninjured, the day before, tied to a vehicle parked outside the teen’s home.

After interviewing the boy and his parents, the deputy learned the boy had left the dog tethered to the vehicle.

Later that day, the teen’s father gave a family member permission to borrow the vehicle and the relative drove away without realizing the dog had been tied to the vehicle. Several relatives use the same vehicle, the family said.

The dog was dragged nearly 530 yards before it was able to break free, deputies estimated.
(more…)

The odds are better than picking all six Powerball numbers — but still pretty slim.

Of the 8,000 or so job-hunters that flooded tiny Indiantown last month with hopes of landing work building a solar-power plant, about 50 to 100 could get offers in July.

That’s when Lauren Engineers & Constructors — the contractor overseeing construction of Florida Power & Light Co.’s solar-thermal plant — expects to need the first batch of employees, mostly concrete helpers and finishers. (more…)

INDIANTOWN - Three new fires have been reported in western Martin County where between 2,000 acres and 3,000 acres have burned since Sunday.

The three new fires - making it a total of 16 fires - were small and two were quickly extinguished, said Melissa Yunas, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Forestry.

No homes are being threatened, Yunas said. One of the fires destroyed two homes in Indiantown and damaged several others, she said.

Three children, ages 7, 8 and 10, were arrested earlier this week for allegedly setting at least one of the larger fires near Indiantown. The children were charged with a third-degree felony and released to their parents.

INDIANTOWN — If ranchers had been permitted three years ago to conduct a controlled burn on lands involved in the fires that began around this rural community Sunday, there might have been less damage for Indianwood residents, a rancher said after the big fire.

But some Indianwood residents opposed the controlled burn. That figured in the decision not to conduct the burn, along with the large amount of trees blown down by the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes.

Terry Wilkes leases land owned by the Post family for his cattle to the east of the golf course community, and normally burned off range and scrub lands every two to three years. The Post family are long-time managers and owners of the Indiantown Company, which provides many municipal type services in the unincorporated area. (more…)