Better Plan, Wisconsin

NEW WIND FARM REGULATIONS COULD DECREASE PROPERTY VALUES

SOURCE:Wisconsin Real Estate Magazine

September 2010 Issue

by Tom Larson

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) is proposing new regulations relating to the location of wind turbines and wind farms (a large number of wind turbines located in close proximity to one another) that could have a significant impact on the value of thousands of acres of Wisconsin property.

These regulations will determine, among other things, how far wind turbines can be located from neighboring homes, buildings and property lines. Given that wind turbines can be over 500 feet high and the new state regulations will override all local zoning ordinances, REALTORS® and property owners should pay close attention to these regulations.

Background

During the 1970s, the United States experienced an energy crisis due to a decrease oil production in the Middle East. To encourage the use of alternative energy sources, Wisconsin enacted a law prohibiting local governments (counties, cities, villages and towns) from placing any restrictions on the installation or use of solar or wind energy systems unless the restriction is necessary to protect public health or safety. For approximately 40 years, this law has not been a significant problem for property owners.

Proposed PSC Regulations

In 2009, Wisconsin enacted a wind turbine siting law that directs the PSC to develop specific standards for, among other things, wind turbine setbacks from neighboring homes and property lines. The PSC formed a 15-member wind siting council, consisting of representatives from wind farm companies, local governments, environmental organizations, private property owners and REALTORS®.

After two months of regular meetings, the wind siting council recently completed a report containing various recommendations and submitted it to the PSC for approval. The report is controversial and many critics maintain that the interests of neighboring property owners are not adequately protected due to the makeup of the council, which was weighted in favor of wind energy interests.

The PSC has used this report to create new administrative rules, which are also controversial. Some of the specific concerns with the proposed rules include the following:

• Setbacks are too small. The proposed setback from neighboring residences and buildings is 3.1 times the maximum blade tip height of the turbine. For example, if a wind turbine is 300 feet, the setback is 930 feet from a structure. This distance was chosen for safety considerations (in case the turbine falls over) and ignores possible health risks to humans and animals and the potential impact of turbines on neighboring property values. Critics suggest that a setback of 2,640 feet is more appropriate.
• Noise standards are insufficient. The proposed rules allow wind turbines to create noise up to 45 decibels at night or 50 decibels during the day, as measured from the outside of a neighboring residence.
• Shadow flicker limits are inadequate. The proposed rules allow wind turbines to create a shadow flicker on neighboring residences up to 40 hours per year. If shadow flicker exceeds 20 hours per year, developers must offer mitigation to property owners.

Why This Is Important for REALTORS^®

Without question, the number one reason REALTORS® should care about the proposed wind farm regulations is the impact of wind turbines on property values. Numerous studies have shown that wind turbines can have a negative impact on neighboring property values and sometimes that impact can be significant. According to a survey of REALTORS® working in a wind turbine area, the impact on neighboring vacant land ranges from a 43% decrease if the wind turbine is located very close (within 600 feet) to 29% if the turbine is located in near proximity (½ mile away). With respect to the impact on improved property, the impacts are believed to be similar, but slightly lower (39% and 24%, respectively).

While wind turbines are often seen in more rural settings, these regulations do not prevent wind turbines from being located in more urban or suburban settings. Because these regulations override local zoning ordinances, wind turbines can be located almost anywhere there is adequate wind, including next to residential subdivisions and office parkss.

While developing alternative energy sources is important, so too is protecting property values. Without adequate setbacks in place, property values could suffer and property owners could face tremendous uncertainty about whether the neighboring property that is used for open space or farmland today will be used for a wind farm with large wind turbines tomorrow.

What’s Next

The PSC recently approved the proposed administrative rules and now the rules must be reviewed and approved by the Wisconsin Legislature. The PSC rules will likely be completed within the next several weeks, with legislative review occurring shortly thereafter. The legislature will likely hold public hearings within the next several weeks.

The WRA will be meeting with key legislators in an effort to make changes to the rules to ensure that the interests of property owners are adequately protected.

For more information, please contact Tom Larson (tlarson@wra.org) at (608) 240-8254.

ALLIANT ENERGY WANTS 13% PRICE RATE HIKE IN IOWA

SOURCE: AP NEWS SERVICE-

DES MOINES, Iowa – Alliant Energy officials have testified at a four-day regulatory hearing this week as the Iowa Utilities Board delves into the utility’s request for a 13 percent electric rate hike worth nearly $150 million.

Alliant’s Interstate Power and Light subsidiary says it needs the increase mainly to cover rising transmission costs, new investments in wind energy and environmental controls at its Lansing power plant. The hearing started Monday and is expected to last through Thursday.

Interstate Power and Light president Tom Aller appeared before the board Monday, taking questions from representatives for the board and for the Iowa Office of Consumer Advocate.

Aller was asked why the utility allowed a wind turbine project to go over cost estimates.

“I felt we could justify spending the additional funds to complete the project, which meant a $100 million direct benefit for our customers,” Aller said.

Alliant’s latest rate increase request comes after Iowa state regulators finalized a 7 percent rate increase in January.

The utility has presented its own plan that it says will minimize the increase’s effect over the first few years. Alliant wants permission to use money from regulatory reserve accounts.

But Alliant faces opposition. The consumer advocate office has asked the utilities board to deny the increase and instead order Alliant to reduce electric rates by $1.8 million.

The board isn’t expected to rule on the rate increase request until January.

 THIRD STORY:

PROPERTIES 'VIRTUALLY UNMARKETABLE'

SOURCE: Casper Journal, www.casperjournal.com

September 21 2010

by Greg Fladager,

A survey by a local realtor may have confirmed the worst suspicions of Stan Mundy, whose home is closest to Chevron’s wind farm northeast of Casper.

Glen Taylor, of Equity Brokers in Casper, did a real estate survey Sept. 10, 2010, and concluded properties directly adjacent to the Chevron Wind Towers are now “virtually unmarketable” at “any realistic price.”

In his report, Taylor said no residential properties have sold in his three-road survey area since October 2009, and 10 are presently on the market (five that were listed in the past two years didn’t sell).

Taylor wrote, “No reasonable buyer would choose a property close to the wind towers over a property that isn’t close to wind towers unless the price is so low that the investment would be a no brainer.”

Taylor said in his report that rural property close to town is usually in good demand, and noted he’s the agent for one parcel in the area. He has had over 50 inquiries on his listing in about two months, but 40 dropped interest after learning about the location.

“In follow-up with the inquiries, the number one reason for not having genuine interest in this property is because of the proximity of the wind towers,” Taylor wrote in his report.

Taylor did the survey at the request of Natrona County State Representative Mike Gilmore. Gilmore is a long-time friend of Mundy’s, and had asked Taylor for assistance after hearing about Mundy’s property situation.

“Some people are saying Stan’s just a nut, and he needs to get over it,” Gilmore said about Mundy’s dispute with the county. “But his issue had some merit, and I felt he might need a little ammunition … he’s not asking for money or anything from the company, he just didn’t want those towers, like 800 feet from his house. He has a legitimate complaint.”

Noting that the towers are on Chevron’s property, Gilmore said, “ … I’m a real private property rights advocate, so much so I fought against the Highway Department’s wanting to condemn land for snow fences. But the wind is different. It’s unique, it’s big, it’s this massive structure you’ve got to look through to see the mountain.”

Gilmore said wind energy needed to be developed in Wyoming, and that energy companies have jumped into it now because of generous tax breaks. He then added, “ … but the jobs really didn’t materialize, and the taxes aren’t coming along either … we’ve devalued our own property.

“It’s something in this next session that maybe we need to look into,” he said.

Mundy, meanwhile, said he’s looking into several options in his ongoing battle with the county.

He missed his property tax protest hearing before the County Board of Equalization (composed of three county commissioners) when they denied his request to change the date. Mundy told them he would be away attending his daughter’s graduation from Army boot camp in South Carolina.

The discussion by the commissioners on changing the hearing date included in Commissioner Barb Peryam calling Mundy a “son of a bitch” and threatening to “sic planning and zoning and code enforcement” on him. The commissioners turned down Mundy’s request to reschedule, noting the cost of paying for another official hearing reporter.

“She’s apologized to the other commissioners,” Mundy said of Peryam’s comments, “but she hasn’t apologized to me.

“I had called, before this all transpired, to the State Board of Equalization to see if they would hear my tax appeal because I didn’t think I could get a fair shake with our commission … because Rob Hendry is going to profit from wind industry, just like my property value is going to go down because of the wind industry,” Mundy said. “I was told the county would have to certify it, and I would have to go through the county to get to state level. I said to heck with it.”

After his hearing date change was denied, he wrote a letter to Gov. Dave Freudenthal protesting the situation. A few days ago he received a reply from an aide to the governor, who said they were aware of the events that had transpired, and again told him that legally his property tax protest must begin at the county level.

The letter also stated, however, that, “Your issue with siting was one of the primary drivers for establishing the minimum state setbacks that were passed during the 2010 Wyoming legislative session. The governor’s office is well aware that the legislation doesn’t help you. However, your advocacy has helped others in similar circumstances.”

Mundy says he’s not certain now whether he can, or will, request another hearing before the County Board of Equalization.

“I still don’t think I can get a fair hearing,” he said.



WINDFALL IN NEW YORK

SOURCE: The New York Times, nytimes.com

September 20 2010

By Stanley Fish,

A few years back, a column I wrote recounting a successful effort by an alliance of citizens to beat back wind-turbine interests in Andes, N.Y., provoked a massively negative response.

I was accused (a) of elevating the views I enjoyed from the windows of my second home above the interests of the society in encouraging green energy, (b) of displaying the usual latecomer’s indifference to the needs of the locals who had been living in Andes forever and (c) of not knowing what I was talking about when I described the construction (massively disruptive), effects (awful on land, animals and people), contribution to the grid (minimal) and financing (tax credits and accelerated depreciation rates) of the 400-foot-high towers with a 52-foot circumference base and blades 130 feet wide whooshing through the air at 178 m.p.h.

At the time of that earlier column, Meredith, another small town in Delaware County, seemed to be going in the other direction; the prediction was that the wind companies would succeed there.

But it didn’t turn out that way, and a new film by Laura Israel that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 10 tells the story of what happened. The film is called “Windfall,” a pun on the fate of the wind project (it fell) and on the initial hope of some of Meredith’s residents that unanticipated revenue had fallen into their laps along with the opportunity to do the right environmental thing.

As the film opens, opponents of the turbines are recalling their early enthusiasm: “I saw one and it was beautiful.” “We felt we were helping the world.” But when a farmer signed an agreement and a test tower was erected on his land, a neighbor looked out the window and said to himself, “What’s that?”

Alarmed, he began to do research and spread what he took to be the bad news. One couple had gotten on board almost immediately, but then the wife went to look at a turbine and was horrified by the sounds it made. “Not that they were so loud; it was the idea that it was forever, for 25 or 28 years, for the rest of my life.” They got out of the contract, wrote a letter to their neighbors and became warriors in the wind wars.

The battle was fought politically in response to the tactics the wind energy companies always employ. First a few large landowners, usually farmers who have been in the area forever, are approached about signing up.

At the same time, town supervisors and members of the town planning board, who are often landowners themselves, are targeted. Those who are approached are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from telling their neighbors what is going on.

The result is that when the news does get out, an aura of inevitability has already been established; the feeling is “this is so big and so far advanced that there’s nothing we can do.”

Another result is the splitting of the town into two factions; the long-time “locals” and the “downstaters” or “outsiders” or “latecomers” (you’re a latecomer of you’ve lived there 20 years) who more often than not have the numbers but are weak politically because they are registered to vote in another state.

Former friends and once-friendly neighbors no longer talk to each other. Nasty signs and even nastier words pop up everywhere.

That’s just what the wind-energy forces planned. They look for relatively poor areas that display the desired population demographic — farmers with large landholdings and newcomers with large incomes — and then they pit the two constituencies against each other.

You get more than a hint of the strategy in a presentation made at at least one meeting sponsored by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The attendees were alerted to the nature of the enemy by an overhead depicting an armored man on a horse rushing forward with his lance pointed at a windmill. The caption read “When Don Quixote Attacks.”

The identification of the wind-turbine opponents with Cervantes’s unhinged hero made the point that they are (a) crazy), (b) delusional and (c) doomed to fail.

The next overhead was more analytic; it characterized the deranged tilters-at-windmills as “often affluent” and “politically sophisticated.”

The message is clear: Do you want those uppity types from the city telling you what you can do with land that has been in your family for generations?

So the wind interests inflict a triple injury — on the landscape, on the quality of life and on the social fabric of the community — and then, after a while, they depart, leaving behind what one resident of a turbine-infested town called a “giant junk yard.” (Yes, I know about decommissioning promises and bonds, but if you think the developers won’t devise several escape hatches when the time comes, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.)

All of this was avoided in Meredith when the “uppity types” organized, campaigned, had meetings, held rallies and turned the town officers out by a substantial margin. Happy ending, at least from the perspective of those who feared they would have to leave the rural paradise they prized so much.

Of course not everyone is mobile enough to be able to leave; and had the wind hucksters succeeded, many would have been in the position of the residents of another New York small town, Tug Hill, where an initial proposal of 50 turbines ballooned into 200.

“Windfall” devotes 20 chilling minutes to Tug Hill. Filmmaker Laura Israel took her cameras there thinking that perhaps the reality would not bear out the Meredith naysayers’ fears. But, she reports, it did: “When you look out the window in the Flat Rock Inn, you see turbines; when you look in the rear view window of your car, you see turbines; when you look at a reflection in a puddle, you see turbines; when I closed my eyes to go to sleep I saw turbines spinning; they did start to take on the characteristics of the creatures from ‘War of the Worlds.’”

A native of the town (“I’ve been here my whole life”) stands in front of his property and asks the camera, “Would you consider retiring in my home?”

This man’s plaintive plea gives a new meaning to the acronym NIMBY (not in my back yard). When innumerable posters hurled the phrase at me in response to my earlier column, they were using it metaphorically.

But for this poor guy (and all his neighbors), the phrase is quite literal. These towering monsters are in their back yards, and in their front yards, and in their lines of vision and hearing no matter where they happen to be.

So the question is, why should they say yes to the destruction of everything they value about their way of life? Why should they submit to being beaten over the head with a moral club — “you are just selfish elitists” —that has behind it almost nothing at all?

There’s no benefit to the individual, who often ends up paying higher energy bills; little benefit to the town besides (sometimes) an initial cash payment; a questionable benefit to the grid, especially when you calculate the energy costs of installing these behemoths and the necessity of fallback energy when the wind doesn’t blow; but lots of benefits to the developers who are described by voices in the film as carpetbaggers, pod people and traveling salesman for whom the only green that counts is the color of money.

We all choose where to live (if we have the luxury of choice) for reasons that mean something to us. Are those reasons — rehearsed again and again by the citizens of Meredith and Tug Hill — negligible and dismissible? Do they count as nothing before the rhetoric of global warming (a real danger, but not one that’s going to be kept at bay by ruining small towns in Delaware County) and the naked greed of the large companies that put these things up? For the residents of the town of Cape Vincent, N.Y., these questions may be moot; just last week members of their town board and planning board — several of whom had lease agreements with the wind companies — gave the go-ahead to a turbine project despite considerable opposition (the estimate I’ve heard is by a ratio of 4-1) from property owners.

The state attorney general’s office is investigating the possibility of a conflict of interest (do you think?) and so the battle may not be over.

Meanwhile, another battle, even larger, is being waged around the practice of “fracking,” the extraction of natural gas by the high-pressure pumping of chemical-laden fluids into rock formations.

Rather than going up, as turbines do, fracking goes down, so the blight is, at least apparently, less visible. But the environmental worries are even greater, for there is evidence — especially in Pennsylvania where a well-blowout (sound familiar?) has led to the suspension by the state of the drilling projects of one company — that there is significant danger of water contamination and seismic activity.

The industry of course denies these dangers and argues that a link between fracking and the pollution of ground water in Pennsylvania and Colorado is unproven. (Tobacco scientists, anyone?) Incidentally, the gas drillers decline to reveal the specific contents of the fluids used in the process. Not a confidence-inducer.

Like the turbine salesmen, the frackers work by stealth and turn communities into opposing camps engaged in class warfare, and they are now out in force in Delaware County, even as the turbine wars recede into history.

On Sept. 8 in Delhi, the county seat, just down the road from Meredith, 340 people — a large number in these parts — rallied in the rain, carried signs and spoke against “multinational companies willing to poison us for profit” and against the Delaware County Board of Supervisors, which, they say, voted in favor of the gas industry without giving the other side a hearing. A seven-minute video captured their protest and an award-winning documentary, “Gasland,” provides the details (such as tap water ignited by a match) of what is happening nationally in a narrative the industry vigorously rebuts.

Maybe the next step will be a Hollywood treatment in the tradition of “Erin Brockovich,” “A Civil Affair” and “The Insider.” Unfortunately, however, these movies are stories of heroes who bring dangers to light after they have materialized. The damage has already been done and many people end up living with it.

There is a David and Goliath aspect to these battles between heavily funded corporate interests and citizen activists who come out and stand in the rain with home-made signs. Will the NIMBY’s — a designation one should wear with pride — really be able to do something, as they did in Meredith, or will the forces of darkness masking as environmental crusaders prevail? Tune in.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:

The Documentary, Windfall, includes footage and photographs taken by Wisconsin wind project residents Gerry Meyer and Larry Wunsch, of Fond Du Lac County, along with photos by Jim Bembinster and Lynda Barry, both of Rock County.

WIND TURBINES IN THE NEWS:

EXCERPT FROM: HUNDREDS HEAR WIND WARNINGS

SOURCE: Lakeshore Advance, www.lakeshoreadvance.com

September 20, 2010

BY CHERYL HEATH

First to take to the podium was Dr. Robert McMurtry, a former Dean of Medicine of the University of Western Ontario, who has been an outspoken proponent of an epidemiological study being conducted before large-scale industrial turbine projects are allowed to move forward.

Indeed, McMurtry, whose home County of Prince Edward is being developed for wind projects, says the Province of Ontario is not following the rule of its own “precautionary principle” of “do no harm” by allowing these projects to move forward.

McMurtry’s journey with wind farms began in January 2008, when he first heard of a project slated for his home territory. He decided to embark on some research after being told the turbine projects were positive because they provide ‘green’ energy and are income generators.

“I did some research and became concerned,” he says. “The concern led to alarm.”

McMurtry then found out about health problems wind farm area residents were having as a result of Low Frequency Noise. The claim could not be easily dismissed, notes McMurtry, because, “so many around the world have described it as a problem.”

McMurtry made a formal deputation to Prince Edward County Council about the adverse health affects associated with wind farms.

To McMurtry’s surprise, the Ontario Government denied the LFN claim, though his home county passed a resolution requesting the government undertake a health study before allowing wind developments.

In August 2009, McMurty made a presentation to a government standing committee on good governance with regard to the Green Energy Act, where LFN was highlighted as a concern. His report included statistics showing 53 Ontarians were already reporting adverse health affects from wind farms.

“I asked them to do the health studies again,” he says. “Once again, it was a matter of waiting, delay and denial.”

McMurtry says that, so far, the province’s only concession to health concerns is the appointment of a commissioner who has five years to review reports. The problem, say McMurtry, is the study should be conducted before large-scale wind projects are erected.

FULL STORY....

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EXCERPT FROM: IBERDROLA LISTS WIND CONFLICTS

SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times, www.watertowndailytimes.com

September 21 2010

By Steve Virkler,

Eleven current or past officials are listed as benefiting from the 195-turbine Maple Ridge Wind Farm, which was built primarily in 2005 in the towns of Martinsburg, Harrisburg and Lowville. Of those, six may have had voting influence on the project. They include:

■ Stephen N. Bernat, who has served as Harrisburg town supervisor from 1990 to 2003 and from 2008 to the present, has an agreement worth $1 million or more.

■ William J. Burke, a long-time member of the Lowville Zoning Board of Appeals and Lowville Academy and Central School District Board and Lewis County legislator since 2008, has agreements worth $1 million or more. Mr. Burke and some of his family members are also employed by Iberdrola Renewables, and he has in recent years abstained or recused himself from voting on wind matters.

■ Paul Widrick, who was on the Harrisburg Zoning Board of Appeals in 2004 and 2009, has an agreement worth $1 million or more.

■ Edward Yancey, who was on the Harrisburg Zoning Board of Appeals from 2004 through 2008, has a financial interest through the Yancey Family Trust of $1 million or more.

■ Robert Delaplain, who was on the Harrisburg Planning Board from 2001 through 2005, has a financial interest of $1 million or more.

■ Loren D. Lyndaker, who was on the Harrisburg Planning Board from 2002 through 2006 and a member of the Town Council since 2007, has a neighbor agreement worth $20,000 to $60,000.

The methodology used in Iberdrola’s calculations for Maple Ridge — including length of leases and whether extension options were figured in — was not immediately available Monday afternoon, according to a company spokesman.

FULL STORY....

ON THE RADIO: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Source: Wisconsin Public Radio, The Joy Cardin Show

Current rules allow wind turbines to be too close to houses, according to Joy Cardin’s guest, after six. He hopes lawmakers will take a closer look and give more breathing room for neighbors of wind farms. Guest: Doug Zweizig, co-chair, Wind siting Council, Wisconsin Public Service Commission

TO LISTEN:



Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: The story below outlines a problem that comes with wind development everywhere, including Wisconsin, where wind projects have been approved and permitted by members of local government who stood to gain financially from the project or had family members who would.

Although some members of the Wind Siting Council saw the conflict of interest issue  as a problem that should be directly addressed in the wind siting rules, the majority of the council-- most of whom happen to have a direct or indirect financial interest in the outcome of the rules-- decided against including it.

Records show area officials profit

from leases with turbine firms

SOURCE: Observer-Dispatch, www.uticaod.com

September 18,2010

By JENNIFER BOGDAN,

Twelve public officials who sat on county and town boards in Lewis County stand to make a combined $7.5 million from the region’s largest wind-turbine project, government disclosure forms show.

And numerous other officials in Herkimer County stand to profit as well from new projects there, although not to the same extent, records show.

The lease arrangements have raised questions among local residents and good-government experts about potential conflicts of interest as wind-turbine farms are approved.

One person who feels that way is Gordon Yancey of the town of Lowville, who used to have a clear view of the Adirondacks stretching as far as the eye could see from his property on the edge of the Tug Hill plateau.

But in 2006, the sprawling Lewis County landscape became home to the Maple Ridge wind farm – a group of 195 wind turbines towering 400 feet high over the once undeveloped landscape in Lowville, Martinsburg and Harrisburg. Those communities are located along state Route 12 about one hour north of Utica.

Now, Yancey said all he sees are the massive white towers obstructing his view. He blames lease agreements between wind developers and public officials, one of whom is his brother, Edward Yancey, who sat on the Harrisburg Zoning Board of Appeals.

Edward Yancey stands to benefit to the tune of up to $1 million over the lifetime of the agreement, according to disclosure forms filed with the state by Iberdrola Renewables and Horizon Wind Energy, which co-own the project.

“They made their sweetheart, backdoor deals long before anything was made public,” Gordon Yancey said. “Of course, the boards pushed everything through.”

Edward Yancey could not be reached.

Disclose or face fine

A 2008 mandate from the state Attorney General’s Office requires wind companies to disclose the nature and scope of any municipal officer’s financial interest in a wind project or risk facing fines of as much as $100,000.

No companies have been penalized to date, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

“In order to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, we publically disclose any relationship with a municipal officer or their relative,” Iberdrola spokesman Paul Copleman said.

Lise Bang-Jensen, senior policy analyst for the Empire Center for New York State Policy, said any move towards increased government transparency is admirable, but making sense of conflicts is more complex than writing them down.

“If you have a role on both sides of a project, that’s a clear conflict of interest,” Bang-Jensen said. “Putting it on a piece of paper and disclosing it, doesn’t make it legal.”

Many of the officials listed on the disclosure forms – including Harrisburg Town Supervisor Stephen Bernet, who stands to make $1 million – did not return calls last week.

One of those listed on the disclosure forms is Roger Grace, a Planning Board member in Pinckney. Maple Ridge wind farm spreads across Lowville, Harrisburg and Martinsburg, but Grace, who stands to make as much as $20,000 from the project, still is required to disclose his role in a neighboring town.

He said his role isn’t a concern, and he believes those involved have acted appropriately.

“I think everyone’s done a phenomenal job,” Grace said. “It’s always a battle, though. People that got money love them, and people that didn’t get money hate them. That’s all.”

‘Not acting objectively’

The issue of lease agreements between public officials and wind developers is burgeoning in Herkimer County, where the Hardscrabble wind farm is slowly rising.

The Herkimer County towns of Fairfield and Norway will soon be home to 37 turbines – seven of which are already standing.

In that project, five officials stand to make as much as $85,000 from the turbines that are expected to be up and running by the end of the year.

“For any municipal officers or their relatives with whom we have a relationship, we specifically request that the officers recuse themselves from a decision or vote that would in any way affect the development of a project or affect how the municipality treats wind power,” said Copleman, the Iberdrola spokesman.

Yet six years ago, when the Hardscrabble project was nothing more than a vague concept, questions arose as to why Fairfield Planning Board member Harold Robinson was voting on wind issues while he had an agreement with the wind company aiming to come to town, according to O-D archives.

“The Town Board is not acting objectively,” Fairfield Planning Board Chairman Peter Fishbein complained in 2004. “The board needs to acknowledge there are people who are worried about this and at least hear their concerns.”

Robinson, who stands to make as much as $20,000 from a lease agreement, did not return calls last week.

‘Won’t like the looks of things’

Other wind projects are brewing across the Mohawk Valley, including a plan from NorthWind and Power to build a farm of eight to 12 turbines on Dry Hill in Litchfield.

In that development, some residents have questioned the role played in the process by Litchfield Supervisor Wayne Casler, He is a regional controller at Barrett Paving Materials, which owns more than 100 acres of land on the southern end of Dry Hill.

Wind developers have said the paving company’s land won’t be considered, but the company could be chosen to supply materials for the project if it’s approved.

From time to time in Lowville, Gordon Yancey hears rumblings of other wind farm in the works – like the one in Litchfield.

Each time, he said, he thinks back to the days before his business was surrounded by turbines. Oftentimes, the curious come knocking on his door to ask what his experience was like years before.

“What I tell people is ‘Educate yourselves because you can’t trust where anywhere else is coming from,’” Yancey said. “Ask every question you can. And when you do, you won’t like the looks of things either.”