Wind-energy firm takes town of Italy to court

Angered by a Town Board vote in Italy, Yates County, to kill a turbine proposal, a wind-energy company is asking a judge to override the elected board members and allow the project to go forward.

Ecogen Wind LLC, which had been seeking permission from the town government to erect 17 415-foot-tall wind turbines in hilly Italy, claimed in its court papers filed Wednesday afternoon that town leaders dodged and delayed a decision on the proposal since 2002.

When board members finally did vote 5-to-0 in early October to deny Ecogen the approvals it needed, the company argues in legal papers, that action was illegal and based on reasons that Ecogen lawyers said were “demonstrably false and/or pretextural.”

The legal action will ask a state Supreme Court judge to reverse the Town Board action and grant Ecogen the permit it needs to proceed, or to order the Town Board to issue the permit.

Ecogen, based in suburban Buffalo, and partner Pattern Energy of San Francisco have planned to build another 16 turbines in adjoining areas of Prattsburgh, Steuben County. The two-county wind farm would have the capacity to generate up to about 76 megawatts of electricity.

Because the Italy Town Board also declared a moratorium on any wind-related construction, the unbuilt Prattsburgh turbines also are effectively blocked because they would connect to the transmission grid through an electrical substation in to be built in Italy.

Italy Town Supervisor Margaret Dunn could not immediately be reached for comment this afternoon, and town attorney Edward Brockman declined to comment because he had not seen the legal papers.

Ironically, Dunn and two Town Board members who voted to deny the permit to Ecogen were ousted from office in voting Tuesday in favor of stridently anti-turbine candidates.

Brad Jones, the supervisor-elect, said he could not comment on the lawsuit because he had not seen the court papers. But he voted that the Town Board would “continue to represent the expressed desires in the town, which is to resist industrialization.”