Yates County town denies wind farm application
In what may have been a first for New York state, the Italy Town Board voted last night to deny an application from a company that wanted to build an 18-turbine wind farm in the picturesque Yates County town.
“We’re all very pleased, and surprised. All of us who have been fighting for so long — our jaws were on the floor. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing from our town board,” said Kathy Johnstone, a town resident and a vice president of the Finger Lakes Preservation Association, which opposes the project.
Two lawyers and an engineering consultant working for the town said they were not aware of any other town board in the state that has rejected outright a wind-farm application.
Board members in Italy voted 5-0 to deny the application by Ecogen LLC, which lists an address in suburban Buffalo. For at least the last five years, the company has sought permission to build a total of 34 turbines in the area — 18 in Italy and 16 in the neighboring town of Prattsburgh, Steuben County.
The turbines would be 415 feet tall, equal in height to those erected by another company in the adjoining town of Cohocton, Steuben County.
The Italy panel also voted to establish a six-month moratorium on accepting any new applications for wind-energy projects, town clerk Debbie Trischler said.
“I represent the residents of the town, and they are telling me they don’t want these. That’s what I have to listen to,” Town Supervisor Margaret Dunn said this afternoon. She added there also were concerns, such as noise from the turbines, that weren’t resolved in the application process.
Public opposition had been strong in the town, and the wind farm had been made a campaign issue in the November town election. Several hundred people packed a Saturday morning public hearing in the town highway barn several weeks ago, and Johnstone said 80 percent of them were against the plan.
Beth O’Brien, a spokeswoman for Ecogen’s partner in the project, Pattern Energy Group, said the firm was “extremely disappointed and was “weighing its options.”
Ecogen would build the turbines and then turn over ownership to Pattern, which is based in San Francisco. Pattern was formed from the North American operations of Ecogen’s original partner on the project, Australia-based Babcock & Brown, which has filed for bankruptcy protection.
