Governor Spitzer May 19, 2007 Letter from James Fitzgibbons

James Fitzgibbons
3075 East Valley Rd
Branchport, NY 14418
May 19, 2007

Governor Elliot Spitzer
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Spitzer;

I am writing to you to express my opposition to the siting of land based commercial Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) and Wind Farms in the Finger Lakes region of New York State and to call for action on the part of New York State’s government that will put a halt to such.

I have served as a member of our town’s planning board sub-committee on Wind Farm Siting (Town of Jerusalem ,Yates County). I stepped down from the committee in March of 2007 to better voice my opposition to this initiative.

From my experience with the sub-committee and much research on the siting of commercial wind farms in Jerusalem, I have changed my position on the issue from one of unbiased toward the concept to that of being strongly opposed to the siting of commercial wind farms (much-less an individual commercial-scale WTG) in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Besides the visual insult that these extremely large constructions would place on our township, I am highly skeptical of the justifications for these industrial scale electrical power generation facilities as presented by the wind farm developers.

I truly believe that the current practices of leaving the decisions for siting up to local (town) government is wrong. To pit local planning board members (part-time volunteers) and rural residents against the forces of large corporations is improper. A population of well-intended, environmentally concerned citizens and opportunistic local landowners must be seen as easy pickings by the corporate snake-oil salesmen of the wind farm developers.

I would like for the State of New York to take whatever steps are necessary to not only put a halt to the establishment of any commercial wind power generation facility in the Finger Lakes region of New York, but to protect the rest of our beautiful state from this highly inappropriate initiative of allowing such unchecked industrialization. This sense of inappropriateness is amplified when one considers that the Finger Lakes region is marginal at best in wind energy capacity and that significant questions remain unanswered regarding the viability of commercial wind farms without tax breaks and subsidies.

I am also requesting that the state government become more strongly involved in regulating wind farm siting to afford “best “practice” for the protection of New York’s citizens and environment.

Sincerely,

James Fitzgibbons