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Updated
September 16, 2006
Change In The Air
Town ponders effects of proposed turbines
By Lee Coleman
Gazette Reporter for the sunday Gazette
Sept. 10, 2006 Section C1Will residents want as many as 40 nearly 400-foot-high electricity-generating wind turbines on a mountain ridge in Gireenfield?
This is one of the questions town officials are asking as plans for a wind farm on 2,500 acres in the northwestern part of the town are discussed.
Airtricity, an Irish company with U.S. headquarters in Chicago, unveiled plans for the wind farm this spring.
Company officials stress that the process of creating such a source of renewable electric energy is a long one, and Airtricity is just in the exploratory stages.
"I saw some of these things at the Port of Albany," town Supervisor Albert Janik said of the turbines. "These things are unbelievably large." The wind turbines were being shipped through the port to another destination.
Airtricity officials say the turbine tower is 240 feet high with a three-winged rotor extending another L50 feet i4 the air, for a total height of 390 feet.
Janik said such a project would be "brand new to the town."
"There is nothing in the zoning code about it," he said. "It's renewable energy, so it's hard to oppose them."
The proposed site is on the Kayaderosseras mountain range and "well off the ridge line," Janik said. "It's up over the ridge and set back far enough from the ridge" so that the enormous turbines and rotors would be hard to see from the Route 9N corridor, he said.
When Airtricity made its public presentation on Airtricity's plans in April the approximately 50 residents attending the meeting had lots of questions. One of the main ones was whether people would be able to see or hear the turbines from their homes./
Janik said the Town Board wants to hear what residents think about the wind farm concept.
Airtricity has an option on 2,500 acres of wooded land currently owned by the paper-making company Finch Pruyn & Co. Inc. of Glens Falls.
The Town Board amended town zoning regulations in June, allowing temporary data collection towers to be located in two of the town's most rural zones.
This will allow Airtricity to erect a 60-meter tall (about 190 feet) test tower on the proposed site.
Town officials stressed when the zoning law was amended that providing for the test towers was in no way endorsing the wind farm project itself.
Doug Colbeck, Airtricity's new vice president for the Northeast Region, said the company needs at least one year of wind test data to show financial institutions. The wind feasibility study shows the bankers that the multi-million dollar project would have adequate wind to turn the turbines and generate electricity.
The wind study also provides the company with information on where the wind turbines should be placed, Colbeck said.
"You correlate a year of data (from the test tower) and compare it with wind information, long--term data" from other locations in the region, such as a local airport, Colbeck said.
Each turbine and rotor assembly costs about $2 million, the company says.
The Greenfield proposal is for the wind farm to generate between 50 megawatts'and 80 megawatts of electricity.
Each wind turbine would generate between 1.5 megawatts and two megawatts of electricity. One megawatt of electricity can provide electricity to 500 households, according to Airtricity.
Thomas Siragusa, a town Planning Board member and a member of Greenfield Concerned Citizens, said the planning board is reviewing Airtricity's application for the test tower.
Company engineers want to have the temporary tower located on the mountain ridge for more than 12 months but less than 24 months.
"They have to come back with additional plans for road grading," Siragusa said about Airtricity. The company would like to erect the tower this fall.
"It looks generally straightforward," Siragusa said about the tower plan. "I don't foresee any issues."
The Greenfield Concerned Citizens, a group of residents who were strongly opposed to new strip mining proposals in the town several years ago, has not taken a position on the wind farm proposal.
"I've heard more positive comments [than negative ones]," Siragusa said. He said many people feel creating renewable, clean energy, rather than relying on foreign oil, is the "direction we should go."
Siragusa lives on Plank Road. One of the access points to the wind farm site is the old Plank Road jeep trail off Lake Desolation Road.
He said the location is quite remote."The [mountain] ridge levels off at 1,900 feet," Siragusa said. He said the closer the wind farm is located to the so-called "blue line" that marks the start of the Adirondack Park, the less the turbines would be visible from populated areas of the town.
Last year there were 280 wind turbines in operation in New York state, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Another 100 turbines were being planned for 2006 in the state, including 55 turbines at the Maple Ridge Wind Farm near Lowville southeast of Watertown. None of these projects were developed by Airtricity.
In July, Airtricity Inc., the North American affiliate of Dublin, Ireland-based Airtricity Holdings Limited, announced that it intends to build wind farm projects in the United States in 2007 "with an aggregate expected capacity of up to 400 megawatts."
The company is completing construction on two wind farm projects in Texas, its first in the United States. Airtricity has lined up $500 million in financing for the United States wind farm projects.
MAJOR ROLE
"The continued and irreversible depletion of fossil fuel stocks regardless of any prospects for nuclear energy, means that renewable sources such as wind are certain to play a major role in the future energy strategy of the U.S. and other major economies around the world," said Eddie O'Connor, Airtricity's chief executive, in a prepared statement.
Airtricity has operating wind farms in Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. The company describes itself as "the world's leading renewable energy company, developing and operating wind farms."
The company is both a generator and supplier of green electricity and currently supplies green electricity to over 45,000 commercial customers in Ireland. Founded in 1999 Airtricity employs more than 200 people in its offices in Ireland, Scotland, England and the United States.
Reach Gazette reporter Lee Coleman at 587-1780 or at Icoleman@dailygazette.net
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