In Tioga County we are awaiting the Court hearing on the appeal of the granting of conditional approval to A.E.S. to construct 128 wind turbines on Armenia Mt. in Tioga and Bradford Counties. The Attorney's briefs are due soon and the court date has not been set yet but will probably be some time in August or September. Susan Smith, our Attorney, feels quite confident we will win this case.
In Lycoming County we have appealed the approval of the Catamount application to the Lycoming County Zoning Hearing Board. The hearing is tentatively set for the end of July. We have also appealed the adoption of the Lycoming County Zoning Amendment which was written to open the doors to wind development in Lycoming Country. No word yet on the date of that hearing. The cases will start out with the Lycoming County Zoning Hearing board and will probably go through 2 or maybe 3 levels of Court and we feel confident that we will win both of these appeals.
By law, these appeals put a halt to all preparations for both projects. Literally thousands of man-hours and over $7000.00 have gone into these two legal fights to date. Although we feel confident on winning all of them the end is still far away.
Other wind developers are closely monitoring the situation in Tioga, Lycoming, Potter and Bradford Counties and if A.E.S. or Catamount wins their legal battle and gets the O.K. to construct their wind facility then the others will also apply and we will have little to use to stop them. Eventually we will be in the terrible situation that Somerset County is in, which are multiple wind facilities under construction and more applications being filed.
If you are in the position to make a contribution to this cause, please do. We would like to, again, thank all of the generous contributors to date. Your generosity has helped fuel this cause up to the present. We are doing all we can financially but without your help we may not be able to keep with this to the end. We cannot allow the wind developers take from us our right to scenic beauty, peace and quiet, unfragmented forests etc.
Please do what you can to help us with our legal fees. It will be money well spent. I know the economy is slow right now and money is tight but if we spread this out between many people the individual per person cost will be much less.All donations will be equally divided between these two causes unless stated differently by the Contributor.
If you would care to contribute please send a check to:
Tioga Preservation Group
111 East Ave.
Wellsboro, Pa.16901
Sincerely,
Frank M. Pioccolella Sr.
Tioga Preservation Group
fieldflowers@epix.net
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