Wind farm expansion opposed in Orangeville

A 50-family coalition of Wyoming County citizens will continue to fight a plan to expand a wind farm in the Town of Orangeville.

State Supreme Court Justice Patrick H. NeMoyer recently gave the green light to the project by Invenergy, the largest independent wind developer in the United States. The company wants to expand its High Sheldon Wind Farm.

Gary A. Abraham, attorney for the Clear Skies Over Orangeville group, said he hopes the five-judge Appellate Division of State Supreme Court will hear the case by late summer. He wants the justices to grant his group’s plea to order the town to re-examine the noise level generated by the project.

NeMoyer heard arguments in Buffalo in March, months after Wyoming County judges recused themselves from the unincorporated association’s court action.

In a 31-page ruling, NeMoyer held that the Town Board properly took “a hard look” at the project’s environmental impact on the township, including “detailed attention” paid to the issue of noise.

He noted a Sept. 23, 2009, change to the town’s zoning law that keeps wind turbines at least 700 feet from the property lines of residents and 1,320 feet from dwellings or public buildings.

The judge also rejected accusations that board members had personal or family land holdings that would be affected by leasing land for the wind farm expansion.

Abraham said the citizens group does not oppose the wind farm’s expansion off Route 20A but is concerned about what he contends is the unacceptably loud noise the town is authorizing for the dozens of turbines planned for the expansion next year.

The attorney said the citizens group hired an acoustics expert, who found that present background sound levels in the area earmarked for the wind farm expansion are currently about 25 decibels. He wants the appellate court to order the Town Board to hire its own acoustics expert to re-examine the noise limit.

Daniel A. Spitzer, the Buffalo attorney representing Invenergy, could not be reached to comment.

Steve Moultrup, a Clear Skies Over Orangeville member, said the expansion should come under closer scrutiny by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the U. S. Fish&Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Those agencies should ensure that the project has accounted for the impact on bald eagles and other birds and whether wetlands and the Attica Reservoir face harm as a result of clear-cutting, blasting and road-building for the project.