April 24, 2006
Hon. Senator - George H. Winner, Jr.
53rd Senate District
Room 814
Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
Senator Winner,
As a resident, voter and constituent in your 53rd District in New York State, the negative impact from the devastating Cohocton Wind Power Project needs to be brought to your attention. The developer UPC in conjunction with the Town of Cohocton Board and the Cohocton Planning Board (lead agency) has connived an ill-conceived plan that effectively has ignored the legitimate concerns from the local community and surrendering townships in your district.
Governor George Pataki has betrayed Western New York and especially the Finger Lakes Region for downstate interests. It is imperative that Pataki’s budget veto be overridden as it applies to the removal of public money from NYSERDA and putting it into the state budget. Effectively the serious adverse economic impact, public health and safety aspects, civic liability consequences and destruction of an overall quality of life issues are being sacrificed to benefit out of state corporate interests and a small group of short sighted landowners. (who do not live on or adjacent to the proposed lease sites locations)
Cronyism never makes good public policy. When zoning regulations are passed after the fact, arguably illegal in their methods, the only recourse is to appeal to our State Senate and Assembly to intervene. The permitting process is being pushed at lightening speed. The public was never ably notified and the scale and scope of the Cohocton Wind Power Project has been successfully and intentionally concealed from residents. Cohocton has no comprehensive planning enactment in place, much less regional impact protection regulations that consider neighboring townships.
IMMEDIATE action is imperative to slow down the fast track and involve meaningful community input and legitimate concerns. Since the pending article 78 legal actions by Advocates for Prattsburgh has been filed a local ground swell of outrage has grown in the surrounding region. Now is the time for rethinking and conducting an honest, independent and all-inclusive scientific and economic impact review. The current plan written by UPC and their paid consultants has no demonstrable consideration of real public input.
Communities that rely upon tourism like Naples, NY will be devastated. The proposed site locations for eleven of the 400 feet wind towers will be in direct view of the village of Naples. Add to that number the section slated to be erected in the Town of Prattsburgh, most of Canandaigua Lake will have an environmental impact that will diminish destination tourism, including the winery attractions in the entire region.
Property values will dramatically drop and marketability will become non-existent. There is a better way to balance and even tolerate the construction of a wind turbine farm. The UPC proposal is a scheme to rape and pillage our area with no real benefit to local residents, who will be taxed in the future to pay for the flood of litigation, road maintenance and eventual de-commissioning.
Based on the economic model and the verifiable inefficiency of wind turbines (often only 10% with no storage ability) the electric grid may not gain significant capacity from such a design to justify the projects. Add to that the subsidy nature of the underlying financial incentives and the burden of funding is once again placed on the backs of NYS taxpayers.
The Town of Cohocton does not even know what their revenue sharing split with UPC will be at this time, but are hell bent on final approval. Conducting a full State of New York investigation into the entire project is well within your responsibilities as our State Senator. Enclosed is a letter to the editor published in several local newspapers.
At a minimum consider supporting the approach that the Town of Perry has taken for a community-based corporation or authority – with a board of directors elected by residents. Mr. Tom Golisano offers this as a rational alternative to the disaster we all face from firms like UPC and Ecogen and Global Winds.
Please reply with your assessment and commitment to intercede on our behalf, our neighbors and the public at large.
Cordially,
James Hall, Judith Hall and Blair Hall
5029 Moore Road
Cohocton, NY 14826
(585) 534-5581
(585) 534-5489 FAX
email: sartre@frontiernet.net
Mailing address:
PO Box 657
Naples, NY 14512
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