Jackson residents approve wind turbine limits

JACKSON, Maine — Residents this weekend approved a controversial wind turbine ordinance that would impose strict regulations on industrial wind power developments.

Among other things, the ordinance — written by the planning board and the wind energy subcommittee — stipulates that any 400-foot-tall turbines erected must be at least a mile from any houses.

Although the 111-75 vote Saturday morning at a special town meeting has cheered many who oppose large-scale wind facilities in Maine, it also has dismayed some in this rural town of about 500 people who feel the ordinance is too restrictive and shortsighted.

“I was disappointed,” said Duane Lahaye of Jackson, a past member of the planning board who uses several small windmills at his home. “We have to think as an entire nation. We can’t just think as people who don’t want it ‘in my backyard.’ For the better good of everybody, these windmills would have been great.”

The new ordinance replaces a moratorium on wind energy projects that has been in place since January 2009 and was enacted in response to proposals to erect a series of wind towers along Mount Harris and Ricker Ridge in Jackson, Dixmont and Thorndike. Dixmont voters last November approved an ordinance requiring a 1-mile setback between wind turbines and homes.

Brad Blake of Cape Elizabeth is a spokesman for the Citizens Task Force on Wind Power, a recently formed umbrella group of residents fighting wind projects around the state.

“We think it’s absolutely fabulous, because in the town of Jackson, this came as a result of the actual citizens forcing the issue,” he said of Saturday’s vote. “As more and more people get to know about industrial wind power, a lot of citizens in their own communities are starting to say that this is something they need to consider very carefully. Communities like Dixmont and Jackson are saying this is how we’re going to do it if you come to our town.”

But the wind issue in Jackson has been divisive, Lahaye said.

“It has driven a rent through this town that is not going to heal for a long time,” he said.

The timeline on the ordinance has been tight, said Selectman Cindy Ludden.

In November, the planning board delivered a draft ordinance to selectmen, and one month later a third of the town’s registered voters signed a petition to ask selectmen to hold a special town meeting to vote on the proposed ordinance. In mid-December, officials heard from town attorney William Kelly that there were more than 30 “areas of concern” in the ordinance, Ludden said, but it had to go to a townwide vote despite that.

“It was the biggest meeting the town has ever seen. I think everybody knew what they wanted to vote when they came in,” she said. “The consensus was people were concerned about their neighbors.”

According to Ludden, Jackson households have been bombarded with information about the wind ordinance, and recently received two mailings from the selectmen, three from the anti-industrial wind group Fair Wind, two from a private homeowner and even a DVD.

Efforts Monday afternoon to reach someone from Fair Wind or a member of the town’s subcommittee on wind energy were unsuccessful.

“People are talked-out. People are papered-out,” Ludden said. “The big winner here in town was the Brooks post office. They must have gone above and beyond their quarterly quota.”

At this point, she said that she hopes Jackson will receive permit applications for smaller projects.

Blake said that the Jackson ordinance may help restrict the growth of industrial wind facilities across the state.

“We encourage more communities to put more ordinances in place so that the local citizens have more control,” he said.

First Wind readies Milford II and new IPO registration

08 February 2010

US wind developer First Wind is currently putting together a bank financing for the second phase of its Milford wind project. The $250 million project would be financed in part with a construction loan, to be repaid with the proceeds of a US treasury cash grant and a prepayment from its offtaker. The structure resembles the $376 million deal that RBS put together for the first phase of Milford in April 2009, and RBS is thought to be working on the debt for phase II.

According to the developer's public filings, the Milford II project would have a capacity of 102MW, use 68 GE 1.5MW turbines, and like the first ...

On PILOTs and wind farms, our motto should be 'be prepared'

The proposed Galloo Island wind farm and its associated Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement has been one of the most controversial topics in the press for several weeks. On Tuesday, the Jefferson County Board of Legislators voted in favor of the agreement. I am not going to write about this particular PILOT, but I think it might be illuminating to look at PILOTs in general and the role they play in regional economic development.

A PILOT is basically an agreement by some entity to pay fees to a government — Jefferson County and certain townships and school districts — in lieu of property or other taxes.

In some cases, the entity is a not-for-profit agency, such as a church or a school, that would not have paid any taxes at all. Because they occupy land that might otherwise be taxed, and they use municipal services such as fire protection or police, the not-for-profit entity agrees to pay the community some money in consideration. There is not a legal requirement to do this, but it is considered good form among financially sound not-for-profits that want to remain on good terms with their communities.

In the case of Galloo Island, or other wind farm developments in the region, the developers are for-profit corporations and would normally be subject to full property and sales taxes. They ask for relief from those taxes, in return for paying a lesser amount of money in lieu of those taxes. This is effectively a tax reduction for the developer.

The argument from the developer's standpoint is that they cannot afford to make the investment if it is fully taxed — or that they will make the investment elsewhere, where they can get a tax deal. From the standpoint of the county and its economic development specialists at the Jefferson County Job Development Corp. (JCJDC), the argument is that we give up some of our tax revenues to help spur the development of our economy and the creation of jobs.

If the full taxes due would be $8 million across the life of the PILOT, but the developer is given a PILOT that only requires payment of $5 million, the county looks at the deal as being worth $5 million — assuming that they were never going to get the full $8 million because the developer would never make the investment without the PILOT agreement. It is $5 million or nothing.

The developer sees the PILOT as being worth $3 million — the amount it knocks off the full tax bill. In theory, both parties get a valuable deal, something negotiators call "win-win."

Of course, as with any negotiation, there is infinite room for third-party second-guessing and kibitzing. If you have ever bought a used car from a dealership, only to have a friend tell you that he would not have paid that much, you get the idea. Because we do not know exactly what would have happened if a different deal had been proposed, neither side is ever completely sure they got everything they could have, if they had only pushed a little harder.

The situation in a case like wind farms in Jefferson County is exacerbated by something economists call asymmetrical information — the developers know more about the deal than do our economic development officials or legislators. The developers know what their real costs are, as well as the next best opportunities they will have if the deal doesn't go through.

The county does not know when or if other developers will appear, or what they will offer or demand if they do appear. That makes the negotiation very high-risk for us, but relatively easier for the wind farm developers. They know exactly when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. We have to take a deep breath and follow our instincts.

Of course, the developers will always say that they need a generous PILOT to make the deal work. Wouldn't you if you were in their shoes?

And our economic developers, charged with the near-impossible job of generating outside capital investment in the region, have every incentive to be generous with prospective investors.

The county legislature routinely asks the JCJDC to be accountable for the tax money it spends searching for new developers and job-creating deals, so legislators should not be surprised when those economic development folks try extra hard to land a new wind farm.

If we want to avoid repeating this circus over and over again, there are a few things we might try:

■ Decide where we want wind farms and on what terms.

This will let individual towns and villages decide where they want windmills, if they want them at all, before the developers show up and everything gets ugly. Each municipality then needs to pass a local ordinance that limits wind farm development to those areas.

If JCJDC wants to help with this, they can do two things: fund a community survey by the Center for Community Studies at Jefferson Community College to determine prevailing opinions and concerns about wind farms, and develop a draft ordinance that each municipality can use in creating its laws. I am sure the Jefferson County Planning Department or even the Tug Hill Commission could help with those things as well.

■ Approve a proposed standing PILOT agreement for all wind farm developments in the county. County legislators can provide their input to without getting tangled in the specifics of an impending deal. That will avoid having to treat each prospective developer differently. It can also be used to help market the region to wind developers in a rational fashion.

■ Get a lot smarter on the economics and industry dynamics of wind power and wind farming. We need to start comparing notes with other regions that are experiencing or seeking development like ours and we need to start collecting information on the primary actors in the business. That asymmetrical information problem can be licked if we try.

I have to agree with John Droz, whose letter to the Watertown Daily Times last month said that wind developers are here because they can make money. Right now, thanks to tax incentives and public policy, wind power is profitable in New York state. We have exactly what the wind farm investors need — rural land, strong winds and a reasonable proximity to large electricity markets downstate. They have fewer choices than they might want us to believe, and for every deal we lose, another will come to take its place.

If wind farms are coming, or at least prospective wind farm developers, we need to be ready for them and reap the benefits on our terms. To them, it's just money. To us, it's our home.

Greg Gardner is an associate professor of business at SUNY Potsdam. His column on business issues in the north country is published monthly in Money Matters. E-mail him at ggardner@wdt.net.

Wind PILOT

Approval doesn't answer questions

The irresponsible decision by the Jefferson County Legislature approving a tax abatement plan for the Galloo Island Wind Farm leaves unresolved several issues that will bedevil the county for years to come.

A last-minute offer of another $3.5 million in community benefits by Upstate NY Power Corp. sweetened the deal sufficiently to win the eight votes needed for county approval of a 20-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes plan for the project. But that does not end the dispute.

The town of Hounsfield and Sackets Harbor School District have already signed off on the plan. It goes before the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency for final approval this morning with its shortcomings and even new problems raised after Upstate promised to create a $3 million community benefit fund with another $500,000 in scholarship funds over the life of the PILOT.

However, details remain to be ironed out. Who will administer the funds? An existing agency? A new board? Who will be eligible for the money? What criteria will be used to distribute the funds or award scholarships? What guarantees do we have that the money will be paid?

The $3.5 million amounts to $175,000 a year for the next two decades. It is a fraction of the $9 million the county and municipalities could have had in sales taxes over the next two years. Upstate won't have to pay sales taxes under their leaseback agreement with JCIDA.

The deal looks even worse considering the $5 million county residents lose because Upstate's PILOT is five years longer than the standard PILOT other developers receive.

Is this the pattern for future wind PILOTs? The JCIDA failed in the mission assigned it by the Legislature years ago to draft a uniform policy applicable to wind developers looking to take advantage of a county asset. What the Legislature received — and approved — was an exception tailored to the Wall Street-driven interests of the developer. To the county's detriment, the Legislature and JCIDA have opened the door to other developers demanding the same favorable treatment.

County residents still don't know whose property the proposed transmission line will run through. Upstate said it would consider an alternative route to the Coffeen Street substation rather than running the line south through Henderson and Ellisburg to a substation in the town of Mexico. It doesn't solve problems, merely relocates them.

Where will the line come ashore? The alternative route would put likely landfall somewhere in the town of Hounsfield cutting through shoreline and resort properties. Eminent domain looms whether it is seizing farmland in Ellisburg or someone's front yard in Hounsfield.

The long, protracted debate over the PILOT changed little. The Legislature's majority has let down the people of Jefferson County.

A model project

Galloo PILOT is now the standard

Now that the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for the Galloo Island Wind Farm has been approved, the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency has declared a moratorium on accepting tax abatement applications from other wind developers.

That is disingenuous. After setting the template for wind PILOTs with the Galloo deal, the JCIDA board says it will now develop a uniform tax-exempt policy for such projects.

Why was that not done before Jefferson County relinquished its right to have the Galloo developer pay sales, property and mortgage taxes?

The JCIDA board and Jefferson County Legislature have endorsed a sea-change in tax policy for the county. In a rush to judgment, they approved an ad-hoc agreement that exempts the developer, Upstate NY Power Corp., from paying millions of dollars to local taxing jurisdictions.

After approving all this, and deviating from the standard 15-year PILOT to increase it to 20 years, Jefferson County officials want to contemplate how to handle the next wind developer.

But in all fairness, the Galloo PILOT should set the standard for future developers, wind and otherwise. Why should new motels in the county not receive a similar sweetheart deal? Why should any company breaking ground in Jefferson County not expect tax exemptions similar to what Upstate received?

All developers should get a 20-year pilot from Jefferson County, complete with special exemptions afforded the Galloo developer. That should happen without the county bothering to know what the developer's project will cost and what the earnings will be.

After all, that has happened with the Galloo project. Referring to Upstate, JCIDA attorney W. James Heary articulated county policy: "We don't necessarily need to go into the nitty-gritty of their plan."

So far as future wind development is concerned, the Galloo model now serves: approve the site for wind turbines, work out the details for the transmission line later.

What is fair for one is fair for all.

Opinions shift on Rochester-area wind farms

Wind-energy developers, who have flocked to the breezy hills south of Rochester, now are finding parts of the region a less-than-hospitable one.

A cross-border project has been blocked by local officials in Steuben and Yates counties, prompting aggressive lawsuits by the developer involved.

Another wind-energy company just walked away from a planned project in Steuben County.

And most recently, a Wyoming County citizens group has challenged a town board action that paved the way for a new wind project there.

Some say the shine has worn off an industry that in many communities had been welcomed both for its green image and its ability to pump money into the local economy.

“I’m detecting a shift in the climate of opinion,” said Gary Abraham, a Cattaraugus County lawyer who has represented citizen groups in litigation related to wind projects.

The head of a statewide green-energy advocacy group said the public overwhelmingly supports wind energy, but despite that, discord and litigation in host communities has become an unfortunate fact of life.

“Certainly it sends the message that it’s not going to be easy to get something done in New York. That being said, there are still a number of projects going forward,” said Carol Murphy, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

Indeed, the region remains a center of wind-energy development. Wyoming County has four wind farms with 236 turbines, more than any other county in the state. There is a working wind farm in Cohocton, Steuben County, as well.

Those five projects have the capacity to generate up to 470 megawatts, which represents the electricity demand of about 200,000 households.

Those 470 megawatts are a little more than a third of all the wind-generation capacity in the state.

Nearly two dozen other wind-farm proposals in the Finger Lakes and western New York regions remain on the books of the agency that oversees New York’s electric grid, though developers have yet to make formal applications to town boards for many of them.

Of late, though, there has been a spate of controversy over the farms.

A citizens group in Orangeville, Wyoming County, filed suit last month against the Town Board there, asserting it had adopted an inadequate local wind-turbine siting law to make way for a 59-turbine wind project. That case has been assigned to a Supreme Court justice in Buffalo.

•After supporting Ecogen Wind LLC’s 17-turbine proposal for years, the Town Board in Italy, Yates County, acknowledged growing citizen opposition by voting in October to kill the development. Observers said Italy’s board may have been the first in New York state to vote down a wind project. A suit by Ecogen asking a judge to override the Town Board and allow the project to proceed is pending before a state Supreme Court justice in Rochester.

•Ecogen similarly sued the board in neighboring Prattsburgh, Steuben County, where the company has hoped to erect 16 more turbines. Pro-wind board members briefly settled the case in Ecogen’s favor before leaving office in December, but after a series of courtroom skirmishes, the newly seated Town Board canceled the settlement and declared a moratorium on wind-energy development in the town. Ecogen’s suit still is pending.

Another wind project proposed for Prattsburgh that had been in planning stages for years was formally canceled at the end of 2009. John Lamontagne, spokesman for developer First Wind, said the project was deemed expendable in light of the shaky economy.

The Massachusetts company, which was given $75 million in federal stimulus aid in partial compensation for the 50-turbine farm it built in Cohocton, will pursue other projects in Erie County, New England, Utah and Hawaii, Lamontagne said.

Abraham, who represents the citizens group suing the Orangeville board, said he believes public opposition to wind developments is growing.

Residents most often cite concerns about noise and the setback provisions that dictate how close turbines can be to homes and adjoining properties.

He said, though, that he thinks elected officials often pay less attention to those concerns than they do to a project’s financial benefit to friends and family members.

“They’re decided based on the importance the town (board) assigns to the money issue. That’s really the deciding factor. It’s not the environment,” Abraham said.

Murphy disputed the idea that people in host communities are turning against wind farms. “It’s the old adage about the silent majority. It doesn’t take more than a few people to stand up at a town board meeting and make a lot of noise and give people the impression there’s no support for it,” she said.

Murphy cited a 2008 public opinion poll in Lewis County — home to Maple Ridge, which at a 322-megawatt capacity is the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi River — that found 71 percent of residents thought the wind farm had had a positive impact. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they would support more turbines.

“There’s always a lot of apprehension when there’s something new and something people aren’t used to seeing, but once they (turbines) are there we’ve found the level of support continues to grow over the years,” she said.

Cleanup of fallen Fenner windmill progresses as investigation continues

Fenner, NY -- A month after neighbors, local officials and energy advocates were shocked when one of Fenner’s 20 windmills collapsed, teams of engineers are clearing wreckage and collecting information as the remaining turbines sit eerily dormant.

Earlier this week, work crews removed Turbine 18’s concrete foundation, which weighed in at more than 85 tons. The mangled remains of the windmill, which once stood 212 feet from the ground to the center hub, and 329 feet to the tip of a blade at its full height, are askew on the cornfield where they landed and surrounded by heavy equipment, cranes and Dumpsters.

Officials hope the cleanup itself will further their investigation into the cause of the collapse. Enel spokesman Hank Sennott said the removal of the foundation would give forensic engineers access to more information about the 187-ton tower’s base. The team has been working at the site since the Dec. 27 accident.

“Being able to check the hole where the tower was is obviously an important part of the review,” Sennott said Wednesday.

In the month since the crash, crews have recovered the turbine’s computer, which links to the facility’s monitoring system, and determined that the windmill was operating at reasonable speeds before it collapsed. Both the cleanup and investigation could take several more months, officials said. They had hoped to have more information about the cause of the accident by the end of January.

“We’re going to take as long as it takes to get the right answer,” Sennott said. “The safety of our employees and landowners is our first priority, so there’s not going to be a rush to judgment.”

The Fenner wind farm was built in 2001. At the time, the cluster of 20 turbines on a rural ridge just east of Cazenovia in Madison County was the largest facility of its kind east of the Mississippi River, with the capacity to power up to 10,000 homes. Enel oversees about 260 turbines in the United States and Canada.

(Click to watch the video)

Bert Bowers February 3, 2010 Letter to Jefferson County Legislators

The Legislators of Jefferson County:

I am deeply disappointed that our legislators chose, on Tuesday, to effectively endorse the wind development scheme proposed by Upstate NY Power and the PILOT developed by the JCIDA. I have tried, both personally and through the Coalition to Preserve the Golden Crescent and the 1000 Islands, to make you aware of the facts that neither the PILOT or wind energy in general deserve our support. There has been no attempt to study the economic impact of this development on our area. There will be significant impacts on our economy from this decision aside from the PILOT payments. The Galloo project if allowed to go forward will have the following consequences:

1. It will increase the level of debt in our federal and state budgets by hundreds of millions of dollars - debt that we, the taxpayers, must ultimately repay.
2. Wind energy from Galloo will not replace any of our current sources of electrical generating power, but will dictate that the entire system will operate in a less efficient manner to accommodate winds variability which will increase overall fuel usage and emissions produced in the production of electricity.
3. The high cost of the wind generated power will increase our already high electrical rates.
4. It will enable a group of investors, who do not live here and who will sell the facility to others to operate, to profit very handsomely at the expense of local residents as well as all taxpayers and electrical rate payers. The investors get paid up front - Jefferson County will get its small payments over twenty years, if the wind lobby can keep the present subsidies in place.
5. The development will destroy one of the last remaining wild areas in Lake Ontario and will convert the island, always a refuge for migrating birds, into a death trap for migrating flocks.
6. The large whirring blades and flashing lights will substantially diminish the qualities of peace, quiet and star-filled skies that have made this area a haven for vacationers, tourists, as well as regular residents. This will reduce tourism, hurt local businesses and reduce property values.
7. The equipment to be used in the development, principally imported from outside the US, will be imported without even paying sales tax. You have forgone the sales tax income that could benefit our area on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported goods.

The local residents who urged you to vote for this PILOT were, disproportionately those who are effectively surrogates for the wind developers or those who expect to profit personally from wind energy. The union workers were paid to attend the hearings. You have been deceived and influenced by them and the rest of us will pay dearly for your failure to protect the majority of residents from such an obvious scam. Wind energy will not save us from global warming and this is a bad deal for most of our residents.

Sincerely,
Bert Bowers

Investigators still looking for cause of wind turbine collapse

Fenner (WSYR-TV) - Teams of engineers are still trying to figure out what caused one of the huge Fenner wind turbines to collapse in late December.

Piece by piece engineers are going over the wreckage of what was once a 328 foot tall, 187 ton wind turbine. The key section, however, will only be accessible when it's all cut up and removed.

They're anxious to get to the hole left in the foundation where the turbine separated from the base, but so far nobody's been able to access that spot. More than a month after the crash they still have no answers on what caused the giant turbine to come crashing down.

"They have kept us very well informed, I've got to applaud them for that,” said Fenner Town Supervisor Russell Cary. “They had an executive come in all the way from Boston for our Free Center and he also came to my Madison County Energy Committee meeting at Morrisville College just to catch us up, answer questions."

While the cleanup goes on at the site, they have continued to keep the other 19 wind turbines shut down until they get a better idea of what happened. “This is a lesson and we're going to learn. All the engineering in the world, nothing beats hindsight. I think they're doing a good job of really analyzing it and setting up to make the whole process better going forward,” said Cary.

With more and more turbines popping up as wind power becomes more common, there will likely be people from around the world interested in what did cause this collapse.

Enel North America, which operates the wind farm, had hoped to have a determination by the end of last month. Now, it says it’s unclear when the company will have something final.

Bert Bowers' Remarks on Galloo PILOT

Read this tonight, but the Legislature approved the PILOT:

Important Considerations Re. PILOT for Galloo:

The company that Jefferson County will be partnering with is not a large concern with ample assets to guarantee the payments to Jefferson County and Hounsfield. It is an LLC (limited liability corporation) set up solely for the development of Galloo as a wind factory.

Guarantees of payments promised by this LLC will not be made if current levels of federal and state subsidies are not maintained. If we sue to obtain the promised payments we may ultimately take title to a broken, uneconomically sound wind turbine facility. What then?

Contrary to information put out by the wind industry, wind turbines will not lower fuel use or emissions, but due to winds variability and unpredictability will lower the efficiency of the system so as to actually increase fuel use and emissions.

When it becomes generally known that wind will not help to solve global warming, the huge subsidies now available to wind developers will be curtailed and the developers or subsequent owners will not be able to live up to payments promised in the PILOT. Twenty years is a long time.

The power that will be generated is not for our region of New York State, as is apparent from the plan to transmit it to Oswego, however, it will very likely cause our electrical rates to increase. This will make it more difficult to attract legitimate businesses to Jefferson County.

Jobs were an important consideration to some of the Legislators with whom I have spoken, However, the criteria must be net job creation. How many jobs will be lost in construction and maintenance of cottages, fishing, camps, marinas, etc. with the increased industrialization of the area? Studies of the overall economic impact of the project need to be done before a good decision can be reached.

I have also heard comments to the effect that, “we are not giving up this opportunity for the sake of rich people on the Lake.” The issue of Galloo should not be framed as class warfare. We are fortunate to have many lakefront dwellers return to the area each summer. Some of them may even be wealthy, but most are not. Many are families who have returned to the area for generations. They pay taxes as if they are in residence for 365 days a year, even though many are not. They pay school taxes even though they don’t send their children to our schools. Some of these people may not vote here, but if we choose industrialization, please understand that many of these people will vote with their feet – they will go elsewhere.

The tendency of people to leave the area – not just summer residents, but year round residents as well will depress real estate values. This will also affect assessments and the portion of the tax burden shouldered by those who are affected by industrialization.

As for jobs, these are outside the control of the developer. These are financial people with no particular expertise or capabilities to erect wind turbines. They will hire one or more contractor companies to build the facility and it will be the contractors who will determine how many and what type of workers will be hired from local labor pools.

Galloo is one of the last truly wild and natural areas remaining in Lake Ontario. Let’s do the right thing. Joni Mitchell had it right: “That you don't know what you've got, Till it's gone, They paved paradise, And put up a parking lot.”

Respectfully,

Albert H. Bowers III, Co-Chair, The Coalition for the Golden Crescent and 1,000 Islands

Galloo Wind Farm PILOT approved

8-7 VOTE: About 200 pack County Office Building for meeting

The proposed payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement for Galloo Island Wind Farm passed the Jefferson County Board of Legislators on an 8-7 vote Tuesday night.

The final vote on the PILOT will come Thursday morning from the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency board of directors. After that, the developer will be free to seek financing for the project with a guaranteed reduced amount for property taxes.

The PILOT is worth about $54 million for the county, town of Hounsfield and Sackets Harbor Central School District.

The close vote by the county board came after more than an hour of public comment on Galloo Island Wind Farm and some last-minute agreements for more community benefits from the project.

"We all took it very seriously," Chairman Kenneth D. Blankenbush told the other legislators at the close of Tuesday's meeting. "Sometimes we were attacked by the public, the media — and the blogs especially."

About 200 people showed up for the meeting, packing the board's chambers and sitting on the first floor of the historic courthouse and in the Department of Motor Vehicles next door. Those in overflow watched the proceedings on a live video feed.

Robert E. Ashodian, Henderson Harbor, asked legislators to wait until an economic impact study is completed.

"Why put at risk the reason for why people are drawn to this area?" he asked. "Why put at risk the basis for our current economy?"

Mr. Ashodian, a leader in the Coalition for the Preservation of the Golden Crescent and Thousand Islands Region, said tourism and waterfront landowners make up a large portion of the tax and business sectors.

Suzann J. Cornell, Chaumont, was one of several members of Voters for Wind who urged the board to approve the PILOT.

"I believe we can no longer ignore our future," she said. "We use more electricity and we need to find more environmentally friendly ways to produce it."

The county was the last of the three taxing jurisdictions to agree to allow the PILOT to vary from a standard PILOT, which is established by state law.

The Galloo Island PILOT will run 20 years instead of the standard 15. And normally, proceeds are based on proportional distribution of property taxes among the jurisdictions. In the proposed PILOT, Sackets Harbor Central School District would receive 50 percent, the county would receive 35 percent and the town of Hounsfield would receive 15 percent. That represents less than the school's proportionate share, and more than the town's.

The PILOT payments from developer Upstate NY Power Corp. would begin at $2.14 million, increasing by 2.5 percent each year, plus supplemental payments if higher electricity costs prevail. That's also different from a standard PILOT, where businesses pay a portion of what their full taxes would be.

"Your PILOT is extremely fair," said Kevin R. McAuliffe, the county's counsel on wind development negotiations from Hiscock & Barclay, Syracuse. "For the size of this project, it's at the top end of what's really out there. I don't think money was left on the table."

Despite those assurances, the board remained tightly divided on the vote.

Legislator Michael J. Docteur, R-Cape Vincent, opposed the PILOT because he wants to see towns receiving a higher percentage of the proceeds.

"The precedent-setting distribution rate in this PILOT won't complement well with the three projects coming in my district," he said. "The PILOT should allow local government to pay down property tax — all of it, if possible."

Legislator Barry M. Ormsby, R-Belleville, said the PILOT has been improved since the board originally considered it.

"I do feel the IDA has done the job we charged them with months ago," he said. "Today this is a tool of public policy we use to compete for businesses and jobs."

Legislator Carolyn D. Fitzpatrick, R-Watertown, said she had received 698 phone calls and e-mails on the vote. But residents in her district overwhelmingly opposed the PILOT, by a ratio of 4:1.

"I'm not against the wind PILOTs but I am in favor of the people who support me," she said.

The board also passed two resolutions that would protect the county in case the project shut down. The first calls for an agreement with JCIDA that the agency will not vacate the PILOT to the property for a year. That keeps the county from paying full property taxes on the wind farm to the town and school district if the developer pulls out.

The second resolution allows Mr. Blankenbush to authorize a decommissioning agreement with the developer and the town of Hounsfield. The decommissioning bond would increase as required by the county to match current costs.

At 8 a.m. Thursday at 800 Starbuck Ave., JCIDA board members will discuss the PILOT, a sale-leaseback agreement and a project development agreement. Passing it will authorize JCIDA staff to finalize the negotiations and agreement.

A sale-leaseback agreement would eliminate mortgage recording and sales tax for the $500 million investment on the island. That represents a savings of about $22.7 million, according to the developer's Oct. 6 application to JCIDA. But the amount in sales tax could be less because the state Department of Taxation and Finance has ruled for other wind farms that the entire turbine structure is exempt.

"The language is still to be massaged and there are questions still to be answered," JCIDA Chief Executive Officer Donald C. Alexander said.

Cleanup has begun at turbine collapse site

FENNER — It’s been more than a month since a nearly 187-ton wind turbine crashed on Fenner Wind Farm in rural Madison County, but what toppled the structure still remains a mystery, company officials said Tuesday.

This week, a team from wind farm operator Enel North America began removing sections of the fallen turbine from the site. Once the wreckage is removed, the team will be able to get a better look at the hole left in the foundation where the stem of the turbine separated from its base, company spokesman Hank Sennott said.

“It’s the one thing no one’s been able to get close to,” Sennott said. “We’ve got to look at everything before we come to any conclusions.”

The turbine that crashed at about 4 a.m. on Dec. 27 was one of 20 on the wind farm located northeast of Cazenovia. The wind farm has been in operation since 2001 and supplies enough electricity to serve at least 10,000 homes.

Despite predictions from Enel North America that the cause of the crash could be determined by the end of January 2010, Sennott said it’s now unknown when a report will be complete.

The other 19 turbines remain temporarily shut down as a safety precaution, Sennott said.

“Until we’re convinced we know what happened, we will leave them off,” Sennott said. “We want to get this right.”

First Wind eyes Bowers Mountain

CARROLL PLANTATION, Maine — First Wind of Massachusetts is collecting data on Bowers Mountain wind conditions as a first step toward possibly erecting an industrial wind-to-energy site near the 1,127-foot summit, company officials said Tuesday.

The state’s largest industrial wind power producer placed three test towers on the site, two in November and one in December. Company officials will meet town leaders and residents on Feb. 8 and outline what their plans might be, spokesman John Lamontagne said.

“The data we get from those towers is critical to us deciding whether we want to locate a project there,” Lamontagne said Tuesday. “It is close to the proposed Rollins Mountain project, so that is a plus. We have had good relations with folks in that area.”

Topographical maps place Bowers about two miles south of Route 6, about 10 miles east of Lee and 16 miles east of Lincoln near the boundary line between Penobscot and Washington counties.

The Rollins Mountain project is a proposed $130 million, 40-turbine industrial wind site on nearby Rollins Mountain, a range of ridgelines in Burlington, Lee, Lincoln and Winn that has received Maine Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approvals.

The Friends of Lincoln Lakes residents group has an appeal of the DEP permit pending in the Maine State Supreme Court. The court will hear arguments in Portland at 1:45 p.m. Feb. 10.

The attorney representing the friends, Lynne Williams of Bar Harbor, also represents a group of Bowers Mountain-area residents that might oppose any Bowers Mountain development, she said recently.

“We have the luxury of being witness to this from the very beginning,” Williams said.

Williams and the residents will work to ensure that any Bowers project gets thoroughly reviewed, she said.

Beyond the meeting and data collection, First Wind has no immediate plans for Bowers, Lamontagne said. He said he was unsure how many landowners in the area had agreed to allow wind turbines on their properties if the testing proves successful.

“We haven’t decided, basically, on what we are going to do there, so I don’t have the details as how big a project it might be,” he said. “When you build a project, you have to collect many months of wind data to see whether a project can be sustained. This is fairly early in the process.

“It would not be something we would be building in 2010, that’s for sure,” he added.

With headquarters in Boston, First Wind operates the 42-megawatt Mars Hill and the 57-megawatt Stetson Mountain sites. Construction of the 26-megawatt Stetson II project will be completed this spring, while DEP approved the proposed 51-megawatt Oakfield project on Jan. 22.

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