Honorable Jeffrey C. Cohen
March 14,2013
Acting Secretary, NYS Board of
Electric Power
Generation Siting and Environment
Three Empire State Plaza
Albany, New York 12223-1350
Re: Case 12-F-0410 Cape Vincent
Wind Power, LLC
Dear Secretary Cohen:
The Town Boards of Cape Vincent
and Lyme and the Planning Board of Cape Vincent met with
BP on January 22, 2013. Several
letters have been sent to you, by the Town of Cape Vincent, on
the items addressed and more
pointedly, not addressed, during that meeting. Many of the critical
items have gone unanswered by BP
until last week. One should keep in mind that our requests
were for the most recent
information so that we could start to look into those items which will
undoubtedly be necessary to
address during the PSS and Application phases of BP's Article 10
efforts.
John Harris, BP's attorney,
finally sent a letter (March 7. 2013) to the Towns of Cape Vincent
and Lyme, in which he addressed
some of the items discussed at the January 22nd meeting. Two
of Mr. Harris's responses demand
immediate comment.
Para
1: A copy of a large scale map of the Cape Vincent - The map that BP is using
for
their
"official" project map of the Cape Vincent Wind Farm Project is
significantly out of
date.
Many of the road names are incorrect. Several major complexes within the Town,
such
as the Correctional Facility and the Thousand Island High/Middle School
Complex,
are
not even shown on the map. While it is difficult to determine the exact year
this
"Official
Map" was created, based on the 1972 opening of the Thousand Island
High/Middle
School Complex, the map is at least 40 years out of date.
How
can BP know the correct parcel boundaries, determine the interaction with
neighboring parcels on
a map that is at least 40 years out of date? To this point, BP
should
provide a tax parcel overlay to its turbine array map. This overlay should
indicate
all
leaseholders and those residents who have 'good neighbor agreements.' BP is not
conducting
an outreach campaign; this is a campaign of maintaining corporate privilege
and
exclusivity. Once again, we have another glaring example of BP not being
forthcoming
in its dealings with our Town's citizens and governing boards.
Para
2: During the January meeting Mr. Harris scrolled though his phone flipping
through
sections of our law BP found objectionable and which they intend to ask the
Siting
Board to "supplant". At the time it was impossible for us to make
notes of the
sections
he was describing and we requested that Harris provide us with a printed
listing,
which
should have been an easy request to satisfy. However, to date we have received
nothing
and the comment in his March 7th letter was "we are still working on to
finalize
this
list. We expect to be able to provide the list very shortly and in any event
will
certainly
include the list in our Preliminary Scoping Statement." Failure to
provide what
BP
stated it would provide on a critical issue only compounds a problem that,
unfortunately
for us, began on September 17, 2012, the first day BP submitted their
Public
Involvement Plan.
Para
3: Mr. Harris notes they were requested to update their distribution list to "
... reflect
new
members oj the Town Board as well as individuals no longer serving and confirm
that
we have done so." New Town Council representative Michelle Oswald,
however, is
still
absent from the list - she did not receive a personal addressed letter, which
was
provided
to other members of Cape Vincent Boards.
Para
4: BP was made aware on January 22 that a few families were situated within the
Environmental
Justice "Impact Study Area" and that it would be best if these
families
received
some specially addressed notification. Rather than contact this small group,
BP's
response was, "After further research into this issue, we do not
believe we will be
impacting
any environmental justice communities and will provide more detail on this
topic
in the Preliminary Scoping Statement." Rather than finding a rationale
to ignore
this
group of people, we feel that BP should have addressed these families directly
perhaps
through simple, inexpensive mailing of educational materials to the few
families
residing
within the impact area.
Now that we are nearing the end
of the Public Participation phase of Article 10 it is obvious to us
that BP not only has little
respect for our Town, its plan and its law, but BP also has shown no
cooperation or courtesy in the
Article 10 process. This is incompatible with BP's stated
Corporate Code of Conduct in
dealing with governments: "Co-operate courteously with officials
conducting a
government or regulatory agency inquiry or investigation. "
Therefore, once again
we are asking the Siting Board to
enforce the intent and letter of the Article 10 process. At every
step to date BP has appeared
willing to flaunt the transparency that the authors of Article 10
claimed it would bring to the process.
Respectfully yours,
Urban Hirschey-Town Supervisor
Brooks Bragdon - Deputy
Supervisor
John Byrne - Town Council
Clifford Schneider - Town Council
Michelle Oswald - Town Council
We the
undersigned appointed officials from the Town of Cape Vincent endorse and
fully support
this Town Board letter to the Public Service Commission regarding the
Article 10
application for the Cape Vincent Wind Power project proposal
Richard Macsherry - Planning
Board Chairman
Robert Brown - Planning Board
Cyril Cullen - Planning Board
Paul Docteur - Planning Board
R. Dennis Faulknham - Zoning
Board of Appeals Charman
Ed Hludzenski - Zoning Board of
Appeals
Keith Walker - Zoning Board of
Appeals
Hester Chase - Zoning Board of
Appeals
James Millington - Zoning Enforcement Officer
No comments:
Post a Comment