Claytons Public hearing on Their Proposed Wind Development Ban

On March 23rd Clayton, NY had a public hearing on a proposal to change their zoning from regulations that attempt to regulate wind energy, to a ban of industrial wind development.

Apparently during that hearing  a number of people showed up with their own zoning alternative offered to the town that would heavily regulate wind energy instead on ban it, most likely to the point it would be difficult for the developer Iberdrola to develop a wind complex in Clayton. 

The premise of this law is that it would better stand a legal challenge, or in addition stand against the state's Art 10 process that has the power to preempt zoning it deems too burdensome.  They contend a ban would be easily defeated.

Mr. John Droz, a self proclaimed "energy expert" basically wrote this zoning alternative for the town to consider or adopt for free.  Droz has been an anti wind advocate for years, but has recently decided the restrictive wind law approach is the panacea to defeating wind energy.  He contends that his law is solidly based on science that a court or the state could not ignore and would withstand a legal challenge as a result.  I have known John for some time and have had  long conversations and email exchanges with him and I am sure that his science is sound.  That is not the issue.

However, I find a couple of HUGE holes in his and others restrictive wind zoning approach.   They tend to believe they have the lock on the science that will defeat wind energy.  However, the state and the developer has science too and also a very aggressive renewable agenda.  So in court ...or on more importantly on an Art 10 siting board stacked with people from state agencies already endorsing wind energy in NYS, who's science do you think they will lean towards.  Science that run completely contrary to the state's renewable political agenda, or the wind developer expert's science that can enhance the state's renewable political  agenda???

I think it is extremely short sighted, arrogant and in fact delusional to think you simply present your science and the court or state will have to see it your way.  That is a lot of nonsense.

In fact if this approach was actually that simple and the state would comply to YOUR science and town after town defeated wind energy with this approach, they would have an awful time meeting their renewable goals.  now do you actually think that is going to happen??? 

In fact the state has billions in green funding to assist renewable developers, and they aren't going to let little local restrictive wind laws, science or not to stand in the way.

Droz and the wind law science  approach supporters have completely disregarded the political forces involved when in fact the fight has nothing to do with science. It is big money lobbyists pressure  and corporate profits.  The wind law promoters are deluded if they think they have the only science the state or court will listen too.

And the one thing they seem to ignore, or at least discount is the fact that the state can simply preempt any restrictive zoning regulation.  10 siting where the state did exactly that in power plant siting.

Why is there a preemption clause to override local restrictive laws at all in the Art 10 siting process???  Have them explain that one to you.  It is because the state intends to use it and they won't give a damn about your science when they do.

What Droz and others don't seem to grasp is that preemption is in fact locked and loaded aimed directly at the type of restrictive laws they are touting so arrogantly. And  I seriously doubt their restrictive law will withstand any assault by a court or Art 10 siting board.  Because politically that cannot be allowed to happen due to the state's and Cuomo's green political agenda.

Besides are these people so out of touch that they think they have fooled the state?  In effect there law IS a ban, just with a lot of trickery to make the state think it is "reasonable"  I wonder...do they really think the state is that stupid?

And apparently wind developer Iberdrola asked the town to not prevent them from developing with a ban, but to sit down with them and develop a reasonable wind law.  Yeah I'll bet they would and the town would be a fool to do so.

 That ought to tell you something about that wind law approach and how it would work.  They would love to get the town on that wind law playing field.  Because they know they can defeat it, especially with the state's preemption backing them.

Clayton would very very ill-advised to take Droz's alternative law.  Not to mention Droz isn't even from Clayton and won't have to live with his results if he is wrong!

The Industrial Wind Zoning Debate Reloaded! Why Traditional Zoning Fails

 

 

          Wolfe Island Wind complex impacting critical scenic resources far beyond the project zoning footprint.  

 

With Clayton, NY’s proposal to change their zoning to ban industrial wind development in their town, the whole debate about the best approach to protect our towns and region  has resurfaced.   One argument says ban wind development outright in your zoning, the side I have been on for a decade, and the other argument is to attempt to be “reasonable”, and appease the state and not ban wind energy but try to “regulate it” with traditional zoning methods, primarily setbacks from sensitive resources at various distances. 

In light of Clayton’s move, I thought it might be good once again to demonstrate why traditional zoning fails badly to protect a community, or a region from industrial wind development.  Especially one so sensitive as the 1000 Islands/ Golden Crescent region with its vast flat water veiwsheds.

This is a bit long but I think critical to the understanding of this debate, so I hope you will examine this carefully.

First we need to understand some zoning basics.

Traditional (Euclidean) zoning attempts to separate uses, usually in designated districts, so they don’t negatively impact each other or cause health, safety, welfare or aesthetic conflcits.  The method of mitigation is separation by various appropriate distances.  Basically the further away the lesser the negative impact.  Very straight forward basic zoning technique.

For example a town might not want an industrial factory with massive buildings, noise, and lights, or a scrap yard and their impacts near high quality single family homes, So they would form an industrial district, and far enough away from  it would be residential district or other sensitive districts.  Distance is usually an effective  key factor to mitigate negative impacts. 

For example if I drive several miles from the industrial zone, the industrial impacts will mostly be mitigated or disappear.

Another technique used where uses conflict is screening mitigation .  For example the scrap yard near a neighborhood might be mitigated by berms, vegetation or attractive fencing or a setbacks from roads or nearby neighborhoods. And that usually works.

Often height zoning restrictions help mitigate impacts.  A municipality might draft height restrictions for aesthetic reasons.  This way if you live in a residential zone you are not looking at the impacts of some type of tower or building that does not fit the aesthetic quality of the town or your district.

Now these basic zoning techniques are used widely and fairly effectively around the civilized world.  The mitigation, height, and use separation by distance zoning techniques can be very effective for structures and uses of typical sizes in rural or suburban areas.

But then along comes industrial wind energy with towers that are now reaching over 600 ft. in height along with flashing lights at night and frequently spinning blades with a rotor  area bigger than a football field. 

                               Wolfe Island Wind Complex.  This is zoning protection?????

Keeping in mind that movement is a very significant attractant to the human eye.  The eyes detect movement quickly.

Industrial wind energy essentially completely defies traditional zoning as examined above, primarily because of height which is absolutely essential to wind turbine efficiency. 

                        

                                 Maple Ridge Wind complex overwhelming homes.

That’s why they keep getting taller. Consider that in  some cases in your rural areas numerous wind turbines will mean many taller structures than are in some fair size cities!   Study I did a few years ago that indicated a huge city the size of Los Angeles had something like 30 buildings over 400 ft. which was the common size of industrial wind turbines back then.   Now the state, and in some cases your town officials,  and the wind companies are suggesting you should accept hundreds of these city sized structures on the traditionally scenic rural landscape of your region.  Structures, unlike buildings, that have rather radical movement!  This would be an insane invasive environmental transformation of your area in a relatively short time, and somehow many of your town officials are trying to delude you into thinking they can effectively manage this type of radical change with out moded little provincial and impotent zoning approaches.  Seriously?????

Don’t be fooled!

So let’s say I live in a nice peaceful aesthetic residentially zoned  district.  A place people have moved for aesthetics, protection from noise, and other negative impacts you would not want in your neighborhood, and also to protect their home as their prime investment.

Yet my community has decided to allow 100 wind turbines nearly 600 ft. tall and try to “regulate” them..  An industrial wind factory complex that will cover much of my town…maybe the majority of it, since another essential of wind energy is it must be spread out over many square miles to be effective.  In this community, town officials have decided to allow this use and decide they can mitigate it with traditional zoning methods.  In fact to accomplish this, they often create a monster called a wind overlay district, that actually overlays some of the other town districts since wind energy has to be spread out so far.  This faulty decision is an immediate frontal attack on the district separation protection method of protection.

So now from my residential zone, I can see hear, and will be likely disturbed by, on a regular basis, a great deal of the 100 turbines a few miles away or even closer in some cases.  Despite the protections I was assured by my town in zoning in my residential district, for my family and property investment, I now can clearly see and suffer the impacts from my supposed protected district from an industrial wind use in districts much  further away that were supposed to mitigate the very impacts I am now confronted with.

In this case the district separation zoning, mitigation and height restrictions  have just been rendered useless, and essentially one invasive huge  industrial use dominates all districts in town.

For example let’s consider if you live in the highly aesthetic, desirable natural water setting of Cape Vincent’s Island District…for example Carleton Island that gets a sweeping view of the entire town, even the slightly elevated town interior on the mainland as it slowly rises toward the back of the town.  The same place, by the way, industrial wind development will take place.  Your designated Island District will offer no protection, particularly viewshed protection, from ANY wind development in town, regulated or not.  On the south shore you will have a front row seat 24/7 to the negative impacts of industrial wind several miles away in another zoning district.  If you live on the north shore of Carleton Island you suffer the impacts of the Wolfe Island Wind complex where you had no input to their zoning decisions to allow industrial wind turbines.

Now consider for example even another town several miles away that has no say in your zoning decision.  Particularly if there is flat water somewhere between the towns allowing unobstructed views. You will suffer from neighboring town’s allowing  the massive tall moving structures that  cannot be effectively mitigated in any way.  Again, traditional zoning of industrial wind, that far too many towns have deferred to, has been render useless by industrial wind and is a miserable failure to protect citizens in any particular town, or even the region.

 In the last decade we have sadly learned from Wolfe Island that these structures have invasive impacts that can reach out 30 miles, which impacts communities far far beyond the original zoning jurisdiction where industrial wind is allowed and supposedly “regulated”.  Especially in a region like ours with so many flat water viewsheds.  The Wolfe Island Wind Farm is a vivid unmistakable example of what I am talking about.

 

                 Wolfe Island"s giant wind turbines as seen from well within Cape Vincent. A vivid

                  example how a community is badly impacted and had no say in the matter of the siting.

                  The new turbines proposed for our area are reaching 200 ft. taller than the turbines seen

                  her!  It is ridiculous to think a traditional zoning setback approach can control this

                 insanity. Keeping this picture in mind the CV zoning law drafters thought turbines placed

                 about 1.25 miles from the Seaway Trail in CV would protect scenic assets.  It is absurd!

Put very frankly traditional zoning is a sucker’s game the wind developers and NYS love for you to be drawn into.

Essentially the wind companies know exactly what is happening and that traditional zoning is pointless to mitigate their structures.  That is why they are willing to use offsets like bribes like maybe to renovate the town , hall or put a new fence around the cemetery, or maybe donate to some other cause.  This is intended to make you look the other way and ignore or tolerate the impacts  they know cannot be mitigated despite your town’s delusion it can control the impacts.

BP and Acciona in CV years ago in their environmental statements didn’t even try to hide it, and admitted outright their turbines would dominate and be out of context with the CV landscape and cause a dramatic change to the town viewshed.  In a sense they are more clever and honest  than the town officials who have been duped into believing they can somehow mitigate industrial wind. The wind companies themselves are admitting a reality that some town officials just refuse in ignorance or arrogance to accept in a desperate attempt to believe they still have control.  It is a dangerous delusion if you truly intend to protect the 1000 Islands region.

If one considers all this carefully and logically, the only true protection in an area like the 1000 Islands is not town by town, traditional zoning with endless debate over useless ineffective setbacks which industrial wind clearly and easily overwhelms. And by the way creates a lot of wasted energy deflected away from the obvious problem to protect the region.

 The only true protection of any value is for towns to unify their zoning to prohibit industrial wind, at least so it impacts no part of the 1000 Islands and Golden Crescent or Eastern Lake Ontario. viewshed.  This should be backed by the counties, and county zoning boards, and influential environmental groups.  One must also consider the rapidly increasing heights of wind technology which leaves traditional zoning far behind well into the future.

Many towns are so mind paralyzed by this new threat they are fighting a rapidly moving invasive new technology, and the attached wind PR machine, and overreaching state regulations, with old now out moded land use techniques and political strategies  that fail to address the new problem appropriately. 

And in effect the report done by a reputable company concerning land use impacts done for the SASS effort said what is actually painfully obvious.  Tall structures like wind turbines cannot in fact be mitigated here and should not be allowed.  The Thousand Island Land Trust seems to have reached a similar conclusion and is applauding Clayton’s new direction.

Clayton is taking leadership proposing to prohibit industrial wind and making the only true decision that is proportional to control the invasive impacts of industrial wind energy.  That is why it is so important to unify and support the Clayton decision to ban industrial wind in their town.

A former visual simulation from either BP or Acciona, I don't remember,

showing the impact on the CV village waterfront.

 

Otherwise the wind developers and the state will take us apart as a region town by town in a divide and conquer scheme by encouraging us to use a zoning tool that is impotent, backed by a state system with a nuclear option willing to override the rights of our communities.

It is time to stand up!!!

Screwed!!!

There has been a lot of debate since Clayton made its proposal to change its zoning to ban industrial wind development.  In an article in the WDT former Cape Vincent official John Byrne said the following about the law they drafted in 2012.

“In our mind, we wanted to allow development while protecting existing assets. We didn’t give the developer exactly what it wanted, but it left room in the zoning law to allow some development.”

Of course Byrne is pandering to the farmer vote since he is apparently going to try another run for NY assembly...voter beware!!!

Now, the people on the CV "write a wind law" side claim you write a "reasonable" zoning law, ( a term that has never been clearly defined ) and the state in the Art. 10 process will not preempt your restrictive law and uphold it as "reasonable."  In theory this is supposed to make it more difficult for the developer to develop, they will walk away, thus saving your town...in theory!!! To me this  theory is built on a house of cards on many levels but mainly because the state can just override your law rendering it impotent to stop anything industrial wind related.

Everyone on the former CV board that Byrne served on, and virtually all the other CV officials and  their supporters endorsed  this approach as the only viable approach to the exclusion of all others. 

And although the Hirschey supervised board that Byrne served on was touted by  supporters and even the media as being "anti wind", a contention I challenged vehemently many times,  now  it is abundantly clear that Byrne and the officials he severed with had absolutely no intention of being anti wind or even keeping wind out of our town. As Byrne said, they wanted to allow wind development.

It is why at least one past year I refused to vote in CV because I felt we had pro wind, who definitely wanted all the wind they could get...and the pro wind Hirschey board who was under the delusion they could somehow control massive industrial turbines, even though  the state could easily preempt their efforts. 

There was no real choice for the people who really wanted no wind in town in no uncertain terms, like some erroneously thought the Hirschey board would do.

If you were a supporter of that board with the belief they were "anti wind" you should be livid...since you basically got screwed and many stopped voting in their main communities to vote in CV for a fallacy!! 

If you examine Byrnes statement...both sides in the CV wind battle have been pro wind...just to different degrees.  Something I had said and took heat  for, for a long time. Many of you got the wool pulled right over your eyes.

And the really sad fact here is that Byrne and his colleagues in pandering to the state and taking a severe group think mentality have left the CV community and the 1000 Islands very vulnerable to industrial wind development.  That's quite a legacy!

It is also very disturbing that Byrne and his cronies decided that "protecting existing assets" actually meant in their minds shoving the turbine placement into the town's interior and thus making the negative impacts they feared someone else's big problem threatening their assets instead.  Brilliant!!!  And this alone is one reason the traditional zoning approach is an absurd failure!  Yet this is all the so called intelligent CV officials and their lawyers could come up with.

Yeah...that's great advice, shove your huge invasive turbine impacts back on your neighboring town residents and people in your own town's interior that don't want them either!

This technique is about as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic hoping this somehow solves the problem.

And this is what those CV officials left behind for our region and are now absurdly suggesting Clayton and other towns should follow.

 And yet to this day no one has been able to explain the logic that allowing industrial wind development in a town, somehow prevents wind development in a town?????????

It's irrational!

 

 

 

Clayton NY Considering Banning Industrial Wind Turbines

If you follow the wind energy controversy in NNY you are probably aware by now that Clayton NY is under threat of wind development once again. Same developer, Iberdrola, same general area of town, but this time with towers that could reach over 600 ft. and have a devastating impact on regional scenic resources near and away from the 1000 Islands.

You may also be aware that Clayton has decided to rescind its wind overlay district in its current zoning law and ban industrial wind turbines altogether.  There will be a public hearing to that effect on March 23 at the Clayton Opera House.

There was an editorial by Perry White in the Watertown Daily Times opining that banning turbines is the wrong direction.  In another article people  and officials from Cape Vincent have suggested, rather arrogantly I might add, that CV somehow has the lock on wind zoning as the way to defeat and protect a community against unwanted wind energy development, and that a ban would be an easy defeat for a wind company in the state's Art 10 siting process.  Unfortunately they have no case law to back that assertion.

This has gone to a heated debate, to ban or not to ban on the WDT comment section under that article by Ted Booker.  As I said some believing CV has the panacea wind law approach to defeat wind, and Clayton should defer to CV's advice.

But something critically important got overlooked in this debate.  Clayton has already expressed their feelings on the CV zoning law, and it was not a particularly favorable one for CV.

On Aug,2, 2013 the Town of Clayton wrote a letter to the NYPSC in regards to the BP Cape Vincent wind farm matter.  In the letter they basically call for the PSC to respect CV's right to home rule.  However, later in that letter they directly address the CV' wind zoning law itself and say this as follows verbatim from the letter.

“The Town Board of the Town of Clayton is elected to represent our community and to make decisions that are in the best interests of the community as a whole.  With that said, we, as a board are concerned about the current Cape Vincent Ordinance as it would allow a potential negative impact on the scenic vista from the St. Lawrence River.”

You can see the whole letter at this link below to the NYPSC website.

http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId={67890618-BCAD-460C-890B-50A19FF2E2FD}

So even though some officials and people in CV are strutting around declaring themselves  the "experts" at wind zoning and the Art 10 process, and suggesting Clayton should not ban, bur defer to CV.  And even though the WDT seems to back CV's stance there are other rational thoughts in this debate. 

 Well apparently Clayton has a different idea and a major concern about the CV law and has for some time now.  And one might conclude that since Clayton objects to portions of the law itself about siting wind energy, I think it would  be reasonable to conclude they would also question the process that the CV "experts" used that resulted in allowing turbines to negatively impact the scenic vistas of the river.  In other words  too close to the river.

What is particularly interesting about the Clayton letter statement is that they are not nit picking some obscure part of the CV wind regulations.  The are basically addressing (or objecting to) the very critical heart of the debate on wind energy near the 1000 Islands.  Where should the turbines be sited in relation to the scenic vistas of the river and region.

Apparently Clayton seems to feel CV and their so called "experts" dropped the ball big time and got it wrong when it came to a major concern if not THE major concern of wind energy in our region. 

Now apparently, especially with the new 600 ft. towers, Clayton has determined with their experts that such development can not be mitigated and a ban is the only reasonable and effective solution to protect their town and the 1000 Islands from a host of negative issues industrial wind presents.

I think one might conclude that in the case of the new Clayton ban proposal, that they have  apparently decided, basically in effect, that the entire CV law process was neither appropriate or effective.

In addition the 1000 Land Trust, a major environmental organization in the 1000 Islands region, on their Facebook site says this in regards to Clayton's proposal to ban wind development in the town.

" The 1000 Islands Land Trust applauds the Town of Clayton for taking a strong position on the Horse Creek Wind Farm"

Now these don't appear to be the irrational, marginal, lunatic, screaming voices like some in CV would like you to believe, or have called us who support the ban approach. Or have gone so far as to call this approach 'stupid"!

I think it might be time for CV to get off their damn high horse and in fact start taking some advice from Clayton and others who have rationally looked at a ban.

If you don't want wind development to destroy the 1000 Islands why not get unified behind Clayton and TILT and a ban that actually removes the threat, instead of this irrational game of trying to defeat wind energy by actually allowing some so as to appease the state.