HAMMOND - The Hammond Town Board voted 3-1 during Monday evening's meeting to extend the moratorium on a law regulating wind turbine development for one year.
The current moratorium, according to Supervisor Ron W. Bertram, expires on July 27.
Wind committee facilitator, David B. Duff, told the town board that nine of the 10 committee members said they were in favor of extending the moratorium.
Mr. Bertram said extending the moratorium would give the wind committee ample time to complete its review of the current law.
"I believe we really need to look at extending the moratorium," he said.
"Without a question, what we need to do is extend the moratorium for another year," he said, adding that the town board can rescind the moratorium if the wind committee completes its review before the full year's time.
The supervisor also noted that Iberdrola has indicated that any project would not be started until 2012.
"Which would leave us well within their time frame," he said of the one-year moratorium extension.
Board member James Pitcher recused himself from the wind power discussion because of a conflict of interest he has from signing a lease with Iberdrola to locate wind turbines on his property.
"Both sides need to be heard," said Dr. James R. Tague, who said he felt prior speakers for the wind committee were mostly pro-wind. "I'm in favor of extending the moratorium, but I haven't given time frame much thought."
Douglas E. Delosh agreed, saying he believed the wind committee was beginning to get comfortable with one another and that progress was being made.
"I'm in favor of the one-year extension. There is a lot of work left to be done," he said.
James Langtry, the sole councilor voting no on the moratorium, expressed his frustration.
"You're way out in left field on this," he told Mr. Bertram. "The committee is dragging its feet already. They've had six months to work on it and haven't done two months of work.
"Let's get it over and done with," he said. "We can't sit around forever."
The town board voted 3-1 to extend the moratorium for another year.
Mr. Bertram asked the wind committee to have its work done by December, allowing time for the town board to review the wind law document and for any public hearings that would need to be held.
A special town board meeting has been called for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the town hall to give special counsel Joseph Russell time to write up the moratorium ordinance, according to Mr. Bertram.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Environmental concerns ignored in Orangeville
Many residents of Orangeville are concerned for the future of their properties. The article written by Matt Gryta (“Wind farm expansion opposed in Orangeville,” The Buffalo News, June 1) does not however comment on the concerns our residents have for their homes and families. It is well documented in other wind turbine farms, such as Cohocton, that the land and environment suffer hazard brought by turbine construction in a community. Turbines are significantly detrimental to the avian wildlife in our area. It is documented in the Noble Bliss Survey.
The lead agency in Orangeville is the Town Board. In defense of the environment in Orangeville, the Clear Skies Over Orangeville Environmental Committee met with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Both agencies responded to Susan May, Orangeville town supervisor. The DEC commented in a 16-page document and the USFWS responded in an eight-page document. The document from DEC stated that the lead agency can be the Town Board, however they must recognize that they are responsible to the comments of the DEC and USFWS as the permitting agencies. The Orangeville Town Board, although an elected body of representatives of the citizens of Orangeville, has not listened to its residents and continues to be disingenuous to the DEC and USFWS.
One of comments raised by the USFWS is that, “Three major watersheds are found in the project area including the Tonawanda Creek, Stony Creek, and East Koy Creek. Several streams protected by New York State Article 15 regulations are found in the project area. However the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) does not adequately describe these resources.” This response came after citizens met with the USFWS. It is not the lead agency of the town of Orangeville that is investigating, it is the residents themselves. The Environmental Committee has done an amazing study of the project area and they continue to inform the DEC and the USFWS of inadequacies, missing information and lack of sufficient detail to the proposed DEIS.
Our bald eagles, raptors and avian population are significantly at risk. The 14,500-acre proposed wind turbine site is a unique and valuable environmental resource for these birds. Turbines are significantly detrimental to the wildlife in our area. It is documented in the Noble Bliss Survey. Our bat population is seriously endangered. Building wind turbines will cause a horrific death to them. It is documented and recorded in the U.S. Geological Survey.
“‘Beware: exploding lungs’ is not a sign one would expect to see at a wind farm. But a new study suggests this is the main reason bats die in large numbers around wind turbines. The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. In fact, several studies have suggested the risk to bats is greater. In May 2007, the U.S. National Research Council published the results of a survey of U.S. wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60 percent of winged animals killed. Migrating birds, meanwhile, appear to steer clear of the turbines.” (“New Scientist,” Aug. 26, 2008)
Another question involving the lease agreements needs to be examined. The residents who signed leases with the turbine company need to be aware that this company also has projects for gas and oil. The residents who signed turbine leases, not only will pay taxes for a business and property improvement, but they just might have given away valuable mineral rights. This company could possibly drill for gas and oil and take all the profit. In the “U.S. News and World Report,” April 2010, it stated, “Before he walked away, Pickens was advocating the ‘Pickens plan,’ a broad strategy to promote wind for electricity and natural gas for fuel. The contents of the plan might have been questionable, but it was still a plan.”
The question is, will the turbine companies use these leases, not for wind, but for gas and oil drilling? Will the landowners then see no profit and the town take a huge loss? The landowners are also held liable if these turbines should injure any human life. The question again is, how liable is the wind company?
We have a valuable resource in Wyoming County. It is unlike any other. To play the game of chance and ignore the balance of nature would be so serious it could cost the lives of the wildlife and human health. If we should lose our water source, which is highly possible, it could ruin this community forever. Once our environment is damaged and further destroyed by a proven highly inefficient energy source (wind turbines) we will never see the natural beauty of Orangeville again. All the mitigation you can think of will not restore the natural beauty that is in Wyoming County. The BP oil spill should be a warning to us all. We are tampering with an important source, our water. Do not assist this destruction. It has serious consequences. Is big industrial corporate greed worth our environment?
Lynn Lomanto lives in Orangeville. She is a member of the Clear Skies Environmental Naturalist Committee, which is a part of Clear Skies Over Orangeville.
The lead agency in Orangeville is the Town Board. In defense of the environment in Orangeville, the Clear Skies Over Orangeville Environmental Committee met with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Both agencies responded to Susan May, Orangeville town supervisor. The DEC commented in a 16-page document and the USFWS responded in an eight-page document. The document from DEC stated that the lead agency can be the Town Board, however they must recognize that they are responsible to the comments of the DEC and USFWS as the permitting agencies. The Orangeville Town Board, although an elected body of representatives of the citizens of Orangeville, has not listened to its residents and continues to be disingenuous to the DEC and USFWS.
One of comments raised by the USFWS is that, “Three major watersheds are found in the project area including the Tonawanda Creek, Stony Creek, and East Koy Creek. Several streams protected by New York State Article 15 regulations are found in the project area. However the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) does not adequately describe these resources.” This response came after citizens met with the USFWS. It is not the lead agency of the town of Orangeville that is investigating, it is the residents themselves. The Environmental Committee has done an amazing study of the project area and they continue to inform the DEC and the USFWS of inadequacies, missing information and lack of sufficient detail to the proposed DEIS.
Our bald eagles, raptors and avian population are significantly at risk. The 14,500-acre proposed wind turbine site is a unique and valuable environmental resource for these birds. Turbines are significantly detrimental to the wildlife in our area. It is documented in the Noble Bliss Survey. Our bat population is seriously endangered. Building wind turbines will cause a horrific death to them. It is documented and recorded in the U.S. Geological Survey.
“‘Beware: exploding lungs’ is not a sign one would expect to see at a wind farm. But a new study suggests this is the main reason bats die in large numbers around wind turbines. The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. In fact, several studies have suggested the risk to bats is greater. In May 2007, the U.S. National Research Council published the results of a survey of U.S. wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60 percent of winged animals killed. Migrating birds, meanwhile, appear to steer clear of the turbines.” (“New Scientist,” Aug. 26, 2008)
Another question involving the lease agreements needs to be examined. The residents who signed leases with the turbine company need to be aware that this company also has projects for gas and oil. The residents who signed turbine leases, not only will pay taxes for a business and property improvement, but they just might have given away valuable mineral rights. This company could possibly drill for gas and oil and take all the profit. In the “U.S. News and World Report,” April 2010, it stated, “Before he walked away, Pickens was advocating the ‘Pickens plan,’ a broad strategy to promote wind for electricity and natural gas for fuel. The contents of the plan might have been questionable, but it was still a plan.”
The question is, will the turbine companies use these leases, not for wind, but for gas and oil drilling? Will the landowners then see no profit and the town take a huge loss? The landowners are also held liable if these turbines should injure any human life. The question again is, how liable is the wind company?
We have a valuable resource in Wyoming County. It is unlike any other. To play the game of chance and ignore the balance of nature would be so serious it could cost the lives of the wildlife and human health. If we should lose our water source, which is highly possible, it could ruin this community forever. Once our environment is damaged and further destroyed by a proven highly inefficient energy source (wind turbines) we will never see the natural beauty of Orangeville again. All the mitigation you can think of will not restore the natural beauty that is in Wyoming County. The BP oil spill should be a warning to us all. We are tampering with an important source, our water. Do not assist this destruction. It has serious consequences. Is big industrial corporate greed worth our environment?
Lynn Lomanto lives in Orangeville. She is a member of the Clear Skies Environmental Naturalist Committee, which is a part of Clear Skies Over Orangeville.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
First Wind - REPORT AND CONSENT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
The Board of Directors and Members
First Wind Holdings, LLC:
The audit referred to in our report dated July 29, 2008, except for the first paragraph under the caption "Significant New Accounting Policies" in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements relating to the retrospective change in accounting for noncontrolling interests which is as of December 22, 2009, included the related financial statement schedule for the year ended December 31, 2007, included in the registration statement. This financial statement schedule is the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on this financial statement schedule based on our audit. In our opinion, such financial statement schedule, when considered in relation to the basic consolidated financial statements taken as a whole, presents fairly in all material respects the information set forth therein.
Our audit report on the 2007 consolidated financial statements of First Wind Holdings, LLC and subsidiaries referred to above contains an explanatory paragraph that states that the Company has suffered recurring losses from operations and negative operating cash flows, has an accumulated deficit amounting to $116.4 million as of December 31, 2007, and does not have sufficient resources available to meet its funding needs through January 1, 2009. Those conditions raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. The consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2007, and the related financial statement schedule included in the registration statement do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.
We consent to the use of our report dated July 29, 2008, except for the first paragraph under the caption "Significant New Accounting Policies" in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements relating to the retrospective change in accounting for noncontrolling interests which is as of December 22, 2009, with respect to the consolidated statements of operations, members capital (deficit) and cash flows of First Wind Holdings, LLC and subsidiaries for the year ended December 31, 2007, and our report set forth above on the related financial statement schedule, and to the reference to our firm under the heading "Experts" in the prospectus. Our report on the 2007 consolidated financial statements refers to a change in the accounting for noncontrolling interests.
/s/ KPMG LLP
Boston, Massachusetts
March 26, 2010
First Wind Holdings, LLC:
The audit referred to in our report dated July 29, 2008, except for the first paragraph under the caption "Significant New Accounting Policies" in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements relating to the retrospective change in accounting for noncontrolling interests which is as of December 22, 2009, included the related financial statement schedule for the year ended December 31, 2007, included in the registration statement. This financial statement schedule is the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on this financial statement schedule based on our audit. In our opinion, such financial statement schedule, when considered in relation to the basic consolidated financial statements taken as a whole, presents fairly in all material respects the information set forth therein.
Our audit report on the 2007 consolidated financial statements of First Wind Holdings, LLC and subsidiaries referred to above contains an explanatory paragraph that states that the Company has suffered recurring losses from operations and negative operating cash flows, has an accumulated deficit amounting to $116.4 million as of December 31, 2007, and does not have sufficient resources available to meet its funding needs through January 1, 2009. Those conditions raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. The consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2007, and the related financial statement schedule included in the registration statement do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.
We consent to the use of our report dated July 29, 2008, except for the first paragraph under the caption "Significant New Accounting Policies" in Note 3 to the consolidated financial statements relating to the retrospective change in accounting for noncontrolling interests which is as of December 22, 2009, with respect to the consolidated statements of operations, members capital (deficit) and cash flows of First Wind Holdings, LLC and subsidiaries for the year ended December 31, 2007, and our report set forth above on the related financial statement schedule, and to the reference to our firm under the heading "Experts" in the prospectus. Our report on the 2007 consolidated financial statements refers to a change in the accounting for noncontrolling interests.
/s/ KPMG LLP
Boston, Massachusetts
March 26, 2010
Lake windmill project spurs debate among lawmakers
LOCKPORT — Three months ago, the Niagara County Legislature unanimously demanded fair consideration from the New York Power Authority for a Great Lakes wind power project.
The action was triggered after a Power Authority trustee stated that he looked forward to seeing windmills in Lake Erie. His failure to mention Lake Ontario was explained as an oversight.
But now that the Power Authority has received five proposals from developers willing to build the 166 windmills off the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario or both, some county lawmakers from lakeshore districts are saying, not so fast.
“I support the resolution we set up supporting the project, but we need to pay attention to the environmentals,” said Legislator John Syracuse, R-Newfane. “We’ve got a sensitive resource there.”
“I think you’ll see strong, vocal opposition, not only from the recreational boaters but from the fishing interests as well,” said Legislator Clyde L. Burmaster, RRansomville.
Burmaster said he’s already received negative feedback about the possibility of the $1 billion project coming to Lake Ontario.
Among the critics, he said, were members of the Youngstown Yacht Club.
Burmaster said he’s also heard concerns from Robert Emerson, executive director of Old Fort Niagara. A set of windmills in the lake could spoil the historic vista at the fort.
Burmaster said it’s not just the notion of windmills in the lake that concerns him.
“Somehow you have to get that power inland from the shore to the grid,” he said. That means power line construction.
And there’s the question of the impact on Lake Ontario’s sport fishery. Burmaster worried that vibrations from windmills might scare fish away.
The Chautauqua County Legislature has passed a resolution opposing windmills in Lake Erie, and some members of the Erie County Legislature said last week that they wanted to follow suit.
Along eastern Lake Ontario, resolutions opposing the projects have been passed in Jefferson and Oswego counties.
Syracuse said he has his doubts that the Power Authority really would turn to Lake Ontario.
“We may be hard-pressed to get them anyway because of the depth of Lake Ontario,” he said. A deeper lake would mean higher construction costs to anchor the wind turbines on the lake bottom.
Town of Somerset Supervisor Richard J. Meyers, whose town is planning to take advantage of wind power for its own operations, wasn’t as negative toward the project as the county lawmakers.
“We would support [windmills] as long as we got enough information about what was going out there and the environmental and visual impact,” Meyers said. “To put any restriction on finding knowledge about them is premature.”
Somerset recently received a $150,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to pay for two wind turbines.
Meyers said they are to be installed in September on the grounds of the town’s wastewater treatment plant, and the electricity the turbines generate will power that plant.
The action was triggered after a Power Authority trustee stated that he looked forward to seeing windmills in Lake Erie. His failure to mention Lake Ontario was explained as an oversight.
But now that the Power Authority has received five proposals from developers willing to build the 166 windmills off the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario or both, some county lawmakers from lakeshore districts are saying, not so fast.
“I support the resolution we set up supporting the project, but we need to pay attention to the environmentals,” said Legislator John Syracuse, R-Newfane. “We’ve got a sensitive resource there.”
“I think you’ll see strong, vocal opposition, not only from the recreational boaters but from the fishing interests as well,” said Legislator Clyde L. Burmaster, RRansomville.
Burmaster said he’s already received negative feedback about the possibility of the $1 billion project coming to Lake Ontario.
Among the critics, he said, were members of the Youngstown Yacht Club.
Burmaster said he’s also heard concerns from Robert Emerson, executive director of Old Fort Niagara. A set of windmills in the lake could spoil the historic vista at the fort.
Burmaster said it’s not just the notion of windmills in the lake that concerns him.
“Somehow you have to get that power inland from the shore to the grid,” he said. That means power line construction.
And there’s the question of the impact on Lake Ontario’s sport fishery. Burmaster worried that vibrations from windmills might scare fish away.
The Chautauqua County Legislature has passed a resolution opposing windmills in Lake Erie, and some members of the Erie County Legislature said last week that they wanted to follow suit.
Along eastern Lake Ontario, resolutions opposing the projects have been passed in Jefferson and Oswego counties.
Syracuse said he has his doubts that the Power Authority really would turn to Lake Ontario.
“We may be hard-pressed to get them anyway because of the depth of Lake Ontario,” he said. A deeper lake would mean higher construction costs to anchor the wind turbines on the lake bottom.
Town of Somerset Supervisor Richard J. Meyers, whose town is planning to take advantage of wind power for its own operations, wasn’t as negative toward the project as the county lawmakers.
“We would support [windmills] as long as we got enough information about what was going out there and the environmental and visual impact,” Meyers said. “To put any restriction on finding knowledge about them is premature.”
Somerset recently received a $150,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to pay for two wind turbines.
Meyers said they are to be installed in September on the grounds of the town’s wastewater treatment plant, and the electricity the turbines generate will power that plant.
No future in industrial wind
Due to the recession, conservation and efficiency, and peo ple using less to save money, there is lower demand and an oversupply of electrical generation.
In March, Green Mountain Power, Central Vermont Public Service Corp and Hydro Quebec announced agreement on new 26-year contracts to provide Vermont with clean renewable hydroelectric power.
Trans Canada is asking for a reappraisal of the hydro dams they own on the Connecticut River. Cleve Kapala of Trans Canada said, "I mean the plants are obviously worth less today than they were prerecession and preoversupply of electricity." In spite of the oversupply and low price of electricity Trans Canada has applied to expand their industrial wind plant on Kibby Mountain in Maine.
Even without Vermont Yankee there is a glut of power in the New England market. The price of natural gas and wholesale price of electricity are lower than they've been in years and are predicted to remain low for the foreseeable future. So why do we need to destroy Vermont's mountains with inefficient, unreliable industrial scale wind turbines? The obvious answers are: To attempt to fulfill arbitrary renewable energy use mandates, unachievable without reclassifying hydro as renewable. And to allow First Wind, Iberdrola, Gaz Metro (GMP), Enel, and other wind developers and their investors to collect subsidies, tax credits, double accelerated depreciation, renewable energy certifi- cates, and now direct grants, paid with our and our grandchildren's tax dollars. This is what industrial wind "development" is really all about. Without these mandates and incentives, which we can ill afford, no one would consider building these useless monuments to gullibility and greed.
No matter how much or how little generation we have, industrial scale wind turbines will never make a difference. They are unpredictably intermittent and there has been no circumstance where building wind plants has resulted in the decommissioning of an existing fossil fuel facility.
Industrial wind projects divide communities, lower property values, will harm Vermonters' health, wildlife, tourist and second-home economy, and kill birds and endangered bats.
Vermont has always promoted itself as a place to escape from the industrialized world and enjoy the beauty and serenity of our Green Mountains and clear night sky. A place people live and visit to escape urbanized sprawl. We don't need to industrialize our mountains with 430-500 foot, loud, strobe-lit, environmentally destructive, quality of life destroying industrial scale wind turbines in Ira, Sheffield, Lowell, Eden, Milton/Georgia, East Haven, Deerfield, Londonderry/Grafton, Manchester, Waitsfield. Or anywhere else in Vermont.
How many of you would buy property or live near an industrial wind facility?
Rob Pforzheimer lives in Sutton.
In March, Green Mountain Power, Central Vermont Public Service Corp and Hydro Quebec announced agreement on new 26-year contracts to provide Vermont with clean renewable hydroelectric power.
Trans Canada is asking for a reappraisal of the hydro dams they own on the Connecticut River. Cleve Kapala of Trans Canada said, "I mean the plants are obviously worth less today than they were prerecession and preoversupply of electricity." In spite of the oversupply and low price of electricity Trans Canada has applied to expand their industrial wind plant on Kibby Mountain in Maine.
Even without Vermont Yankee there is a glut of power in the New England market. The price of natural gas and wholesale price of electricity are lower than they've been in years and are predicted to remain low for the foreseeable future. So why do we need to destroy Vermont's mountains with inefficient, unreliable industrial scale wind turbines? The obvious answers are: To attempt to fulfill arbitrary renewable energy use mandates, unachievable without reclassifying hydro as renewable. And to allow First Wind, Iberdrola, Gaz Metro (GMP), Enel, and other wind developers and their investors to collect subsidies, tax credits, double accelerated depreciation, renewable energy certifi- cates, and now direct grants, paid with our and our grandchildren's tax dollars. This is what industrial wind "development" is really all about. Without these mandates and incentives, which we can ill afford, no one would consider building these useless monuments to gullibility and greed.
No matter how much or how little generation we have, industrial scale wind turbines will never make a difference. They are unpredictably intermittent and there has been no circumstance where building wind plants has resulted in the decommissioning of an existing fossil fuel facility.
Industrial wind projects divide communities, lower property values, will harm Vermonters' health, wildlife, tourist and second-home economy, and kill birds and endangered bats.
Vermont has always promoted itself as a place to escape from the industrialized world and enjoy the beauty and serenity of our Green Mountains and clear night sky. A place people live and visit to escape urbanized sprawl. We don't need to industrialize our mountains with 430-500 foot, loud, strobe-lit, environmentally destructive, quality of life destroying industrial scale wind turbines in Ira, Sheffield, Lowell, Eden, Milton/Georgia, East Haven, Deerfield, Londonderry/Grafton, Manchester, Waitsfield. Or anywhere else in Vermont.
How many of you would buy property or live near an industrial wind facility?
Rob Pforzheimer lives in Sutton.
IPOs in a holding pattern
Right now, the forecast isn’t phenomenal for the five Massachusetts companies looking forward to their day in the sun.
Newton’s First Wind Holdings Inc. develops and runs six wind farms in states including Maine and Vermont, and has plans to build others; the company originally filed to go public in the summer of 2008, and it hopes to raise as much as $450 million, using the clever ticker symbol WNDY.
And Ethan Zindler, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said First Wind may also have a tough time.
“The economic downturn has led to a decline in electricity demand,’’ Zindler said, “and that has slackened the demand for new generating capacity, particularly for renewables, which are more expensive on a per-kilowatt-hour basis than fossil fuels.’’
But Zindler added that First Wind may be better positioned than other companies building new wind farms, since “a number of their projects are in the tightest electricity markets, like Hawaii and New England. They’ve been very smart about picking their spots.’’
Newton’s First Wind Holdings Inc. develops and runs six wind farms in states including Maine and Vermont, and has plans to build others; the company originally filed to go public in the summer of 2008, and it hopes to raise as much as $450 million, using the clever ticker symbol WNDY.
And Ethan Zindler, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said First Wind may also have a tough time.
“The economic downturn has led to a decline in electricity demand,’’ Zindler said, “and that has slackened the demand for new generating capacity, particularly for renewables, which are more expensive on a per-kilowatt-hour basis than fossil fuels.’’
But Zindler added that First Wind may be better positioned than other companies building new wind farms, since “a number of their projects are in the tightest electricity markets, like Hawaii and New England. They’ve been very smart about picking their spots.’’
Saturday, June 12, 2010
I'd rather my wife made land mines than worked in the wind farm industry
If there’s an industry in the world that deserves to be stigmatised more than any other, it’s the despicable, reprehensible, money-grubbing, mendacious, taxpayer-fleecing, bird-mangling, landscape-ruining, economy-blighting wind farm business. At least you could argue that blood diamonds make nice jewellery and that land mine manufacturers are making a valuable contribution to infantry defence. But wind farms are not merely worthless but actively evil – and anyone involved in them deserves to be as pilloried and despised as estate agents were in the Eighties or bankers are now.
For chapter and verse on why they are such an abomination, I must refer you to Dr John Etherington’s definitive The Wind Farm Scam, which explains in comprehensive and unarguable detail precisely why wind farms are one of the most inefficient forms of power generation since the human treadmill and why they can only ever possibly be economically viable with the help of massive (and entirely unjustified) taxpayer subsidy.
And then there’s the recent Spanish experience. From Steve Goreham’s superb book Climatism – about the many disasters that have been caused by the global warming religion – we learn that Spain’s concerted government-funded drive towards wind and solar power has been an utter catastrophe. Electricity costs have risen by 60 per cent while the 50,000 “green jobs” it created cost 571,000 Euros per job via government subsidy, effectively losing 2.2 jobs in the real economy for every one created in the green one.
Now, we learn today, the wife of Britain’s deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is to take a lucrative job in this vibrant, go-ahead industry. Miriam Gonzalez Durantez – as she chooses to call herself, presumably because it sounds a lot classier than Mrs Clegg – will be acting as an independent adviser to Acciona, the world’s largest wind farm supplier.
Apparently, to avoid any “conflict of interest”, she will not be advising it on any of its British projects. Oh, right. And presumably she’ll also be knocking off her salary that portion of Acciona’s profits – courtesy of UK taxpayer subsidy – made from building the four wind farms our economy and landscape need about as much as we need an outbreak of nuclear war or John Prescott or Ebola.
For chapter and verse on why they are such an abomination, I must refer you to Dr John Etherington’s definitive The Wind Farm Scam, which explains in comprehensive and unarguable detail precisely why wind farms are one of the most inefficient forms of power generation since the human treadmill and why they can only ever possibly be economically viable with the help of massive (and entirely unjustified) taxpayer subsidy.
And then there’s the recent Spanish experience. From Steve Goreham’s superb book Climatism – about the many disasters that have been caused by the global warming religion – we learn that Spain’s concerted government-funded drive towards wind and solar power has been an utter catastrophe. Electricity costs have risen by 60 per cent while the 50,000 “green jobs” it created cost 571,000 Euros per job via government subsidy, effectively losing 2.2 jobs in the real economy for every one created in the green one.
Now, we learn today, the wife of Britain’s deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is to take a lucrative job in this vibrant, go-ahead industry. Miriam Gonzalez Durantez – as she chooses to call herself, presumably because it sounds a lot classier than Mrs Clegg – will be acting as an independent adviser to Acciona, the world’s largest wind farm supplier.
Apparently, to avoid any “conflict of interest”, she will not be advising it on any of its British projects. Oh, right. And presumably she’ll also be knocking off her salary that portion of Acciona’s profits – courtesy of UK taxpayer subsidy – made from building the four wind farms our economy and landscape need about as much as we need an outbreak of nuclear war or John Prescott or Ebola.
Testimony of Michael McCann on property value impacts in Adams County IL
SUMMARY OF OPINIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Opinions
1. Residential property values are adversely and measurably impacted by close proximity of industrial-scale wind energy turbine projects to the residential properties, with value losses measured up to 2-miles from the nearest turbine(s), in some instances.
2. Impacts are most pronounced within "footprint" of such projects, and many ground-zero homes have been completely unmarketable, thus depriving many homeowners of reasonable market-based liquidity or pre-existing home equity.
3. Noise and sleep disturbance issues are mostly affecting people within 2-miles of the nearest turbines and 1-mile distances are commonplace, with many variables and fluctuating range of results occurring on a household by household basis.
4. Real estate sale data typically reveals a range of 25% to approximately 40% of value loss, with some instances of total loss as measured by abandonment and demolition of homes, some bought out by wind energy developers and others exhibiting nearly complete loss of marketability.
5. Serious impact to the "use & enjoyment" of many homes is an on-going
occurrence, and many people are on record as confirming they have rented other dwellings, either individual families or as a homeowner group-funded mitigation response for use on nights when noise levels are increased well above ambient background noise and render their existing homes untenable.
6. Reports often cited by industry in support of claims that there is no property value, noise or health impacts are often mischaracterized, misquoted and/or are unreliable. The two most recent reports touted by wind developers and completed in December 2009 contain executive summaries that are so thoroughly cross-contingent that they are better described as "disclaimers" of the studies rather than solid, scientifically supported conclusions. Both reports ignore or fail to study very relevant and observable issues and trends.
7. If Adams County approves a setback of 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet, or any distance less than 2-miles, these types of property use and property value impacts are likely to occur to the detriment of Adams County residences and citizens for which the nearest turbines are proposed to be located.
8. The approval of wind energy projects within close proximity to occupied homes is tantamount to an inverse condemnation, or regulatory taking of private property rights, as the noise and impacts are in some respects a physical invasion, an easement in gross over neighboring properties, and the direct impacts reduce property values and the rights of nearby neighbors.
9. A market value reduction of $6.5 million is projected for the residential property located in the footprint and within 2-miles of the pending Prairie Mills project located in east Adams County.
Recommendations
Therefore, if the County Board should choose to adopt the industry requested minimal setbacks, or some other setback of less than 2-miles from residential uses or occupied dwellings or structures such as schools, churches and nursing homes, I have developed a series of recommendations that would at least partially mitigate the widely experienced impacts prevalent with industrial scale wind turbines developments, as follows:
1. A Property Value Guarantee (PVG) should be required of the developer(s), significantly similar to the PVG attached hereto as Appendix A. A County-controlled fund or developer bond should be required to guarantee no undue delay in PVG payment(s) to legitimately affected homeowners, and/or to buy out homeowners located within 2-miles of any turbines if they elect to relocate away from the turbine project(s) and cannot sell for the pre-project market value of their properties. Such a guarantee is nominal in cost, relative to total project costs, and are used to condition high impact land use approvals such as landfills and even limestone quarries, as well as other wind energy developments (i.e. DeKalb County, Illinois, etc.)
2. An alternative to the bonding element of Recommendation # 1 would be to require that the developer(s) obtain a specialized insurance policy from a high risk insurance carrier or legitimate insurer, such as Lloyds of London, if they will even insure against such impacts. If Lloyds was unwilling to provide such insurance, however, that should be compelling to the County that professional risk-management actuaries find such projects too risky for even them to insure. Under those possible circumstances the burden of risk is fairly placed with the developer, rather than the residential occupants who are being surrounded or otherwise directly impacted by close proximity of the projects.
3. If Adams County decides to permit projects, the limited evidence of impacts beyond a 2-mile setback would mitigate against the need for a PVG as cited in recommendation # 1.
4. If Adams County decides to permit projects, I recommend that the County require developer funding and a plan to constantly monitor not only sound levels in McCann Appraisal, LLC decibels, but also in low frequency noise emissions from the turbines utilizing the best available technology, or at least homeowner reports and logs. There is significant evidence and personal accounts confirming that low frequency sound/noise is “felt” by nearby occupants, and, as I understand it, cannot be measured by decibels as audible noise is typically measured. Disclosure of the owner’s actual experience to prospective buyers is necessary from both an ethical perspective and, I believe potentially under the Illinois Real Property
Disclosure Act, as a “known” defect or detrimental condition. Thus, documentation should be created at the cost of the developer(s), to insure that appropriate disclosures can be made to any prospective buyer(s) of homes within the 2-mile zone.
5. Appropriate devices should be installed at the developers expense at all occupied dwellings and property lines within a 2-mile distance of any turbines, and the County should retain the ability to immediately enforce the shut-down of any turbines exceeding a level of 10 decibels or more above ambient background noise levels from any property/home experiencing that exceeded noise level. The proximity of constant or frequent noise sources is an adverse impact to the use and enjoyment of a residential property, and indicates a basis for loss of property value.
6. An alternative to recommendation # 5 would be to place a limit on hours of operation, requiring turbines within 2 miles of any occupied (non-participating) dwelling be shut off during normal sleeping hours (i.e. 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.).
7. If the County finds that the wind energy projects are desirable from a economic development goal or perspective, or for the “public good”, I recommend that “footprint” and 2-mile distant neighboring homeowners (measured to lot line from the furthest span of turbine blades) be afforded the opportunity to sell to either the developer or the County, with possible use of eminent domain powers employed by the County, on behalf of and at the expense of the developer(s).
8. The financial assurance for decommissioning and reclamation of wind turbine pad sites, i.e., a bonding requirement, is also recommended as a County condition. To demonstrate solvency companies should pay the bond requirements before starting construction. It’s basically insurance in case the company goes bankrupt or otherwise abandons the wind project without taking down the turbines and reclaiming the land. Coal mines, quarries, landfills and drilling companies have similar bond or financial assurance requirements.
9. An aesthetic landscaping requirement for wind project developers to plant mature trees or groves to shield the view between residential properties and turbines. Evergreens planted along property lines and/or other types of trees strategically planted between residential windows and turbines would partially alleviate aesthetic impacts from turbines.
10. The County should consider a moratorium on wind energy project development(s) in Adams County, until such time as:
* A thorough and complete Wind Energy Ordinance is developed and adopted by the County, which incorporates all the protection and authority of zoning, building and health codes.
* Appropriate Conditional or Special Use standards are developed and adopted, to insure wind developers carry the burden of their for-profit projects rather than the hosting jurisdiction(s) and/or neighboring property owners.
* The actual experiences of numerous existing turbine neighbors is documented thoroughly by an impartial group of professionals with appropriate qualifications in the various relevant fields of expertise, i.e., acoustic engineers, medical sciences, valuation professionals, etc.
The preceding recommendations are not intended to be all inclusive or to address all wind energy project issues and impacts. They are intended to address issues that affect the public health, safety and welfare of area residents, as well as their property values.
Download File(s):
McCann Appraisal, LLC written testimony re Setbacks & property values June 8 2010.pdf (5.07 MB)
Opinions
1. Residential property values are adversely and measurably impacted by close proximity of industrial-scale wind energy turbine projects to the residential properties, with value losses measured up to 2-miles from the nearest turbine(s), in some instances.
2. Impacts are most pronounced within "footprint" of such projects, and many ground-zero homes have been completely unmarketable, thus depriving many homeowners of reasonable market-based liquidity or pre-existing home equity.
3. Noise and sleep disturbance issues are mostly affecting people within 2-miles of the nearest turbines and 1-mile distances are commonplace, with many variables and fluctuating range of results occurring on a household by household basis.
4. Real estate sale data typically reveals a range of 25% to approximately 40% of value loss, with some instances of total loss as measured by abandonment and demolition of homes, some bought out by wind energy developers and others exhibiting nearly complete loss of marketability.
5. Serious impact to the "use & enjoyment" of many homes is an on-going
occurrence, and many people are on record as confirming they have rented other dwellings, either individual families or as a homeowner group-funded mitigation response for use on nights when noise levels are increased well above ambient background noise and render their existing homes untenable.
6. Reports often cited by industry in support of claims that there is no property value, noise or health impacts are often mischaracterized, misquoted and/or are unreliable. The two most recent reports touted by wind developers and completed in December 2009 contain executive summaries that are so thoroughly cross-contingent that they are better described as "disclaimers" of the studies rather than solid, scientifically supported conclusions. Both reports ignore or fail to study very relevant and observable issues and trends.
7. If Adams County approves a setback of 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet, or any distance less than 2-miles, these types of property use and property value impacts are likely to occur to the detriment of Adams County residences and citizens for which the nearest turbines are proposed to be located.
8. The approval of wind energy projects within close proximity to occupied homes is tantamount to an inverse condemnation, or regulatory taking of private property rights, as the noise and impacts are in some respects a physical invasion, an easement in gross over neighboring properties, and the direct impacts reduce property values and the rights of nearby neighbors.
9. A market value reduction of $6.5 million is projected for the residential property located in the footprint and within 2-miles of the pending Prairie Mills project located in east Adams County.
Recommendations
Therefore, if the County Board should choose to adopt the industry requested minimal setbacks, or some other setback of less than 2-miles from residential uses or occupied dwellings or structures such as schools, churches and nursing homes, I have developed a series of recommendations that would at least partially mitigate the widely experienced impacts prevalent with industrial scale wind turbines developments, as follows:
1. A Property Value Guarantee (PVG) should be required of the developer(s), significantly similar to the PVG attached hereto as Appendix A. A County-controlled fund or developer bond should be required to guarantee no undue delay in PVG payment(s) to legitimately affected homeowners, and/or to buy out homeowners located within 2-miles of any turbines if they elect to relocate away from the turbine project(s) and cannot sell for the pre-project market value of their properties. Such a guarantee is nominal in cost, relative to total project costs, and are used to condition high impact land use approvals such as landfills and even limestone quarries, as well as other wind energy developments (i.e. DeKalb County, Illinois, etc.)
2. An alternative to the bonding element of Recommendation # 1 would be to require that the developer(s) obtain a specialized insurance policy from a high risk insurance carrier or legitimate insurer, such as Lloyds of London, if they will even insure against such impacts. If Lloyds was unwilling to provide such insurance, however, that should be compelling to the County that professional risk-management actuaries find such projects too risky for even them to insure. Under those possible circumstances the burden of risk is fairly placed with the developer, rather than the residential occupants who are being surrounded or otherwise directly impacted by close proximity of the projects.
3. If Adams County decides to permit projects, the limited evidence of impacts beyond a 2-mile setback would mitigate against the need for a PVG as cited in recommendation # 1.
4. If Adams County decides to permit projects, I recommend that the County require developer funding and a plan to constantly monitor not only sound levels in McCann Appraisal, LLC decibels, but also in low frequency noise emissions from the turbines utilizing the best available technology, or at least homeowner reports and logs. There is significant evidence and personal accounts confirming that low frequency sound/noise is “felt” by nearby occupants, and, as I understand it, cannot be measured by decibels as audible noise is typically measured. Disclosure of the owner’s actual experience to prospective buyers is necessary from both an ethical perspective and, I believe potentially under the Illinois Real Property
Disclosure Act, as a “known” defect or detrimental condition. Thus, documentation should be created at the cost of the developer(s), to insure that appropriate disclosures can be made to any prospective buyer(s) of homes within the 2-mile zone.
5. Appropriate devices should be installed at the developers expense at all occupied dwellings and property lines within a 2-mile distance of any turbines, and the County should retain the ability to immediately enforce the shut-down of any turbines exceeding a level of 10 decibels or more above ambient background noise levels from any property/home experiencing that exceeded noise level. The proximity of constant or frequent noise sources is an adverse impact to the use and enjoyment of a residential property, and indicates a basis for loss of property value.
6. An alternative to recommendation # 5 would be to place a limit on hours of operation, requiring turbines within 2 miles of any occupied (non-participating) dwelling be shut off during normal sleeping hours (i.e. 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.).
7. If the County finds that the wind energy projects are desirable from a economic development goal or perspective, or for the “public good”, I recommend that “footprint” and 2-mile distant neighboring homeowners (measured to lot line from the furthest span of turbine blades) be afforded the opportunity to sell to either the developer or the County, with possible use of eminent domain powers employed by the County, on behalf of and at the expense of the developer(s).
8. The financial assurance for decommissioning and reclamation of wind turbine pad sites, i.e., a bonding requirement, is also recommended as a County condition. To demonstrate solvency companies should pay the bond requirements before starting construction. It’s basically insurance in case the company goes bankrupt or otherwise abandons the wind project without taking down the turbines and reclaiming the land. Coal mines, quarries, landfills and drilling companies have similar bond or financial assurance requirements.
9. An aesthetic landscaping requirement for wind project developers to plant mature trees or groves to shield the view between residential properties and turbines. Evergreens planted along property lines and/or other types of trees strategically planted between residential windows and turbines would partially alleviate aesthetic impacts from turbines.
10. The County should consider a moratorium on wind energy project development(s) in Adams County, until such time as:
* A thorough and complete Wind Energy Ordinance is developed and adopted by the County, which incorporates all the protection and authority of zoning, building and health codes.
* Appropriate Conditional or Special Use standards are developed and adopted, to insure wind developers carry the burden of their for-profit projects rather than the hosting jurisdiction(s) and/or neighboring property owners.
* The actual experiences of numerous existing turbine neighbors is documented thoroughly by an impartial group of professionals with appropriate qualifications in the various relevant fields of expertise, i.e., acoustic engineers, medical sciences, valuation professionals, etc.
The preceding recommendations are not intended to be all inclusive or to address all wind energy project issues and impacts. They are intended to address issues that affect the public health, safety and welfare of area residents, as well as their property values.
Download File(s):
McCann Appraisal, LLC written testimony re Setbacks & property values June 8 2010.pdf (5.07 MB)
Ecogen v. Town of Italy NYS Supreme Court Hearing
Re: Ecogen v. Town of Italy
Dear Concerned Citizens;
A hearing before the Honorable Judge Ark on the Town of Italy's motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Ecogen on November 4, 2009 is scheduled for:
When: Thursday, June 17, 10:30 a.m.
Where: Yates County Court House
(415 Liberty St., Penn Yan, Yates County, NY)
Ecogen's lawsuit is asking that the court award them a permit for the Italy-Prattsburgh project and declare that they are "vested", enabling them to proceed with their proposed development. Ecogen is asking for this legal relief despite the Town’s perfectly legal legislative denial of their application on October 5, 2009. The lawsuit was filed immediately after (and in retaliation for the results of) the November 3, 2009 elections in Italy and Prattsburgh.
Please come. Urge your friends and neighbors to come.
Sincerely,
The Finger Lakes Preservation Association
Dear Concerned Citizens;
A hearing before the Honorable Judge Ark on the Town of Italy's motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Ecogen on November 4, 2009 is scheduled for:
When: Thursday, June 17, 10:30 a.m.
Where: Yates County Court House
(415 Liberty St., Penn Yan, Yates County, NY)
Ecogen's lawsuit is asking that the court award them a permit for the Italy-Prattsburgh project and declare that they are "vested", enabling them to proceed with their proposed development. Ecogen is asking for this legal relief despite the Town’s perfectly legal legislative denial of their application on October 5, 2009. The lawsuit was filed immediately after (and in retaliation for the results of) the November 3, 2009 elections in Italy and Prattsburgh.
Please come. Urge your friends and neighbors to come.
Sincerely,
The Finger Lakes Preservation Association
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wind turbine opponent speaks in Greece
If there was any question about where Alan Isselhard stood on the issue of offshore wind turbines in Lake Ontario, it was answered by the very first thing he said.
"We want to see the offshore turbine project defeated. That's what we're after," Isselhard said Thursday evening to about 125 people crowded into the small sanctuary of Lakeview Community Church on Edgemere Drive in Greece.
Based on the crowd's reaction, most of them were after the same thing.
Isselhard, who lives on the lakeshore in Huron, Wayne County, has become a leading opponent of the New York Power Authority's plan to promote construction of dozens of huge turbines in one or more wind farms in Lake Ontario or Lake Erie.
He said his group, Great Lakes Concerned Citizens, is pressing the Monroe County Legislature to join colleagues in the three counties to the east in opposing the offshore project. "Unfortunately, Monroe County is dragging its feet and doing nothing, increasing the chances this project will be located in the lake off Monroe County," he said.
The county legislator who represents Greece shoreline neighborhoods, Republican Rick Antelli, attended the meeting and said a resolution to oppose the project is being discussed by some lawmakers.
The power authority announced a week ago that it had received five proposals from wind developers. Officials have declined to say what companies submitted the proposals, how many turbines each wants to build and where in the lakes they would put them.
The authority has laid out five areas it found suitable for wind farms — the eastern ends of lakes Erie and Ontario, and areas in Lake Ontario off parts of Monroe, Wayne and Niagara counties.
Isselhard and several other speakers ticked off a long list of reasons why they believe putting them anywhere is a bad idea — bird and fish impacts, noise, visual pollution, oil leaks, navigation impediments and diminution of shoreline property values.
"It would be the beginning of the industrializing and the trashing of this beautiful resource," he said.
Authority spokeswoman Connie Cullen has previously said information about the winning proposal would be made public only after the group's board voted on the matter, months from now. She initially said "state procurement law" forbade the release of information, but later said it was authority policy to say nothing. "Releasing bid information ... before an award is made would jeopardize the interests of taxpayers to get the best price and businesses to receive fair evaluation," she said.
"We want to see the offshore turbine project defeated. That's what we're after," Isselhard said Thursday evening to about 125 people crowded into the small sanctuary of Lakeview Community Church on Edgemere Drive in Greece.
Based on the crowd's reaction, most of them were after the same thing.
Isselhard, who lives on the lakeshore in Huron, Wayne County, has become a leading opponent of the New York Power Authority's plan to promote construction of dozens of huge turbines in one or more wind farms in Lake Ontario or Lake Erie.
He said his group, Great Lakes Concerned Citizens, is pressing the Monroe County Legislature to join colleagues in the three counties to the east in opposing the offshore project. "Unfortunately, Monroe County is dragging its feet and doing nothing, increasing the chances this project will be located in the lake off Monroe County," he said.
The county legislator who represents Greece shoreline neighborhoods, Republican Rick Antelli, attended the meeting and said a resolution to oppose the project is being discussed by some lawmakers.
The power authority announced a week ago that it had received five proposals from wind developers. Officials have declined to say what companies submitted the proposals, how many turbines each wants to build and where in the lakes they would put them.
The authority has laid out five areas it found suitable for wind farms — the eastern ends of lakes Erie and Ontario, and areas in Lake Ontario off parts of Monroe, Wayne and Niagara counties.
Isselhard and several other speakers ticked off a long list of reasons why they believe putting them anywhere is a bad idea — bird and fish impacts, noise, visual pollution, oil leaks, navigation impediments and diminution of shoreline property values.
"It would be the beginning of the industrializing and the trashing of this beautiful resource," he said.
Authority spokeswoman Connie Cullen has previously said information about the winning proposal would be made public only after the group's board voted on the matter, months from now. She initially said "state procurement law" forbade the release of information, but later said it was authority policy to say nothing. "Releasing bid information ... before an award is made would jeopardize the interests of taxpayers to get the best price and businesses to receive fair evaluation," she said.
An Energy Strategy for Grown-Ups
Wind power is not a realistic substitute for oil.
The tragic Gulf oil spill has produced overreaction ("end offshore drilling"), demagoguery ("Obama's Katrina") and bad policy recommendations ("We must generate 20% of our electricity from windmills"). None of this helps clean up and move forward. If we want both clean energy and a high standard of living, here are 10 steps for thoughtful grown-ups:
1) Figure out what went wrong and make it unlikely to happen again. We don't stop flying after a terrible airplane crash, and we won't stop drilling offshore after this terrible spill. Thirty percent of U.S. oil production (and 25% of natural gas) comes from thousands of active wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Without it, gasoline prices would skyrocket and we would depend more on tankers from the Middle East with worse safety records than American offshore drillers.
2) Learn a safety lesson from the U.S. nuclear industry: accountability. For 60 years, reactors on U.S. Navy ships have operated without killing one sailor. Why? The career of the ship's commander can be ended by a mistake. The number of deaths from nuclear accidents at U.S. commercial reactors is also zero.
3) Determine what the president's cleanup plan was and where the people and the equipment were to implement it. In 1990, after the Exxon Valdez spill, a new law required that the president "ensure" the cleanup of a spill and have the people and equipment to do it. President Obama effectively delegated this job to the spiller. Is that a president's only real option today? If so, what should future presidents have on hand for backup if the spiller can't perform?
4) Put back on the table more onshore resources for oil and natural gas. Drilling in a few thousand acres along the edge of the 19-million acre Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and at other onshore locations would produce vast oil supplies. A spill on land could be contained much more easily than one located a mile deep in water.
5) Electrify half our cars and trucks. This is ambitious, but it is the best way to reduce U.S. oil consumption, cutting it by one-third to about 13 million barrels a day. A Brookings Institution study says we could electrify half our cars and trucks without building one new power plant if we plug in our cars at night.
6) Invest in energy research and development. A cost-competitive, 500-mile-range battery would virtually guarantee electrification of half our cars and trucks. Reduce the cost of solar power by a factor of four. Find a way for utilities to make money from the CO2 produced by their coal plants.
7) Stop pretending wind power has anything to do with reducing America's dependence on oil. Windmills generate electricity—not transportation fuel. Wind has become the energy pet rock of the 21st century and a taxpayer rip-off. According to the Energy Information Administration, wind produces only 1.3% of U.S. electricity but receives federal taxpayer subsidies 25 times as much per megawatt hour as subsidies for all other forms of electricity production combined. Wind can be an energy supplement, but it has nothing to do with ending our dependence on oil.
8) If we need more green electricity, build nuclear plants. The 100 commercial nuclear plants we already have produce 70% of our pollution-free, carbon-free electricity. Yet the U.S. has just broken ground on our first new reactor in 30 years, while China starts one every three months and France is 80% nuclear. We wouldn't mothball our nuclear Navy if we were going to war. We shouldn't mothball our nuclear plants if we want low-cost, reliable green energy.
9) Focus on conservation. In the region where I live, the Tennessee Valley Authority could close four of its dirtiest coal plants if we reduced our per capita use of electricity to the national average.
10) Make sure liability limits are appropriate for spill damage. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, funded by a per-barrel fee on industry, should be adjusted to pay for cleanup and to compensate those hurt by spills. An industry insurance program like that of the nuclear industry is also an attractive model to consider.
These 10 steps forward could help America grow stronger after this tragic event.
Mr. Alexander is a Republican senator from Tennessee and the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
The tragic Gulf oil spill has produced overreaction ("end offshore drilling"), demagoguery ("Obama's Katrina") and bad policy recommendations ("We must generate 20% of our electricity from windmills"). None of this helps clean up and move forward. If we want both clean energy and a high standard of living, here are 10 steps for thoughtful grown-ups:
1) Figure out what went wrong and make it unlikely to happen again. We don't stop flying after a terrible airplane crash, and we won't stop drilling offshore after this terrible spill. Thirty percent of U.S. oil production (and 25% of natural gas) comes from thousands of active wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Without it, gasoline prices would skyrocket and we would depend more on tankers from the Middle East with worse safety records than American offshore drillers.
2) Learn a safety lesson from the U.S. nuclear industry: accountability. For 60 years, reactors on U.S. Navy ships have operated without killing one sailor. Why? The career of the ship's commander can be ended by a mistake. The number of deaths from nuclear accidents at U.S. commercial reactors is also zero.
3) Determine what the president's cleanup plan was and where the people and the equipment were to implement it. In 1990, after the Exxon Valdez spill, a new law required that the president "ensure" the cleanup of a spill and have the people and equipment to do it. President Obama effectively delegated this job to the spiller. Is that a president's only real option today? If so, what should future presidents have on hand for backup if the spiller can't perform?
4) Put back on the table more onshore resources for oil and natural gas. Drilling in a few thousand acres along the edge of the 19-million acre Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and at other onshore locations would produce vast oil supplies. A spill on land could be contained much more easily than one located a mile deep in water.
5) Electrify half our cars and trucks. This is ambitious, but it is the best way to reduce U.S. oil consumption, cutting it by one-third to about 13 million barrels a day. A Brookings Institution study says we could electrify half our cars and trucks without building one new power plant if we plug in our cars at night.
6) Invest in energy research and development. A cost-competitive, 500-mile-range battery would virtually guarantee electrification of half our cars and trucks. Reduce the cost of solar power by a factor of four. Find a way for utilities to make money from the CO2 produced by their coal plants.
7) Stop pretending wind power has anything to do with reducing America's dependence on oil. Windmills generate electricity—not transportation fuel. Wind has become the energy pet rock of the 21st century and a taxpayer rip-off. According to the Energy Information Administration, wind produces only 1.3% of U.S. electricity but receives federal taxpayer subsidies 25 times as much per megawatt hour as subsidies for all other forms of electricity production combined. Wind can be an energy supplement, but it has nothing to do with ending our dependence on oil.
8) If we need more green electricity, build nuclear plants. The 100 commercial nuclear plants we already have produce 70% of our pollution-free, carbon-free electricity. Yet the U.S. has just broken ground on our first new reactor in 30 years, while China starts one every three months and France is 80% nuclear. We wouldn't mothball our nuclear Navy if we were going to war. We shouldn't mothball our nuclear plants if we want low-cost, reliable green energy.
9) Focus on conservation. In the region where I live, the Tennessee Valley Authority could close four of its dirtiest coal plants if we reduced our per capita use of electricity to the national average.
10) Make sure liability limits are appropriate for spill damage. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, funded by a per-barrel fee on industry, should be adjusted to pay for cleanup and to compensate those hurt by spills. An industry insurance program like that of the nuclear industry is also an attractive model to consider.
These 10 steps forward could help America grow stronger after this tragic event.
Mr. Alexander is a Republican senator from Tennessee and the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Offshore windmills for lake get mixed spin
The New York Power Authority faced the stiff wind of opposition Wednesday when it briefed Erie County’s public on plans to stand power-generating windmills somewhere in Lake Erie.
Yes, many of the more than 60 observers supported the project. The Citizens Campaign for the Environment displayed 2,000 signatures on its “Give Wind a Chance” petition, and the group’s Western New York director, Brian Smith, stressed that “saying no to offshore wind power is equivalent to saying yes to our continued reliance on fossil fuels.”
But lake-lovers from Hamburg and other shoreline communities said at the County Legislature hearing that they see offshore windmills as a blight, especially for a once-polluted lake that has been revived.
Put the turbines on land where they can be more easily monitored, they said.
“I cannot understand, for the life of me, why it has to be in the lake,” said Bill Maher of Lakeshore Road, Hamburg, adding later, “It’s like the Lake Erie Monster coming alive again.”
Sharon Laudisi, the Power Authority’s business development manager, repeated that the project must face the rigors of several environmental reviews laid down by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Further, the Power Authority has yet to decide where the up to 166 windmills will stand in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario in a combined undertaking. She said construction will not likely begin before 2014 and will affect a tiny percentage of Lake Erie’s expanse. And there’s no assurance that both lakes will be used, she said.
The Power Authority will not build or finance the windmills itself. That will be the role of the preferred developer, to be selected late this year or early next from the five that have presented proposals.
The authority will buy the electricity under a multiyear agreement, guaranteeing a revenue stream for the developer willing to spend an estimated $1 billion.
When he announced the receipt of five proposals Friday, Richard M. Kessel, the authority’s president and chief executive officer, said the authority was following Gov. David A. Paterson’s goal that New York supply 30 percent of its power needs through renewable sources by 2015.
Constant ocean breezes have spun offshore windmills in Europe for years. But the Power Authority’s Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project could be this nation’s first. Offshore projects in other regions of the country are further along in the review process.
The authority says its undertaking would be the world’s first wind farm on fresh water, where the machinery is not subject to the corrosive effects of saltwater.
The County Legislature has no direct role in decisions on where to place the windmills, but a statement of opposition could discourage the Power Authority from siting any Lake Erie windmills off Erie County.
The Chautauqua County Legislature recently voted to state its opposition to wind projects in Lake Erie. The Oswego County Legislature and the Jefferson County Board of Legislatorscq also have stated their opposition to wind projects off their shores in Lake Ontario.
“We could go on record telling the state that we are opposed,” said Erie County Legislator Daniel M. Kozub, D-Hamburg, chairman of the committee that conducted the hearing Wednesday.
“They either listen to us or they don’t listen to us,” Kozub said, explaining that he has not made up his mind on the matter.
Legislator Lynne M. Dixon, I-Hamburg, already has proposed a statement opposing “the exploitation of Lake Erie,” and she questioned whether residents will receive their best information on the project only when it’s too late to stop it.
The audience Wednesday appeared almost evenly divided between those who support offshore wind projects and those who don’t, at least offshore wind projects in Lake Erie. Both the proponents and critics cited the gusher now fouling the Gulf of Mexico as evidence.
“Why are we doing this? Well, the gulf is a perfect reason,” said the Power Authority’s Laudisi.
“You can do any environmental-impact study you want,” Diane Kozak of Lackawanna said. “I’m sure they did that for BP in the gulf.
“Think outside the box,” she added. “Use a brownfield.”
Yes, many of the more than 60 observers supported the project. The Citizens Campaign for the Environment displayed 2,000 signatures on its “Give Wind a Chance” petition, and the group’s Western New York director, Brian Smith, stressed that “saying no to offshore wind power is equivalent to saying yes to our continued reliance on fossil fuels.”
But lake-lovers from Hamburg and other shoreline communities said at the County Legislature hearing that they see offshore windmills as a blight, especially for a once-polluted lake that has been revived.
Put the turbines on land where they can be more easily monitored, they said.
“I cannot understand, for the life of me, why it has to be in the lake,” said Bill Maher of Lakeshore Road, Hamburg, adding later, “It’s like the Lake Erie Monster coming alive again.”
Sharon Laudisi, the Power Authority’s business development manager, repeated that the project must face the rigors of several environmental reviews laid down by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Further, the Power Authority has yet to decide where the up to 166 windmills will stand in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario in a combined undertaking. She said construction will not likely begin before 2014 and will affect a tiny percentage of Lake Erie’s expanse. And there’s no assurance that both lakes will be used, she said.
The Power Authority will not build or finance the windmills itself. That will be the role of the preferred developer, to be selected late this year or early next from the five that have presented proposals.
The authority will buy the electricity under a multiyear agreement, guaranteeing a revenue stream for the developer willing to spend an estimated $1 billion.
When he announced the receipt of five proposals Friday, Richard M. Kessel, the authority’s president and chief executive officer, said the authority was following Gov. David A. Paterson’s goal that New York supply 30 percent of its power needs through renewable sources by 2015.
Constant ocean breezes have spun offshore windmills in Europe for years. But the Power Authority’s Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project could be this nation’s first. Offshore projects in other regions of the country are further along in the review process.
The authority says its undertaking would be the world’s first wind farm on fresh water, where the machinery is not subject to the corrosive effects of saltwater.
The County Legislature has no direct role in decisions on where to place the windmills, but a statement of opposition could discourage the Power Authority from siting any Lake Erie windmills off Erie County.
The Chautauqua County Legislature recently voted to state its opposition to wind projects in Lake Erie. The Oswego County Legislature and the Jefferson County Board of Legislatorscq also have stated their opposition to wind projects off their shores in Lake Ontario.
“We could go on record telling the state that we are opposed,” said Erie County Legislator Daniel M. Kozub, D-Hamburg, chairman of the committee that conducted the hearing Wednesday.
“They either listen to us or they don’t listen to us,” Kozub said, explaining that he has not made up his mind on the matter.
Legislator Lynne M. Dixon, I-Hamburg, already has proposed a statement opposing “the exploitation of Lake Erie,” and she questioned whether residents will receive their best information on the project only when it’s too late to stop it.
The audience Wednesday appeared almost evenly divided between those who support offshore wind projects and those who don’t, at least offshore wind projects in Lake Erie. Both the proponents and critics cited the gusher now fouling the Gulf of Mexico as evidence.
“Why are we doing this? Well, the gulf is a perfect reason,” said the Power Authority’s Laudisi.
“You can do any environmental-impact study you want,” Diane Kozak of Lackawanna said. “I’m sure they did that for BP in the gulf.
“Think outside the box,” she added. “Use a brownfield.”
Cape Wind opponents draw environmental and political parallels to Gulf oil disaster
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. – As opponents of a massive wind energy factory in Nantucket Sound watch the impact of energy giant BP’s oil blowout on the ocean and delicate ecosystems of the Louisiana coast, they are drawing parallels between the energy projects and warning that another environmental disaster is likely to happen in the waters off Cape Cod.
Opponents say that the Cape Wind project, the first offshore wind energy plant in the country, will destroy marine and avian life of the Sound, as well as cultural and historic treasures, create a hazard to public safety and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
And despite Interior’s insistence the department abided by every required regulation in reviewing and approving the Cape Wind project, opponents continue to question procedural exceptions and the connections between Cape Wind and members of the Obama administration.
The controversial wind turbine plant proposal was approved by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar April 28, a week after the BP explosion that killed 11 men and began spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The approval came despite an avalanche of opposition from the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag nations, and an array of environmental groups, local, state and federal elected officials, shipping and airport authorities and federal agencies, including the National Register of Historic Places.
Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Nation on Martha’s Vineyard, said President Barack Obama’s comments during a May 17 press conference on the BP disaster reflect what the tribe has been saying all along about Cape Wind.
“Cape Wind got a no-bid sweetheart deal on the federal lands and waters of Nantucket Sound that had already been designated as a marine sanctuary and monument decades ago. They got a waiver on the open vetting process and on balancing the need versus the benefit of taking of public lands for private development and profit.”
The Cape Wind proposal includes 130 wind turbine generators towering 440 feet above water level across 24 square miles of the sound; a 66.5-mile buried submarine transmission cable system; an electric service platform with 40,000 gallons of oil; a helicopter landing pad; and two 115-kilovolt lines crossing 25 miles to the mainland power grid.
Nantucket Sound is sacred to the Wampanoag nations – the People of the First Light. The wind energy plant would obscure their view of the rising sun in ceremony and would destroy the ocean bed, which was once dry land where their ancestors lived and died.
Obama’s comments about the government’s responsibility to “reduce threats to our environment” were bitterly ironic to the Wampanoag nations.
“The construction of Cape Wind isn’t a ‘threat’ to our environment, it is an absolute certainty,” Andrews-Maltais said. “It is the total destruction of the only known submerged Paleo-Indian archeological site in existence today.”
Most painful, she said, were Obama’s comments about growing up in Hawaii “where the ocean is sacred. … (and) an integral part of who (the Hawaiians) are.”
“Why is it that the president is recognizing all of this for everyone else except for us? We feel that he is marginalizing or dismissing us as Indians, almost like we don’t have the same reverence, responsibility, culture and right to practice our religious traditions as the Hawaiians or any other federally recognized tribe,” Andrews-Maltais said.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved the project in May, reversing its earlier opinion that the wind factory is a “presumed hazard” to the 400,000 flights that cross the area annually. The approval followed Cape Wind’s agreement to provide between $1 million and $12 million to modernize a nearby radar facility to mitigate the effects of electromagnetic interference from the wind factory’s turbines.
The mitigation is akin to the untested “safety procedures” that failed on the BP oil rig, opponents said.
The measures to upgrade radar systems are “unproven theoretical mitigation,” said the Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound, which has filed two notices of intent to file suit against the Interior Department’s decision in federal district court in Washington.
“This is an entirely political decision that flies in the face of public safety and the recommendations of the pilots who use this airspace every day,” said Audra Parker, the organization’s president and CEO.
Also in May, National Grid announced that its ratepayers would purchase half of Cape Wind’s power at a premium of $442 million over the course of the 15-year agreement. The total cost of the project’s power would add $884 million to Massachusetts residential and commercial ratepayers’ bills.
Cape Wind is also depending on as much as $600 million in stimulus funds to offset the $2 billion-plus cost of constructing the plant, much of which will go to foreign countries, such as China, which manufactures the Siemens turbines that will be used for the Cape Wind project.
The Investigative Reporting Workshop found more than 80 percent of the first $1 billion in stimulus funds to wind energy companies went to foreign firms. The administration has since handed out another $1 billion, bringing the total given out to $2.1 billion with more than 79 percent going to overseas companies.
Barbara Durkin, an environmental activist who has investigated and documented the Cape Wind project for the past seven years, said Cape Wind’s approval was “based on politics, not science.”
“The Gulf disaster is a harbinger of what should be expected in Nantucket Sound by Secretary Salazar’s rubber-stamping of Cape Wind.
“The cozy relationships between MMS (Minerals Management Service) and the oil industry echo cozy relationships between the White House and the wind industry,” Durkin said, naming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers as having connections to wind energy and private equity companies.
Cape Wind Associates is a joint venture between Energy Management Inc. and Wind Management Inc. of Boston, which is a subsidiary of UPC, a European-based wind energy company that’s been known as First Wind in the U.S. since May 2008.
Former New York Sun managing editor Ira Stoll uncovered some of the political connections on his Web site, Future of Capitalism, reporting last fall that First Wind received $115 million in stimulus funds.
First Wind owners include the D.E. Shaw Group, a private equity, hedge fund and technology investment company, and Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in leveraged buyouts.
Summers held a $5.2 million a year job at the D.E. Shaw Group, and Madison Dearborn is the firm of which Emanuel said, “They’ve been not only supporters of mine, they’re friends of mine.”
Emanuel has received more than $98,000 in campaign contributions from Madison Dearborn Partners, according to www.opensecrets.org.
Asked what role, if any, Summers and Emanuel played in the process of approving the Cape Wind project, Salazar spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said, “They had no role.”
But Emanuel and Summers were recently involved in discussions regarding the $2 billion Shepherds Flat project in Oregon, the Washington Post reported.
The Pentagon threatened to stop the Shepherds Flat project and other planned wind projects in other states, because the giant turbines could interfere with the Air Force’s radar systems. The owners, Caithness Energy, worried a delay would cause a loss of eligibility for federal stimulus funds.
“Pentagon officials have met with aides to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers and White House energy and climate change adviser Carol Browner in an effort to resolve the impasse,” the Post reported in April.
By the end of April, the heavy political fire had worked, and the Pentagon dropped its opposition, according to The Oregonian.
Opponents say that the Cape Wind project, the first offshore wind energy plant in the country, will destroy marine and avian life of the Sound, as well as cultural and historic treasures, create a hazard to public safety and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
And despite Interior’s insistence the department abided by every required regulation in reviewing and approving the Cape Wind project, opponents continue to question procedural exceptions and the connections between Cape Wind and members of the Obama administration.
The controversial wind turbine plant proposal was approved by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar April 28, a week after the BP explosion that killed 11 men and began spewing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
The approval came despite an avalanche of opposition from the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag nations, and an array of environmental groups, local, state and federal elected officials, shipping and airport authorities and federal agencies, including the National Register of Historic Places.
Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Nation on Martha’s Vineyard, said President Barack Obama’s comments during a May 17 press conference on the BP disaster reflect what the tribe has been saying all along about Cape Wind.
“Cape Wind got a no-bid sweetheart deal on the federal lands and waters of Nantucket Sound that had already been designated as a marine sanctuary and monument decades ago. They got a waiver on the open vetting process and on balancing the need versus the benefit of taking of public lands for private development and profit.”
The Cape Wind proposal includes 130 wind turbine generators towering 440 feet above water level across 24 square miles of the sound; a 66.5-mile buried submarine transmission cable system; an electric service platform with 40,000 gallons of oil; a helicopter landing pad; and two 115-kilovolt lines crossing 25 miles to the mainland power grid.
Nantucket Sound is sacred to the Wampanoag nations – the People of the First Light. The wind energy plant would obscure their view of the rising sun in ceremony and would destroy the ocean bed, which was once dry land where their ancestors lived and died.
Obama’s comments about the government’s responsibility to “reduce threats to our environment” were bitterly ironic to the Wampanoag nations.
“The construction of Cape Wind isn’t a ‘threat’ to our environment, it is an absolute certainty,” Andrews-Maltais said. “It is the total destruction of the only known submerged Paleo-Indian archeological site in existence today.”
Most painful, she said, were Obama’s comments about growing up in Hawaii “where the ocean is sacred. … (and) an integral part of who (the Hawaiians) are.”
“Why is it that the president is recognizing all of this for everyone else except for us? We feel that he is marginalizing or dismissing us as Indians, almost like we don’t have the same reverence, responsibility, culture and right to practice our religious traditions as the Hawaiians or any other federally recognized tribe,” Andrews-Maltais said.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved the project in May, reversing its earlier opinion that the wind factory is a “presumed hazard” to the 400,000 flights that cross the area annually. The approval followed Cape Wind’s agreement to provide between $1 million and $12 million to modernize a nearby radar facility to mitigate the effects of electromagnetic interference from the wind factory’s turbines.
The mitigation is akin to the untested “safety procedures” that failed on the BP oil rig, opponents said.
The measures to upgrade radar systems are “unproven theoretical mitigation,” said the Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound, which has filed two notices of intent to file suit against the Interior Department’s decision in federal district court in Washington.
“This is an entirely political decision that flies in the face of public safety and the recommendations of the pilots who use this airspace every day,” said Audra Parker, the organization’s president and CEO.
Also in May, National Grid announced that its ratepayers would purchase half of Cape Wind’s power at a premium of $442 million over the course of the 15-year agreement. The total cost of the project’s power would add $884 million to Massachusetts residential and commercial ratepayers’ bills.
Cape Wind is also depending on as much as $600 million in stimulus funds to offset the $2 billion-plus cost of constructing the plant, much of which will go to foreign countries, such as China, which manufactures the Siemens turbines that will be used for the Cape Wind project.
The Investigative Reporting Workshop found more than 80 percent of the first $1 billion in stimulus funds to wind energy companies went to foreign firms. The administration has since handed out another $1 billion, bringing the total given out to $2.1 billion with more than 79 percent going to overseas companies.
Barbara Durkin, an environmental activist who has investigated and documented the Cape Wind project for the past seven years, said Cape Wind’s approval was “based on politics, not science.”
“The Gulf disaster is a harbinger of what should be expected in Nantucket Sound by Secretary Salazar’s rubber-stamping of Cape Wind.
“The cozy relationships between MMS (Minerals Management Service) and the oil industry echo cozy relationships between the White House and the wind industry,” Durkin said, naming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers as having connections to wind energy and private equity companies.
Cape Wind Associates is a joint venture between Energy Management Inc. and Wind Management Inc. of Boston, which is a subsidiary of UPC, a European-based wind energy company that’s been known as First Wind in the U.S. since May 2008.
Former New York Sun managing editor Ira Stoll uncovered some of the political connections on his Web site, Future of Capitalism, reporting last fall that First Wind received $115 million in stimulus funds.
First Wind owners include the D.E. Shaw Group, a private equity, hedge fund and technology investment company, and Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in leveraged buyouts.
Summers held a $5.2 million a year job at the D.E. Shaw Group, and Madison Dearborn is the firm of which Emanuel said, “They’ve been not only supporters of mine, they’re friends of mine.”
Emanuel has received more than $98,000 in campaign contributions from Madison Dearborn Partners, according to www.opensecrets.org.
Asked what role, if any, Summers and Emanuel played in the process of approving the Cape Wind project, Salazar spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said, “They had no role.”
But Emanuel and Summers were recently involved in discussions regarding the $2 billion Shepherds Flat project in Oregon, the Washington Post reported.
The Pentagon threatened to stop the Shepherds Flat project and other planned wind projects in other states, because the giant turbines could interfere with the Air Force’s radar systems. The owners, Caithness Energy, worried a delay would cause a loss of eligibility for federal stimulus funds.
“Pentagon officials have met with aides to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers and White House energy and climate change adviser Carol Browner in an effort to resolve the impasse,” the Post reported in April.
By the end of April, the heavy political fire had worked, and the Pentagon dropped its opposition, according to The Oregonian.
Wind Power: A Photographic Essay
If our liberal rulers are to be believed, we must forsake the abundant and highly efficient energy sources lying unused under our feet, and take a great leap forward into the realm of green technology. This is dominated by windmills, which until recently were regarded as quaint remnants of the Middle Ages.
Wind energy doesn't generate much power, but it should provide a cash bonanza for Obama's crony capitalist backers at GE. Like biofuels, the wind energy boondoggle can be summed up in a single word: FAIL. At least windmills make for some interesting photography:
Perry town Board Wind Moritorium
On Wednesday June 9, 2010 Perry, New York, one Town Councilwoman Tracy Rozanski and three Town Councilmen Roger Paddock, Del Bell and Gerry Sahrle voted AYE on the moratorium for wind and Supervisor James Brick voted NO against the moratorium. Thank you Town Council, this hasn't been easy on you.
After a four and a half year long fight, three town board elections and hard work the Perry Town Board voted in a one year moratorium on wind. CHRN (Citizens for a Healthy Rural Neighborhood) has accomplished what they have worked so hard to achieve. We are headed in the right direction! No IWT! On to the new wind law.
We are highly indebted to the members of CHRN and all of you here in our area, across New York State, and far and wide! Thank you for all of your information, research, meeting participation, speeches, presentations, letter to the editors, ads, support, friendships and prayers in helping to make this event take place.
Perseverance is an investment, Success is the Return!
God Bless Each and Every One of You!
Sincerely, Gerry and Valary Sahrle
7438 Myers Road
Perry, NY 14530
1-585-237-2338
After a four and a half year long fight, three town board elections and hard work the Perry Town Board voted in a one year moratorium on wind. CHRN (Citizens for a Healthy Rural Neighborhood) has accomplished what they have worked so hard to achieve. We are headed in the right direction! No IWT! On to the new wind law.
We are highly indebted to the members of CHRN and all of you here in our area, across New York State, and far and wide! Thank you for all of your information, research, meeting participation, speeches, presentations, letter to the editors, ads, support, friendships and prayers in helping to make this event take place.
Perseverance is an investment, Success is the Return!
God Bless Each and Every One of You!
Sincerely, Gerry and Valary Sahrle
7438 Myers Road
Perry, NY 14530
1-585-237-2338
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