I picked up a copy of the 1000 Islands Sun today while
shopping and noticed a report by Sun reporter Pam McDowell on the last Cape Vincent Town
Board public hearings on the water district issues and the newly revised CV zoning law.
I was particularly intrigued with CV Councilwoman Michelle
Oswald’s comments on the solar zoning portion of the law that finally questioned the town’s irrational
love affair with solar energy. Below is
the quote from the paper.
“She said she was not
happy with commercial solar portion and said “Why are we so anxious to let big
energy into this town?” She explained that the town gave scrutiny to industrial
wind development, and any energy zoning law should be thoroughly explored”
Finally!!! Well good
for you Michelle!!! But the zoning on
small private solar needs a lot of work too.
It’s about time somebody at the board level asked some
questions about where all this solar hoopla is coming from and where it is
going, and why it has had NO scientific analysis to back the town’s support of
solar. Especially since the town zoning
geniuses and the supervisors have clearly demonstrated in last year’s solar
zoning fiasco that they don’t know what the hell they are doing on the solar
issue and made a complete emabarrassing fiasco of the CV zoning process while
tinkering with solar.
In many respects solar is just like wind. Very low capacity
factors, especially in a climate like NNY, heavily subsidized by the tax payer
(even private solar systems), and an unreliable intermittent source of power, that
has to be backed by conventional sources of power, and a play toy for people
with the financial means to afford it so they can look “green” at the tax payer expense. Like our town supervisor!
So to answer Ms. Oswald’s question…in my opinion there is
probably a backdoor connection between 4th , a local solar developer
and our town board or supervisor. And who
knows, maybe there is a larger commercial solar project in the works that will
be forced on us just like wind was, but by this board and zoning geniuses this
time around. That would be another
energy scam. And maybe that is why the
whole CV solar zoning is a watered down joke and our town officials are running
around promoting something they have made no serious examination of!
But solar is far more stylish and chic to talk about at
cocktail parties and political get togethers.
And if you remember, a few years ago some of the energy and zoning geniuses on our town board were even
suggesting to the state public service commission and the Art 10 process that
BP should consider a large industrial solar project for CV instead of wind like
their Brookhaven facility on Long Island.
Geee… let’s see, that project removed approximately 42,000 trees to accommodate
it! 42,000 trees!!! Hell…they should have left the trees up. They
would probably removed more CO2 from the atmosphere than the solar project. Now there was a brilliant idea. Invite, of all people, BP to do anything in our
town after their history here and around the world, not to mention that the
town apparently hadn’t noticed one critical factor. BP had already gotten OUT of the solar
business. WAKE UP!!!
I hope Ms. Oswald will continue to show some rare clarity
among her Hirschey govt peers on the CV town board who appear completely
irrational on the solar issue, and who appear to be on the supervisors tight
leash.
And keep in mind that our zoning also ALLOWS some industrial wind development. Maybe Ms. Oswald should take a serious look and raise a discussion on that as well. Especially since the NY Court Of Appeals has made a very interesting recent decision upholding prohibiting Fracking in Dryden, NY and about home rule. This appears to parallel industrial wind and the home rule issues surrounding it.
And by the way…where is the JLL blog on this solar
nonsense???? He was against industrial wind and all that supported it, but says
nothing about the Hirshey govts irrational support of solar with virtually all
the same problems and tax subsidies.
Another one on the short leash!
