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 Editorials June 29, 2007 |
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 What Can Be Done Must Be Done
To Block Jordanville Wind Farm Let's agree that 68 wind turbines, each 400 feet tall, don't belong along The Mall in Washington, D.C. Or in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Or amid the Moais and Ahus, windy as it may be on Easter Island. Or on the ridges around James Fenimore Cooper's Glimmerglass. Some ideas are so bad as to not even merit discussion. And yet here we are. The Warren and Stark town boards, after a year of shadow-boxing through the State Environmental Quality Review Act process, have issued special-use permits to allow 68 wind turbines, each 400 feet tall, to rise in clear view of Cooper's internationally beloved lake. At all levels, Community Energy's Jordanville Wind Farm is such a bad idea. How did things get this far? For one thing, the lengthy, ponderous SEQR-Environmental Impact Statement process is simply sound and fury. Its central concept, "mitigation," is nonsense. Here's one example: Two turbines were planned in close proximity to Holy Trinity Monastery, the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church overseas. The final EIS states one of the turbines has been moved back, "mitigating" the impact 50 percent. In other words, let's just put 34 turbines on The Mall. The folks at Community Energy must have gotten a lot of chuckles out of that one. Second, Big Environment the Natural Resource Council and the like has shifted focus from protecting the snail darter at the expense of hydropower to sacrificing golden eagles on the altar of windpower, anywhere, anyhow. In both cases, True Believers, with all the attendant dangers. State Environmental Commissioner Pete Grannis has been quoted equating all wind-power opponents and NIMBY. Pete, when the St. Peter's FEIS "mitigates" that Vatican project, tell that to the Pope. Third, Big Money is on the hunt. The Jordanville Wind Project may create little electricity: Those 60,000 homes it's suppose to light drops to 18,000 when you realize wind will only be blowing 30 percent of the time. Then there's the further loss along the 200 miles of circuitous transmission lines to New York City. But it will produce millions, billions in tax credits. Iberdola, the Spanish multi-national that owns Community Energy and just bought Energy East, an umbrella of six regional utilities, including New York State Electric & Gas, knows where the money is. The $300,000 PILOT the towns of Warren and Stark each look forward to getting out of this is pathetic. Individual property owners will be getting a few thousands dollars per tower. ItοΏ½s a mistake of Biblical proportions: their birthright for a mess of pottage, a la Esau. What can be done now? One, we can pray along with the Holy Trinity monks or at least earnestly wish that the town supervisors, Richard Jack of Warren and Richard Bonner of Stark, will see the light and lead their towns out of the darkness. There's also an avenue of legal challenge: so-called Article 78 proceedings. Precedent appears to tilt against challengers. However, anyone who's followed the Warren and Stark proceedings for the past year has to conclude what's happened is indeed "arbitrary and capricious." These fellows made up their minds even before the SEQR process began; they've just been going through the motions. In the early months, they were flying by seat of their pants, although that improved with the hiring of an outside lawyer. At base, though, the town boards never indicated any interest in objectively assessing the pros and cons. The Otsego 2000 board of directors is meeting Tuesday, July 3, to consider its options. In addition to Article 78, the directors no doubt will want to scrutinize the state Public Service Commission licensing process; perhaps there will be opportunity there to stop this mistake from happening. Finally, if democracy is about the greatest good for the greatest number, we should be able to count on our politicians Congressman Arcuri, Senator Seward, County Representatives Iversen, Durkin and McCarty to protect us from a couple of dozen shortsighted landowners and municipal officials who mistakenly see financial salvation by proceeding on this disastrous course. There are plenty of desert places in New York State and around the nation and world where there's wind aplenty. Put turbines there, President Ignacio Galan. Every place is not the same, Pete Grannis. There is an upstate, Governor Spitzer, which you promised to renew, not ruin. What will be their legacy to Glimmerglass? Will it be "a broad sheet of water, so placid and limpid that it resembled a bed of the pure mountain atmosphere, compressed into a setting of hills and woods"? Or, 20 years hence, will it be a littered landscape of 68 abandoned industrial turbines, stumpy and ragged, on the ridges around one of Upstate New York's former crown jewels? | Sports Update | Our Columnists | Obituaries | Editorials | | Jan. 04, 2008 | Local Honor Roll | Pages From The Paper | july 6th 2007 | Hall of Fame Friday | Hall of Fame Saturday | Hall of Fame Sunday | Hall of Fame Monday | July282006 Archive | Aug042006 Archive | Aug112006 Archive | Aug182006 Archive | Sept012006 Archive | Sept082006 Archive | Sept152006 Archive | Sept222006 Archive | Sept292006 Archive | Oct062006 Archive | Oct132006 Archive | Oct202006 Archive | Oct272006 Archive | Nov032006 Archive | Nov172006 Archive | Nov242006 Archive | Dec012006 Archive | Dec082006 Archive | Dec152006 Archive | Dec222006 Archive | Dec292006 Archive | Jan052007 Archive | Jan192007 Archive | Jan262007 Archive | February092007 Archive | February162007 Archive | February232007 Archive | March162007 Archive | March232007 Archive | March302007 Archive | March302007 Archive | April132007 News Archive | Chris Gentile | Obituary | April272007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May252007 Archive | June 22, 2007 | July 13 2007 | Sept05 2007 | Sept 7th 2007 | Aug 31st 2007 | Local Law Parking | October 26, 2007 | Nov. 2 2007 | Nov. 16, 2007 | Glimmerglass Oct 5,2007 | Nov 16., 2007 | November 30 2007 | Nov. 30, 2007 | Dec. 07, 2007 | Dec. 14, 2007 | Dec. 21, 2007 | Dec. 28, 2007 | Jan. 11, 2008 | Jan. 18, 2008 | Jan. 25, 2008 | Feb 1, 2008 | Feb. 8, 2008 | Feb. 22, 2008 | GlimmerGlass Feb. 15, 2008 | Sports Feb. 15, 2008 | Feb.28, 2008 | March 7, 2008 | March 14, 2008 | GlimmerGlass March 14, 2008 | March 21, 2008 | March 28, 2008 | April 4, 2008 | April 11, 2008 | April 18, 2008 | April 25, 2008 | May 9, 2008 | May 2, 2008 | May 23, 2008 | | Our Services | Contact Us | Great Links | Return Home | Classified Ads | News Archive | Cooperstown Homes | Calendar -Best Bets | Letters to the Editor | |
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