PSC authorized wind farm study complete

Brown Co. Shirley farm used as sample site

 Thursday, 03 Jan 2013,

 6:17 PM CST
 

• Bill Miston, FOX 11 News

“The study shows conclusive evidence that Low Frequency Noise is a significant emission from industrial wind turbines – a fact, in general, denied by the wind industry,” said Steven Delaurier, spokesperson for the BCCRWE. “This (Low Frequency Noise) and other conditions around (Duke Energy’s) Shirley Wind project has forced three families from the homes they still own and the PSC has received sworn statements representing more than 50 people around the 8 turbines in Glenmore reporting adverse health effects.”

GREEN BAY – Split opinions about a new study on wind farms and their health effects. It concerns a wind farm project in southeastern Brown County.

 The study authorized by the Public Service Commission centers on the Shirley wind farm in the town of Glenmore. It was conducted by Clean Wisconsin, a clean energy advocacy group, and four independent firms. The groups monitored the wind farm for four days in early December.

Continue reading via this link

Top Wind Utility: Wind Subsidy Benefits Industry, Not Consumers

“It’s our concern that they continue to represent the interests of developers to the exclusion of customers,” O’Donnell said.

~~~~~~~~

Scribe Heitage Investigates 

Lachlan Markay January 4, 2013 at 9:19 am

The biggest wind energy purchaser in the country may sever ties with the industry’s largest trade group in the wake of a bitter fight to sustain subsidies for wind energy producers that, the company says, benefit producers at the expense of utilities and electricity consumers.

Xcel Energy, which had the largest wind energy capacity of any utility in the country in 2011,said it is “ reviewing our relationship” with the American Wind Energy Association, in the words of John O’Donnell, a company lobbyist.

Continue reading via this link 

BP “pleased” with federal wind tax credit extension

BP’s proposed $300 million project, however, is unlikely to begin in time to be eligible for the tax credit unless Congress extends it once more.

By JAEGUN LEE
TIMES STAFF WRITER

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 2013

The extension of the federal wind energy production tax credit will allow developers to move forward with their renewable energy projects, including the proposed Cape Vincent Wind Farm, according to BP Wind Energy.

“We are pleased that Congress passed the common sense extension of the PTC (production tax credit). This will allow wind energy developers to move forward with plans for new projects in 2013, while providing an opportunity to discuss ideas on the proper role of the PTC moving forward,” BP spokeswoman Amanda Abbott said in an email to the Times.

Continue reading via this link 

Wind Industry Secures Tax Credit, But Damage May Be Done

The wind energy industry is dependent on something even more unpredictable than wind: Congress. Hidden in the turmoil over the "fiscal cliff" compromise was a tax credit for wind energy.

Uncertainty over the credit had lingered long before the last-minute political push, causing the industry to put off further long-term planning. So while the now-approved tax credit revives prospects for an industry facing tens of thousands of layoffs, don't expect to see many new turbines coming up soon.

Continue reading via this link 

Study finds 'dangerous levels' of noise from turbines

State legislator calls for end to permitting of wind projects“I am very appreciative of the Public Service Commission’s willingness to investigate the incidence of debilitating low frequency noise,” Jacque said in a statement. “These results compel them to act immediately to keep this nightmare from spreading.”

1:46 PM, Jan 3, 2013 

A Public Service Commission study has found what one Wisconsin lawmaker classifies as “dangerous levels” of wind turbine-generated low frequency noise or infrasound at the Shirley Wind Project.

Rep. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, has called on the Public Service Commission to issue an emergency rule to immediately suspend the permitting process for wind projects.

Continue reading via this link 

Copenhagen Wind Farm developers seeking second test tower

 By STEVE VIRKLER

TIMES STAFF WRITER

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013

DEER RIVER — Developers of the proposed Copenhagen Wind Farm are seeking permission to erect a second test tower in the town of Denmark.

OwnEnergy Inc., Brooklyn, under the auspices of Copenhagen Wind Farm LLC, plans to install a 197-foot-tall meteorological tower on the south side of Roberts Road on a parcel owned by Gene Bolton, Timothy Sullivan, Harold Sullivan and Bruce Stephenson. 

Continue reading via this link

Anti-Wind Lawsuits Stacking Up in Ontario

Another group of Ontario landowners has filed a lawsuit against a wind power project in the escalating legal skirmishing over renewable energy. The latest action – against the East Lake St. Clair wind project near Wallaceburg – is the 10th that his firm is working on, according to lawyer Eric Gillespie, who filed the claim.

Like several previous actions by residents living near wind developments, the suit claims damages from not just the wind developer, International Power Canada. It also seeks damages from seven landowners who have leased out their property for turbines.

Gillespie said his clients are seeking a total of $9 million. “The claim is based on alleged devaluation of property,” Gillespie said in an interview. The claimants are asking to be compensated for up to the full value of their properties, he said.

Gilllespie said some studies have shown that property near wind power developments declines in value by up to 40 per cent.

But he said some landowners near wind projects have found no buyers at all when they try to sell, which is why his clients are asking for the full value of their holdings in compensation.

The East Lake St. Clair project is designed to deliver 99 megawatts of power, using about 55 turbines.
 Continue reading via this link

How corporate tax credits got in the 'cliff' deal

By Tim Carney

Senior Political analyst

The Examiner

The "fiscal cliff" legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren't the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff's edge -- they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week.

The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012, which passed through the Senate Finance Committee in August, was copied and pasted into the fiscal cliff legislation, yielding a victory for biotech companies, wind-turbine-makers, biodiesel producers, film studios -- and their lobbyists. So, if you're wondering how algae subsidies became part of a must-pass package to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, credit the Biotechnology Industry Organization's lobbying last summer

Continue reading via this link

Lobbying blitz to save tax credits for wind energy

The Examiner

Tim Carney:  

Senior political columnist

Washington, DC

December 31, 2012 

The Washington Examiner

An all-star lineup of lobbyists, featuring former congressmen and many of Obama's closest allies, is fighting to save a tax credit for wind energy that expires at midnight Monday.

Congress created the Production Tax Credit in 1992 as a way of supporting the wind power industry until it could be self-sufficient. Twenty years later, the PTC is still subsidizing the likes of General Electric and Siemens and has been expanded to include solar and biomass. Companies get a tax credit of a penny or two for every kilowatt-hour their windmills or solar panels produce in their first 10 years. It's worth $1.4 billion a year to its beneficiaries. 

Continue reading via this link 

Darrel Aubertine Defiantly not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance

Recently I did a post about Darrel Aubertine and the letter he wrote to the Cape Vincent Town Board members, encouraging conflicted board members to vote on wind turbine setback issues. Link here to read the post

 At the same time , I also posted a photo of Darrel Aubertine in the Senate, refusing to stand for the pledge of Allegiance.

This photo brought in a couple of comments disputing that it was actually Darrel Aubertine in the photo. 

(      (1)  I'm as antiwind as they come, but I would bet my neighbors windmill    lease that's not Darrell.

        (2)   The guy circled in the picture doesn't look like darrel aubertine. Maybe it's the way the shot was taken, but I have had three different people look at this pic. None of us think it's him.  

    Just saying... he can be blamed for a lot over the conflicts of interest with the windmill projects, but that's not him. 

      After  I posted the same photo without a circle around Aubertine,   

      a follow-up comment came in.

   ~  Alrighty then..the pic without the circle looks like Darrel. I stand corrected.

     

    As a result of these comments, I have received several emails  disputing my identification of Darrel Aubertine in the photo.   

I    Below is the copy of the  photo in question and a seating chart of the New York State Senate from the time period that Darrel Aubertine was a senator, if you look at the chart ,the person I Identified as Darrel Aubertine is sitting in the seat that is designated as Darrel Aubertine’s.   

There are others in the photo that are clearly recognizable as well.

 Image :Syracuse.com

Link here to original story ~Syracuse-area lawmakers who are seeking re-election played key roles in 2009 Senate coup ~ Syracuse.com

 Chart:NYDaily news

Link here to  view my  source of New York State Senate Seating Chart

“ A Cooperative Measurement Survey and Analysis of Low Frequency Noise

This document is a report submitted to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission regarding Low frequency noise and infrasound at the Shirley Wind Farm in Brown County, Wisconsin.xx The following statement on page 8 of this report highlights the importance of its results.

 "The four investigating firms are of the opinion that enough evidence and hypotheses have been given herein to classify LFN and infrasound as a serious issue, possibly affecting the future of the industry. It should be addressed beyond the present practice of showing that wind turbine levels are magnitudes below the threshold of hearing at low frequencies.

 A Measurement Survey and Analysis of Low Frequency and Infrasound at the Shirley Wind Farm in Brown

Retroactive Wind Welfare?

“Everything in a stopgap package would be geared toward keeping taxes from jumping on the middle class, which is why the AMT (alternative minimum tax) and payroll tax would likely be in but the PTC (production tax credit) wouldn't,” Wu said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  E² Wire
The Hills Energy & Environmental Blog

By Zack Colman -  

An energy security group told The Hill on Friday that it does not expect the one-year wind credit extension it has supported to make it into a “fiscal cliff” deal.

The Truman National Security Project's Operation Free campaign is preparing to fight for a retroactive extension to the credit next Congress.

Link here to continue

Inside Out and Upside Down

  

At the December 20, 2012, Town Board meeting, a citizen made the following statement.

 "I'd like to address an issue, the new zoning laws – – there are problems that the organizers of the committee were not aware of and one of the problems was that the committee was made up primarily of, let me use the word -- outsiders."

Recently, a similar comment was also posted to an editorial by Perry White, on the Watertown Time’s website.  Among other things, this commenter wrote, “The local government more resembles a white, retirement community than an actual functioning town board.” Additionally they added, “The entire wind-related product of this carpetbagger council should be tossed aside.”

Are these comments an attempt to discredit the validity of our zoning law, by promoting a false premise? 

The characterization of the zoning law committee as outsiders is erroneous; every member of the committee that worked to update our zoning law, is a full- time resident of Cape Vincent.

    A certain element in our community, objects to a zoning law that was designed to protect the health, safety and general welfare of our entire community.

Yet, these same people openly accept, without hesitation ,each and every document and study created under the direction of BP , a convicted felon...     

_____________________________

 Zoning Law Committee

Zoning Law Committee

Years in Cape Vincent

Name	Full Time Resident (years)	Full Time + Part Time (years)
Bill Desouza	11	11
Bob Brown	5	58
Butch Cullen	25	35
Clif Schneider	43	49
Debbie Suller	27.5	27.5
Dick Macsherry	5	5
Ed Bender	18	34
Ed Hludzenski	13	13
Kathy Pierce	18	18
Paul Docteur	70	70
Urban Hirschey	12	30
Totals / Avg.	247.5 / 22	350.5 / 31

Years in Cape Vincent

The Multiple Distortions of Wind Subsidies

Producers get so much from the government that they can pay utilities to take their power and still make a profit.

By PHIL GRAMM

Federal subsidies for new wind-power generation will end on Dec. 31 unless they are renewed by Congress. For the sake of our economy and the smooth operation of the energy market, Congress should let the subsidies lapse. They waste taxpayer money, subvert the allocation of capital, and generate a social cost many times the price tag of the subsides themselves.

Since 1992, the federal government has expended almost $24 billion to encourage investment in wind power through direct spending, tax breaks, R&D, loan guarantees and other federal support of electric power. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that a one-year extension of existing federal subsidies for wind power would cost taxpayers almost $12 billion.

Continue reading via this link to the Wall Street Journal

Attorney Todd Mathis Editor in Chief for Acciona's SDEIS

 Todd Mathis

  The Cape Vincent Planning Board's attorney,Todd Mathis  formerly of (Whiteman Osterman & Hanna) denied a freedom of information Law (“FOIL”) request submitted on behalf of Town residents for a copy of comments made By Mr. Tocci, sound consultant hired by Cape Vincent’s Planning Board.Consequently, the community had been unable to examine the full extent of Mr. Tocci's concerns over the sound study conducted by Hessler and Associates, for Acciona’s St. Lawrence wind project.
This denial was in violation of New York’s Freedom of Information Law.
The eventual release of the engineering documents revealed that Hessler ‘s sound study, prepared for Acciona and BP , underestimated noise from the proposed turbines, inadequately addressed noise mitigation , and exceeded the noise threshold contained in the towns noise “guidelines” (established in the original draft wind law ), which Acciona had previously agreed to abide by.

Mr. Mathis’s denial of this FOIL request also denied the community the opportunity to observe the extent of Mr. Mathis’s involvement in the preparation of Acciona’s SDEIS document.


OIIIMarch 20, 2009, before the community was allowed to see Acciona’s SDEIS Mr. Mathis sent an email to various representatives of (Acciona), and the subject of this memo was “Comments on St. Lawrence SDEIS.” This email is not just a comment letter about Acciona’s SDEIS. among other things the Mathis memo, addressed the noise portion of Acciona’s SDEIS and Mr. Mathis actually directed  Acciona as to what wording to use, what to eliminate and actually rewrote selected sentences to sanitize the SDEIS, thereby making it a more palatable document for the general public.

Mathis advised project manager Zedick to do the following.
section ~ 3.10.1
NOISE

• Eliminate “Based on this constancy, there is no reason to believe that the sound levels at points in between the monitoring locations would be substantially different”


• 
  Eliminate “typical” “From a statistical perspective the Leq is the mean sound level that is most likely to be observed at any given moment; consequently, it is called the “typical sound level,” and replace with definition of Leq deleted from prior revision.


• 
  Eliminate “very conservative” from “The L90 measure is considered a conservative to very conservative sound level for assessing…”


• Eliminate “Using only the L90 would give a biased result,” and replace with “Using the L90 is appropriate to evaluate impacts at sensitive receptors, such as residences.”


• 
  Eliminate the paragraph that starts “A regression analysis was performed…” and replace with “A regression analysis was performed using the measured baseline statistical sound levels and wind speed. The wind speed was measured in 10- minute intervals by an anemometer 40m (131ft.) above the ground, located within the site area. Sound levels were then plotted against the measured wind speed, which was normalized to a height of 10m (33ft). The distances from the anemometer location to sound monitor locations ranged from _to_ Results of this analysis show… [Provide discussion].”
• Eliminate "There are no local ordinances or regulations that govern potential noise associated with the Project;" and replace with "There are no local ordinances or regulations that govern the methodology for assessment of potential noise associated with the Project"
  section ~ 3.10.2.1
• Eliminate “…but as a temporary, daytime occurrence, construction noise of this magnitude may go unnoticed by many in the project area,” and replace with “but the noise will be temporary, occur during the daytime and be limited in duration.”


• Prior to “Modeling results were compared to the NYSDEC cumulative incremental increase guidelines of 6dBa, which conservatively equates to a project- only sound level of 42dBa, as a basis for impact analysis,” insert:
  
  1. A description of parameters used in the CADN/A modeling which mitigate modeled sound levels; and
  2. Insert paragraph from section 2 of Hessler Report regarding veracity of modeled and potential variability.
  
• Eliminate “conservatively” from “Modeling results were compared to the NYSDEC cumulative incremental increase guideline of 6dBa, which conservatively equates to a Project- only sound level of 42dBa, as a basis for impact analysis.”


• 
  Eliminate “nominal from “Only three residences on CR8 (between Route 12E and McKeever Road) and one at the intersection of Route 12E and Deerlick Road were found to have nominal Project sound level that was slightly above the 6 dBA potential threshold.”


• 
  Eliminate: “All remaining homes in the project area, and particularly the numerous houses along the St. Lawrence River shoreline, are well outside the area in which adverse Project noise impacts may occur,” and replace with “All remaining homes in the Project Area, and particularly the numerous houses along the St. Lawrence River Shoreline, are well outside of the area in which adverse Project noise impacts have been modeled based upon the L90 analysis.”


• 
  Eliminate: “An increase of less that 6dBA is not considered to be significantly adverse”
• 
  Eliminate: “Field experience indicates that these unavoidable and inevitable excursions are infrequent, and short-lived. For the vast majority of the time, sound levels will be close to the mean predicted value.”


• 
  Eliminate: “A change of at least 3 dBA is normally required before any real difference in sound level begins to be perceptible, so the cumulative increases of 2 dBA or less at some residences in the Project Area are fairly minor and do not represent a substantial change in the potential impact from the project when combined with the adjacent project. In summary, the reaction to noise would essentially be the same if only the St. Lawrence Project or if both projects were constructed.”
  3.10.3


• 
  Add mitigation bullet points as follows: “Additionally, turbine location will continue to be evaluated based upon potential noise impacts from the St. Lawrence project, as well as potential cumulative impacts from the St. Lawrence and BP projects.”


• 
  Miscellaneous:
  Confirm whether sound power level used in CANDA/A input is Acciona’s guaranteed spl or monitored spl.

MATHIS MEMO



Link here to Watertown Daily Times story ~
CAPE BOARD OKS REVISIONS TO WIND FARM IMPACT REPORT

Wind energy tax credits causing quite a stir in Congress

Pacific Business News

 by Duane Shimogawa, Reporter

Date: Friday, December 28, 2012, 8:48am HST

The extension of the controversial wind energy production tax credit is causing quite a stir across the country and even closer to home as well.

More than 100 Hawaii residents have joined nearly 6,500 people in 25 states in signing letters urging Congress to oppose any extension of this production tax credit that expires at the end of this year.

To date, more than 200 U.S. senators and members of Congress have received the letter. Continue reading via this link