March 1, 2016
Letters, New Hampshire

Questions on wind energy project

Monadnock Ledger-Transcript | Friday, February 26, 2016 | (Published in print: Tuesday, March 1, 2016) | www.ledgertranscript.com

In the Feb. 25 page 1 article by Ashley Saari on the Antrim Wind Energy hearing before the N.H. Site Evaluation Committee on Feb. 22 at the Antrim Town Hall, there was no mention of the fact that there will be a long legal docket process before the SEC, which will take most of the year to complete before a decision is rendered. Members of the public can submit written comments to the SEC at its Concord address found at its website.

The article also failed to mention that the decisions made previously by the Antrim Board of Selectmen on this project are carrying on with this new SEC application. Two key decisions previously made include the signing of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement that gives away between $4 million and $5 million of tax revenue to Antrim Wind through tax reductions from what full taxation would require. Antrim taxpayers were not asked for their opinion about giving tax revenue away. This agreement was signed as a result of secret and illegal meeting held between the Board of Selectmen and Antrim Wind. In 2013 the Hillsborough Superior Court found the Antrim selectmen guilty of violating the Right to Know law as a result of these illegal meetings.

The selectmen also signed another agreement with Antrim Wind that does not protect the town or taxpayers in a number of ways regarding operation of the wind farm, should it be constructed, or during a de-commissioning phase, when the wind farm is taken down after useful life. While we all want to support renewable energy, it shouldn’t be done on the back of the taxpayers of Antrim or any town.

Charles Levesque

Antrim


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/03/01/questions-on-wind-energy-project/