Cohocton road repairs may wait

Bath, N.Y.

Steuben County legislators may be asked Wednesday to postpone a portion of an agreement between the First Wind energy company and the county Public Works Department.

The county board is set to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday instead of the regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, which falls on Memorial Day.

The agreement calls for First Wind to pay $765,293 for repairs to county roads 35 and 121 in the town of Cohocton. The roads were used to transport heavy equipment during the construction of the 50 turbine wind farm in the town of Cohocton last year.

But the recent announcement by Cohocton Town Supervisor Jack Zigenfus that First Wind is using town roads to haul new blades for a number of turbines led Public Works officials to question whether county roads will be used, too.

“We expect they’ll be coming over Route 35,” County Public Works Commissioner Vincent Spagnoletti said. “We very well may wait until they finish this repair before we work on that road.”
He said work on county Route 121 is expected to go forward as scheduled, at an estimated cost of $85,269.

Some repairs to County Route 35 damaged by heavy trucks were made earlier. The estimated cost for the county to make further repairs to that road is $680,024.

No work on the roads will be done until the county receives advance payment from First Wind.

Payment for the repairs is guaranteed through a letter of credit from the German-based HSH Nordbank, located in Manhattan.