Tower Section Being Used in Construction of Lighthouse Overlooking Summersville Lake

Back then, Dad never called it recycling, he just seemed to have the knack for finding a useful "second life" for things. His thoughts were simply not to be wasteful and to be a good steward of the land, and it would come back to you. Maybe because of that, we have always been aware of the environment around us as we grew our business . . . (kinda hard to ignore when your business is the outdoors). From Adopt-A-Highway Programs and shoreline cleanups to finding a new home for retired playground equipment, we plan our projects and activities around leaving a smaller footprint and lessening our impact on local landfills.

When we learned of a mishap at the Beech Ridge Wind Farm in Greenbrier County that rendered a tower section unsuitable for wind production, we put our heads together to come up with an alternative use for it. Through the combined efforts of the folks at Beech Ridge, Invenergy LLC, Engineering & Testing 2000 Inc., White Construction and Summersville Lake Retreat, we are excited to announce the groundbreaking of a 100 foot tall Lighthouse overlooking the cliffs of Summersville Lake.

With an anticipated completion date of Spring 2013, the unique location and classic architectural design of this landmark project will provide spectacular views of West Virginia's largest lake and surrounding mountain region, while at the same time re-using over 71,000 lbs. of structural steel otherwise slated for the ovens to be re-forged. "This has to be the most innovative second use of a tower section that I have ever seen," stated Geoff Kerr, Construction Manager for Invenergy LLC. "In fact, in all of the energy projects that I have been involved with worldwide, this is, to my knowledge, the first time that anyone has ever utilized a wind tower in a recycling project."

While I'm not so sure that recycling a wind tower may be what Dad had in mind all those years ago . . . something tells me that he's going to like the idea.