Lackawanna School Board OKs windmill plan

Six new windmills may be on the horizon for the old Bethlehem Steel site.

The Lackawanna Board of Education last week approved a payment-in- lieu-of-tax agreement that would pay the school district more than a half million dollars over 15 years for two new windmills the company behind the project plans to erect in Lackawanna.

The company, First Wind, in January acknowledged its plans to add two more windmills in Lackawanna and four on the Hamburg side of the Bethlehem site.

While the project is tax exempt, the company would pay the Lackawanna School District a total of $525,000 over 15 years, or $35,000 a year, according to the agreement the School Board approved unanimously.

A phone call to First Wind was not returned.

Lackawanna Mayor Norman L. Polanski said the School Board’s approval is good news for the project.

“I’m very excited, because I want to see these windmills going in and that was the tie-up,” Polanski said of the School Board’s contract.

First Wind offered the city 15-year PILOT payments of $451,000 for the two new windmills, the mayor said. The county would receive about $288,000, he said.

The school district, however, originally was seeking more than the company was offering, Polanski said.

“To be honest with you, [the company] said the schools were being ridiculous,” the mayor said. “The schools were demanding $1.6 million total — for the two windmills. That’s just not going to happen. It would kill the project.”

Now, with the school district on board, the mayor hopes the city also will be signing a PILOT agreement soon.

“Basically, I told [company officials] the last time we met in my office, I didn’t care if the schools got a little more than the city,” the mayor said. “I just wanted this thing to move.”

The new towers will be about 240 feet tall, and with the blades, the windmills will be about 400 feet tall — the same as the eight turbines currently along the Lackawanna shoreline. The city receives $100,000 a year in payments for the eight windmills currently operating, Polanski said.

As for the four new windmills on the Hamburg side, the town and Frontier Central School District will split most of the payments received for those turbines.

Hamburg Supervisor Steven J. Walters has said First Wind has agreed to payment in lieu taxes of $10,000 for each megawatt generated by the four turbines.