Wait on Wind

Reunion power wants to put a wind farm in Fulton, and if it does, the farm would be Reunion’s very first. We’re not comfortable with Fulton being a guinea pig for a company looking to make a profit.

Reunion’s approach to Fulton is more than a little curious. Stephen Eisenberg, the company’s marketing director, attended a town board meeting last week supposedly to get feedback from reisdents. The problem was that there was little to give feedback about because Reunion has yet to actually propose a project. So last Monday’s meeting turned into a question session, with the audience prying information out of Mr. Eisenberg. Although he said the project is in the “very early stages”, Mr. Eisenberg added that plans call for 25 to 30 wind turbines, 400 feet high with 250 foot blades, in Fulton and Richmondville. Left unanswered at the meeting were questions about how much Reunion would pay Fulton, how the turbines would affect property values and Reunion’s experience in this field.

Though all of those questions cry for answers, it’s the last one that most concerns us. Reunion, according to Mr. Eisenberg, manages two wind farms in the midwest but has never built one. Managing and building are entirely different tasks. It’s unlikely for instance, that you’d ask a supermarket manager to built a supermarket. Reunion is coming into the Fulton project with a track record of zero and absolutely no resume to show. This hardly inspires confidence.

And so far, Reunion has done little to enhance its image. Information is incomplete and at best, difficult to come by. Mr. Eisenberg wants feedback without having proposed anything yet. He said he doesn’t know how wind farms have affected property values. C’mon, how hard is that to find out? What about payments to towns? What do residents get out of this? In the process of planning a wind farm that likely costs millions, Reunion surely has the answers to these simple - and very obvious - questions. We’d advise Reunion to be up front and honest; playing hard to get implies the opposite.

Reunion wants Fulton and Richmondville to get a wind-farm law in place, and fast. Local officials should hold off. This company has little to show and little to say, and such behavior sets off alarms.