OSWEGO, NY – A group from New York Power Authority was in the Port City Friday afternoon to provide information regarding the Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project.
Representatives from city, county and state government attended the meeting in the Council Chambers. Also in attendance were local residents as well as a handful from other counties.
The group is visiting communities around the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie to provide information on the proposal as well as get a feel for the pulse of the communities regarding the project.
“We are going to listen, the same as everybody else and see what happens next,” Oswego Mayor Randy Bateman said.
Sharon Luadisi, government and community affairs specialist for NYPA, provided an overview of the project and what had to be done before it ever gets under way.
“This is an information only presentation,” she said. “This is very early in the process; there is no project.”
Luadisi explained about the benefits of the project including no air pollutants, no waste generation, it would help reduce dependency on fossil fuels and oil imports.
The wind farms would have to be placed where they wouldn’t interfere with things like shipping lanes and migratory bird routes; and the water depth would have to be 150 feet or less, she explained.
However, some in the audience had already made up their minds and wanted to ensure there never was a project.
They claimed the project would mean a loss of jobs, not an increase; birds would be killed by the rotating blades; the wind farms would lower property values; and the aesthetics of the lake would be ruined were among the concerns opponent raised.
NYPA is taking the lead on the project “because we want to get some guidance as to what is really out there,” Luadisi said. “We’d like to see construction start in 2014 in an area of Lake Ontario or Lake Erie – or both.”
“It’s very important that we have community input and support,” agreed NYPA President Richard Kessel. “Not everyone is going to be for it. There are challenges and issues that we have to face. We need to diversify our resources. The country is too dependent on fossil fuels and wind is a key component.”
He maintained that if the project is completed, it will create “thousands of jobs throughout Upstate New York.”
“We are looking at something that is very significant for the whole state,†Kessel said.
Ronald Graeff, assistant professor, communications studies, at UNY Oswego, questioned why NYPA wasn’t putting the small turbines which are available on people’s homes instead of targeting big companies.
“It’s not up to the state to install wind turbines on people’s homes. That is up to the people,” Kessel replied.
NYPA will continue seeking public opinion on the project for a few more months.
“One of the things we are going to look at is support for the project. If people don’t support it, if enough people are against it, we aren’t going to build it here,” Kessel said. “We’ll take the project and the jobs that are associated with it and do it somewhere else.â€Â
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wind power sounds exciting and cheaper electricity for all of us, not like we get any kind of discounts from the war lords who own everything now. my neighbor was on vacation, guess what, her electric bill was smaller than the charge that brought in to her house. thats totally pathetic. i’m sure that the majority of people would want wind mills, but we have to get our message out that we want a sizable break. everytime some big company moves in they gat a huge tax break that comes right back to the tax payers. we should start dumping our supposed leaders like another part of the country has. they have not only done away with the department heads, they did away with the departments also. that info should be heard in your neighborhood in the next 2 or 3 years. government has grown to ba a huge, huge monoply. it doesn’t and hasn’y worked for the tax payers for years. we elect them to do our bidding, and then they do their own. before any elected person gets a pay raise or does anything out of the ordinary that will cost us money, we should vote on it. i’ll betcha that you’d see a heck of a lot more voters out there voting to the dismay of the officials. HEY, heres something that might mean something to you out there, POWER TO THE PEOPLE, HA, I’LL BET NO-ONE SEES THAT IN PRINT.
It’s in print! (The only thing we don’t print are comments that directly attack or insult a person by name.)
My late business partner used to say that electricity should be like lettuce — it should be cheaper where it’s grown. We’ve got three nuke plants and a bunch of hydro plants here and yet we pay high rates relative to other areas.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Nine Mile 3 supplied cheap power to us first, then made its money selling power to others? We take the risk and bear the expense of having nuclear power in our backyards. I’m not minimizing the jobs those plants bring — I’d hate to see this county without them — but we don’t derive a direct cost benefit from the power.
The Ugly Truth About the ” New Safer Prop Wind Turbines” – A must See Video I am an expert on Birds of Prey. For all the “green energy†believers out there, this is a video you have to see. Each year across America thousands of eagles, hawks, owls, falcons, vultures and condors perish at “green energy†wind farms. This video will open your eyes and your mind when you see how easily a soaring vulture is smashed by the innocent looking blades of a prop wind turbine. Most prop wind turbines have blade tips speeds of approximately 200 mph. This video illustrates why all birds and bats do not have a chance near the spinning blades of a prop turbine. There has been a wind industry cover-up about the bird mortality problem for decades. Most wind farms have very high security so images like this can not be seen.
fatal accident with vulture on a windmill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srPoOU6_Z4&feature=autofb
The prop turbine in this video is not even spinning at full speed. It is spinning at 12 rotations per minute. At full speed it will spin at 20 rotations per minute making this wind turbine even more dangerous to anything that happens to fly by. This is why each year, millions of birds and bats are killed by prop turbines.
Fraud is commonly used in the permitting process. I recently came across this fraudulent statement used by the wind industry in the Final Environmental Impact Report for the PDV Wind Project in Kern County, CA ………….“Scientific literature also suggests that diurnal vultures, such as the California condor, are not at substantial risk for collisions with wind turbines.â€Â
The scientific community is very aware that each year thousands of vultures of every type are slaughtered by prop wind turbines. The numbers of dead vultures worldwide indicates that these slow flying gliders are not at all able to “skillfully†avoid the 200 mph tip speed a prop wind turbine as claimed in the Final PDV EIR. This video clearly demonstrates the danger prop wind turbines are to all birds, especially the California Condor.
Kern County recently gave the wind industry a permit to construct the large PDV prop wind turbine farm in condor habitat. A decision on another large prop wind farm, the Alta Oak Wind Project, will be given in November 09. It too will be located in condor habitat.
The public is not aware that there are alternative wind turbine designs available that do not slaughter our precious wildlife and they also produce more energy. One of them is produced by Environmental Technologies LLC. If the corrupt entities of Wall Street, Washington, and our courts were not protecting this industry, this terrible problem would already be resolved.
Prop turbines are all about functional obsolescence, planned obsolescence, and most of all greed. The outdated technology of the prop wind turbine needs to be exposed for the fraud it represents to the green energy movement.