December 14, 2007
New York
New York
A recent state supreme court ruling took away permits from the developer hoping to build windmills in Herkimer County. Fearful the company will pull out, those in favor of the project made a plea for help to the county.
Four different proponents of the three different windmill projects in the area could reap the same benefits for their community. Thursday night, they asked county legislators to sign off now on the windmill projects before they lose them.
Frank Matthews is the Supervisor in the Town of Fairfield. He, along with other supervisors whose townships stand to benefit from windmills, say the biggest hold on the projects moving forward is the county.
They say the county won’t sign off on the projects because legislators want more revenue than the $1.8 million per year that stand to receive now.
“These companies got other places to go,” Matthews said. “Where there’s more wind…people are waiting for them to come and they don’t have to pay these enormous prices.”
Listening to the concerns, tonight the legislature voted to take the topic of windmills out of the finance committees hands into the committee of a whole…then before the full legislature.
From there, they passed a resolution to allow the county attorney to speak with the developers’ attorney to try and create a settlement – all positive steps for the project, a friends of renewable energy member said.
There are actually three different windmill projects. The one that was acted upon for talks Thursday night was the Fairfield Project.
14 December 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/12/14/proponents-of-windmill-project-in-fairfield-make-plea-to-herkimer-legislature/