The BP presentation to the town of Clayton officials was the same old same old BS as far as their project and its siting is concerned. EXCEPT for what I think is one very stunning revelation that has absolutely frightening implications which I have seen no comment on yet!!!
During the BP presentation someone posed a question to Chandler, the BP Cape Vincent Wind Farm project manager.
I am paraphrasing but the basic question was why not move the project away from the river by 5 miles or more and avoid the controversy.
Chandler replied:
"I believe there is a moratorium in Lyme so I don't think there is much opportunity for us to construct there."
Now first I'm not sure Chandler has that correct. I was under the impression that Lyme had finished their zoning law and the moratorium was no longer in effect. But for the sake of argument let's assume Chandler is correct.
HOWEVER...that isn't the real point here. Chandler's statement is frightening!
Is Chandler telling us that all it would have taken for BP to leave our town alone and look somewhere else would have been a nice long moratorium like Lyme? You know... like maybe instead of a rushed six or seven month moratorium to write a zoning law under the threat of Art. 10 and to appease that process, maybe we should have taken Save the River's (STR) recommendation to do a three year moratorium to study the cumulative bird impacts as a defense to wear down BP. A position CV Councilman Schneider actually helped STR formulate since he is or was on the STR board of directors. Or maybe a one year moratorium and keep adding to it. Each time Mr. Hirschey the CV town supervisor had the opportunity to propose a moratorium it was never more that six months even though the 800 name moratorium petition presented to the previous board was demanding one year.
This is certainly a very disturbing thing to contemplate at this point with BP breathing fire down our necks with Art.10.
And the more disturbing thing to contemplate is if BP is willing to move on in Lyme due to nothing more that an extended moratorium...then instead of even cracking open the door to wind development here in CV with our law, which does accommodate some wind development with attempts to regulate rather than prohibit...what if we had prohibited wind development? Would BP have also decided to move along with the same reasoning that there isn't much opportunity for us to construct there."
Like Cape Vincent, BP once had a project slated for Lyme. So why are they shying away from Lyme at this point?
Did Cape Vincent by writing a "reasonable" law on wind development send the State and BP a horribly wrong message that we can be counted on to be "reasonable"???? That we are more wind or renewable friendly than Lyme??? After all, there was a point in our Art. X "reasonableness", that instead of efforts to completely rid ourselves of BP altogether, our town officials wanted to enter into a solar deal with BP despite BP's terrible record right here in CV and around the world!
Is Chandler telegraphing to us that we may have made a horrible mistake in our rush to zone FOR wind and be "reasonable" to a system the CV town officials obediently follow and have even characterized as fair and impartial, and even handed and balanced.
Have we become the easier target!!!!
I have always said one of the unintended disasters of Art. X and attempts to be "reasonable" and appease it is that we could be talking ourselves right into a nice big wind farm!
STOP, The regional wind energy industrialization of one of New York State's most beautiful and environmentally sensitive areas, the 1000 Islands of the St. Lawrence River and the Golden Crescent of Eastern Lake Ontario. If you don't think you are seeing the most recent posts click on the current month in the archives to the right.
First problem with your theory is assuming anything that corporate "Dick" chandler says is accurate. He has been trained to deceive. I dunno, maybe he comes by it naturally. Either way, he's a snake willing to say anything that suits his purpose.
ReplyDeleteHard to say if you're right or wrong,based on that.
Well that crossed my mind too. But here is the additional problem I have with this whole thing. The wind developers have been here in CV for over a decade if you go back to the first met tower placement by Greenlight Energy that sold its leases to BP. You would think in turn we could at least dedicate a year or two to some solid research and careful long term deliberation on the zoning issue instead of a rushed 6 months moratorium and zoning law in a panic over Art X and BP, which in the end still came out appeasing Art X and accommodating some wind development which in turn actually violates the intent of our comp plan!
ReplyDeleteThere is still something screwy about the fact that BP has leases and had plans for a wind complex in Lyme...yet they backed off for some reason and chose to concentrate on CV...even after the election of our new town board.
Unless of course the CV town board doesn't consider a few 500 ft turbines in the few areas outside the wind exclusion zones and pushed away from the river as a violation of the comp plan's intent!!
ReplyDelete