Benton County is preparing to expand its harvest from corn, soybeans and other Hoosier staples to include another essential crop: energy.

By May, California-based Orion Energy Group plans to begin selling electricity yielded from the Benton Wind Farm, now under construction.

The project already seems to be making money for those involved.

About 100 landowners are earning between $5,000 and $10,000 annually for agreeing to lease their land to Orion.

Orion has sold as many as 100 megawatts of the energy produced at the farms to Duke Energy, one of the nation's largest energy companies. The Benton Wind Farm is expected to generate about 130 megawatts of electricity.

Benton County, which granted Orion tax abatements, in return will get $1 million over four years.

Construction jobs have already been created to erect the turbines, and when the towers are complete, as many as 12 full-time employees will work there.

Who's losing on this one?

The county's aesthetics could suffer, although Orion scaled back original plans to build 135 turbine towers to 87.

And it's hard to forget that the turbines produce clean energy -- something our nation needs to produce more of.

Turbines can be death traps to wild birds. Thousands are sliced up by them annually. But environmentalists can't agree on how best to reduce bird kill. It's obviously an issue that requires further study.

Another California-based company, enXcoof has announced plans to construct a wind farm in Benton County, and Tippecanoe County officials have said some companies have expressed interest in a similar venture there.

Each project must be evaluated on its own merits. Though the search for alternative energy sources should be a priority, let's make sure the projects approved locally make sense for us all.