Public Hearing On Cape Vincent's Proposed St. Lawrence Wind Project

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PUBLIC HEARING ON THE PROPOSED
ST. LAWRENCE WIND ENERGY PROJECT
Held on May 16, 2009, at 10:00 AM, at the Cape Vincent

Recreation Center, South James Street, Cape Vincent,
New York, before Town of Cape Vincent Planning Board Members
Richard Edsall, Chairman, Tom Ingersoll, and George Mingle.
Also Present were Todd Mathes, Esq., and Kris Dimmick, PE.
Court Reporter was Sally B. Maiorano, Registered Merit

Reporter, Certified Realtime Reporter, Certified CART
Provider, Certified Shorthand Reporter, and Notary Public in
and for the State of New York.
PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

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1 MR. MATHES: Good morning. I'd like to

2 introduce myself. My name is Todd Mathes, I'm an
3 attorney from a law firm --

4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can't hear you.
5 MR. MATHES: If we can quiet down so we can

6 use the three hours we have today.
7 My name is Todd Mathes, I'm an attorney from a
8 law firm at Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna in Albany. We

9 were engaged by the town about a year ago to assist the
10 town with the administration of their responsibilities
11 under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

12 The Planning Board today -- Rich Edsall is the
13 chairman, he's here, we have Tom Ingersoll and George
14 Mingle, the town's engineer is here, Kris Dimmick, we
15 have a stenographer here today -- has asked me to

16 administer today's public hearing. I wanted to set a
17 few ground rules really quickly so everyone has
18 expectations in terms of how this can run.
19 As of right now I only have 37 people signed

20 up, so I think that given the three hours, we can allot
21 for five minutes of time to speak. I would ask that no
22 one delegate their time to another person, but certainly

23 if you yourself would like to speak in excess of the
24 five-minute period, to the extent everyone has an

25 opportunity to speak before 1:00 and we have additional

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1 remaining time, you can certainly go again.

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2 Just in terms of the purpose of today's
3 hearing, today's hearing is a discretionary public

4 hearing, which the Planning Board decided to hold as the
5 State Environmental Quality Review Act lead agency for
6 this project.
7 The purpose of the hearing is to gather
8 substantive comment on the Supplemental Draft
9 Environmental Impact Statement, which was prepared by
10 St. Lawrence Wind Power, the project applicant for the

11 wind project, and submitted to the Planning Board in
12 which the Planning Board deemed complete at a March 2009
13 Planning Board meeting.
14 Publication and notice of the hearing was

15 posted in the environmental notice bulletin online on
16 DEC's website; it was also posted in the newspaper.
17 I'll just add, you know, in sort of further
18 elaboration of the purpose of the hearing, what happens
19 in this process is during the public hearing and during

20 the public comment period, the public comment period is
21 going to end May 30th, so if you want to submit
22 written comments you can up until that date. Your

23 comments today, your verbal comments, which will be
24 transcribed, and your written comments will be responded
25 to in a final Environmental Impact Statement, to the

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1 extent they pertain to substantive matter in the SDEIS.

2 To the extent they don't pertain to actual
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3 environmental impacts, the physical project site, the
4 potential impacts of the project, the characterization
5 of those impacts based on your review of the SDEIS or
6 the mitigation measures proposed in the SDEIS, they may

7 not be responded to. There's no obligation under the
8 SEQRA regulations to respond to non-substantive comments

9 on actual visual and environmental impacts to project.
10 So to the extent that you have comment to make
11 about that, those are very helpful. There's plenty of

12 municipalities throughout New York, and they've been at
13 it for about 30 years under SEQRA and have engaged in
14 this process, and it's a very productive process to the

15 extent you have something to offer, because certainly
16 you as the public have knowledge about the physical
17 project site and things which consultants and planners
18 just can't know.

19 So that's the purpose of incorporating your
20 comments, and we hope that you will offer those
21 substantive comments.
22 With that said, there's some representatives

23 from St. Lawrence Wind Power, they have a couple of
24 maps, and they're going to make a very brief
25 presentation of the project for those of you who are

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1 unfamiliar with it. And I'd ask them to come up now and
2 make that brief presentation.
3 MR. ERIC SCHNEIDER: So thank you very much.

4 My name is Eric Schneider. I'm director of
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5 communications for Acciona Energy North America. And I
6 want to thank you all very much for coming out today and
7 for giving us the opportunity to introduce this project
8 to you in a little bit greater detail. I'm very honored
9 to be here and honored to have the chance to talk about

10 a company that I'm very proud to work for.
11 Acciona is a 100-year-old global company. We
12 have more than 35,000 employees. We operate on five
13 continents and in 30 countries. And a pioneering in

14 global energy solutions for 20 years.
15 In 2008 Acciona produced almost 9,000 gigawatt
16 hours of electricity from renewable energy sources,
17 which avoided nearly 5.5 million tons of CO2 emissions

18 from conventional power plants.
19 We're the second largest developer of wind
20 farms in the world. And we're the second largest
21 producer of renewable energy. We're well diversified in
22 renewable energies with experience and presence in eight

23 renewable energy technologies, but we don't currently
24 have any operations in fossil fuel technologies.
25 For wind Acciona has more than 6,000 megawatts

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1 installed as of January 2009, which amounts to about 5%

2 of the world's total capacity. Those 6,000 megawatts
3 are spread across 208 wind farms located in 14 countries
4 that we've built over the past 20 years.

5 And in North America Acciona has ownership in
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6 seven wind farms -- seven operational wind farms
7 totaling 525 megawatts, including two wind farms which
8 are opening this summer in Illinois and Oklahoma.
9 To add more information on the St. Lawrence

10 project I'm going to turn it over to Pete Zedick, who's
11 the project developer.

12 MR. ZEDICK: Hi. As Eric said, I'm Pete
13 Zedick, the developer for this project. Just to give a
14 little background on the project, it's a 79.5-megawatt

15 wind power project consisting of 53 wind turbines. The
16 wind turbines we're going it use thorough this project
17 are Acciona turbines rated at 1.5 megawatts.

18 The project also includes a collection
19 substation, which will have a 115 kV transmission line
20 that runs from the collection substation on Wilson Road
21 to Route 179 in the town of Lyme.

22 Just for background on a little bit more of
23 what Todd said, is the project submitted a site plan
24 application to the town of Cape Vincent Planning Board
25 back in November 2006, that was followed with a Draft

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1 Environmental Impact Statement in January 2007. And
2 there was a public hearing held on that draft in March

3 of 2007.
4 January 14th, 2009, the project submitted
5 its Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement,

6 and that was accepted as complete by the town of Cape
7 Vincent Planning Board on March 25th, 2009, where a
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8 hearing was scheduled for today.
9 So those are the project details. I would

10 just like to say we appreciate you coming out today, and
11 we look forward to all the comment, public input. And
12 thank you all very much.

13 MR. MATHES: Thanks. The thing I neglected to
14 say is if you've written down your comments today, you
15 can do one of two things: If you've just jotted down
16 your comments and you want to submit them to the

17 stenographer today, she'll take those, and they'll
18 certainly assist her in preparation of the transcript.
19 To the extent you've written out comments
20 which you want to make as a formal written submission,

21 you can hand those to me today; you can also mail those
22 to the town supervisor. So certainly if you just have,
23 you know, handwritten comments or whatever, and you want
24 to give those to the stenographer, please do, they're
25 helpful to her, and we'll bundle those separately and

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1 just treat those as actual verbal comments.

2 The first person who signed up today is Cindy
3 Grant. If Cindy could come up.
4 MS. GRANT: I have read the DEIS for the

5 St. Lawrence Wind Energy Project, and I have some
6 serious concerns for the health and the safety of the
7 residents who live within a two-mile area of this

8 project.
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9 I am for green energy. And in fact, at my
10 house we recycle everything; we don't burn. But this is
11 going to hurt people here. But these industrial wind
12 turbines must be placed in a responsible and regulated

13 manner so that the people that live there right now will
14 not be hurt and made to suffer. The area in question is

15 very populated, and I believe the residents will be
16 harmed by low frequency noise, or infrasound, that this
17 project will produce.

18 The submitted DEIS does not mention low
19 frequency noise, that's dBC, it's a weighting, which is
20 an injustice. All noise is vibration, and the audible

21 sound you hear coming from my lips right now, this is
22 high frequency, or dBA, which was what St. Lawrence Wind
23 chose to use here.
24 If you do your research, you'll find out that

25 noise for this project should be measured using dBA and

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1 dBC to accurately see what the proposed noise and health
2 effects will be to the people that live here.

3 Even the independent acoustical report
4 requested about your town, the Tocci report, said that
5 you must also -- that you also must use dBC to measure
6 for low frequency noise.
7 To understand low frequency noise, consider

8 what happens when a young person pulls up next to you at
9 a traffic light and they have their music up loud in

10 their car. You can feel the boom, boom, boom of their
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11 music vibrate right through their car windows right into
12 your car. If you have a pen sitting on your dashboard,

13 it even vibrates, and that vibration doesn't stop there,
14 that vibration continues on through your body.
15 The vibration or rumble and the boom, boom,

16 boom effect is low frequency noise, or infrasound. The
17 metal and the glass of your car blocked out a lot of the
18 high frequency noise, but it did not block out the low
19 frequency noise. And low frequency noise can easily

20 travel through the walls and the roof of neighbors'
21 homes in this project. It is why there must be proper
22 measurements taken using a combination of dBC and dBA to
23 find out what the true impacts to the citizens here will
24 be.
25 This project area is highly populated. If you

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1 look at other wind projects around the world and around
2 the U.S., industrial wind turbines are placed away from

3 people, far enough away so people aren't harmed.
4 Typically industrial wind turbines cause the

5 most disturbance at night, when the winds at ground
6 level are still but the wind up at the hub height are
7 still blowing, and the noise from the turbine will be

8 very noticeable in the home.
9 Noise studies done at an industrial wind
10 project sites after they have been up and running often

11 show that they are making much more noise than the
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12 developers said they would, but by then it's too late.
13 Low frequency noise, or infrasound, can be
14 especially dangerous to children whose bodies are still
15 developing, but it can also cause severe problems for

16 anyone living too close.
17 I also believe that the residents will be

18 harmed by the shadow flicker effect, especially people
19 who already suffer from migraines, epilepsy and vertigo.
20 Over 20 years ago the Exxon Valdez ran aground

21 in Alaska -- and I'm not talking about the oil here,
22 okay, I know this is an energy giant, and Exxon Valdez
23 is an energy giant, I'm talking about what happens when

24 you try to do business with a giant energy company. We
25 have no recourse. But over 20 years ago the Exxon

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1 Valdez ran aground in Alaska, but the citizens there
2 have never received just compensation. Even the U.S.

3 Federal Government went after the energy giant Exxon.
4 They couldn't get their money.
5 There is also no way that the town of Cape

6 Vincent residents will ever be able force this developer
7 to make right any violations against the innocent

8 residents that live near this project unless proper
9 regulations are put into effect now. Before this

10 project is allowed, please put more safeguards in place
11 now to protect your citizens because you cannot do it
12 afterwards. The health and the safety of your citizens

13 should be the number one concern.
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14 And please, if you go online at Wind Watch,
15 any of you, I know you might not believe what I'm

16 saying.
17 MR. MATHES: Cindy.
18 MS. GRANT: Go online and -- sorry -- and

19 you'll see Wind Watch.
20 MR. MATHES: Gerry Smith. The one other thing
21 I neglected to say --
22 [Applause]
23 MR. MATHES: -- we tried to orient the table
24 today -- two things: If we applaud you won't make it
25 through the hearing. So yea or nay, wherever you stand,

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1 if you could just refrain from applauding.
2 The other thing is we tried orient the table

3 so that you can address the board but so that everyone
4 else will also be able to see and hear you. If you can
5 address the board, that's helpful.

6 MR. SMITH: Thank you. I don't think I
7 usually need a microphone, so --

8 MR. MATHES: Mr. Smith, if you could. Thank
9 you.
10 MR. SMITH: I'm Gerry Smith. I'm an avian

11 ecologist. You all on the Planning Board have heard
12 from me before. And our concern -- my concern is
13 related to wildlife, et cetera.
14 Basically, my comments on the DEIS previously
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15 submitted remain valid. The SDEIS was an opportunity to
16 upgrade a very important DEIS, and frankly, the
17 consultants failed miserably.
18 The SDIS is in no way adequate. This part of

19 the world is an extremely important raptor area for much
20 of the year, ranging between August and well into June.

21 These issues are barely addressed, and they are not
22 addressed significantly. Let's put it this way: One
23 has to question the level of effort and competence on

24 the part of the field teams that were out looking at
25 these birds and bats.

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1 Let's put it this way: During the winter of
2 2006-2007 I had dozens of short-eared owls, a state

3 endangered species, within the Acciona wind footprint.
4 The consultants for the company, by their own admission,
5 failed to define a single short-eared owl and apparently

6 have not seen one since, even though they've been here
7 each of the last three winters.

8 That strongly suggests to me that there is a
9 problem even -- again, it's a little hard to come up

10 with conclusions and potential impacts when you can't
11 even find what you're supposed to be assessing.
12 There are lots of potential problems with the

13 lack of information on short-eared owl; the impacts of
14 turbine noise on acoustic hunting are not addressed; and
15 if such a large assemblage of a New York State

16 endangered species is not considered significant -- to
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17 be at significant risk from an industrial wind complex,
18 then I'd basically like to know what is.

19 I have to question the level of competence as
20 well as the amount of time put into the field.
21 Basically, when you have a report that talks about

22 unidentified geese, and my favorite, woodpeckers. I
23 would like to ask the consultant what in heaven's name
24 are using for field people? That's rather poor, to put
25 it mildly.

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1 They draw conclusions from raptor migration

2 studies through the area. Now, I have spent hundreds,
3 indeed thousands of hours looking at raptors in this

4 area. They have a total of 63 hours. They assume there
5 is no raptor migration in this area.
6 Well, I'd be interested to know where the

7 raptors that I see coming in, and I have seen an active
8 migration, are coming from. Perhaps there's a black
9 hole that goes around the survey sites, I don't know.

10 But these conclusions are not viable.
11 The breeding bird summary -- breeding bird

12 survey, 20 points in 20 square miles covered for a total
13 of ten minutes. Absolutely ludicrous, folks. You can't

14 draw conclusions based on that kind of information. It
15 is simply not possible. And any ornithologist worth
16 their salt will tell you that.

17 No surveys were conducted for rare species
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18 such as Henslow's sparrow, which require targeted field
19 surveys. As for the winter raptor study, let's put it
20 this way, their entire study effort is far less than
21 mine in one single year, let alone all the years I've
22 been doing this, and in the three years that I've been
23 doing this since the wind farm was proposed.

24 The basic point in all this is --
25 MR. MATHES: One minute, Gerry.

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1 MR. SMITH: Okay. Basic point in all of this
2 is that the information being provided and the

3 conclusions cannot be considered valid. Essentially,
4 the level of effort is insufficient. Citing studies
5 from other locations is basically not useful. There is

6 all sorts of fill information, such as breeding bird
7 surveys and stuff from other areas that are not

8 relevant.
9 Basically, what this is all about, folks, is
10 this is not about protecting or assessing the raptor or

11 any other resources. Perhaps this DEIS is acceptable
12 for surface strip mines in Wyoming or other projects in

13 the back woods of Wyoming. It is certainly not
14 acceptable by the standards of DEIS work in the state of
15 New York. Thank you.

16 MR. MATHES: Don Metzger.
17 [Applause]
18 MR. MATHES: Folks, I appreciate that people

19 have substantive comments and you want to applaud, but
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20 if you could refrain from applauding, it's helpful in
21 terms of getting through the hearing. And also if you

22 could address the Board. Don?
23 MR. METZGER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
24 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here

25 today. Fellow Board members, Todd.

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1 MR. MATHES: Can everyone hear him?
2 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.

3 MR. MATHES: Can you use the microphone, Don?
4 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Why doesn't he get to
5 the middle so everyone can hear him?

6 MR. METZGER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman,
7 fellow Board members, Todd. Thank you for the

8 opportunity to speak this morning.
9 For the record, my name is Don Metzger, and
10 for the past 32 years I have been a resident --

11 year-round resident of the town of Lyme, one of the
12 towns that will be affected by this project.
13 I am a property owner there, taxpayer there,
14 and registered voter there. The town of Cape Vincent --

15 in the village of Cape Vincent for past 32 years
16 concurrent I have been an operator, owner, and manager
17 of a business here in Cape Vincent paying taxes here in

18 Cape Vincent.
19 With that as a background, I'd like to state
20 that my comments today will be to you concerning the
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21 Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement that
22 was just released a little less than two months ago.
23 I will present my concerns and my questions
24 that I have on it, and I will go in numerical order in

25 the draft. So my order of presentation isn't

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1 necessarily my order of concern or importance.
2 In Volume 1, Section 2, Page 3, it says that

3 after the public comment period on the SDEIS two
4 alternative procedural pathways will be available to the
5 lead agency, the Cape Vincent -- the Cape Vincent

6 Planning Board is the lead agency for the two towns,
7 here, for the town of Lyme and the town of Cape Vincent.
8 The town of Cape Vincent Planning Board could
9 require preparation of a final Environmental Impact
10 Statement. If that alternative policy is chosen, the

11 following steps would be taken. And then it delineates
12 the following steps.
13 What my question would be to the Board in
14 hopes that it could be in the final impact statement is

15 what about alternative two? It doesn't state anything
16 about alternative two.
17 And my other concern is that if you take

18 alternative one, it gives the public only ten days in
19 which to consider the final Environmental Impact
20 Statement. I believe that ten days to consider a

21 project of that size is insufficient for the community.
22 I would ask that the Board have in the final
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23 draft a clarification on decommissioning. There seems
24 to be -- if you read closely, Volume 1, Section 2,

25 Page 20 and 21, it leaves a little bit of confusion as

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1 to what will be or will not be taken down. Do the
2 foundations go, the collection cables, the 37 miles of

3 underground collection cables? They talk about a
4 permanent easement for those cables, and they talk about
5 greater than 48 inches, less than 48, at one point they

6 use the depth of 44 inches. I believe that's a
7 misprint, but -- one minute left? At this point I would

8 like to request time at the end if it's available.
9 I have big concerns about the safety and
10 integrity of the Development Authority of the North

11 Country's western Jefferson County regional water line,
12 the 12-inch interior diameter water line that goes for
13 25 miles from Cape Vincent to Glen Park, serving four
14 towns, five villages, the General Brown School, and

15 many, many water hydrants. That is a potential -- with
16 the poles there being set 15 feet into the ground, there
17 is a physical integrity, physical security problem. I

18 think the engineers have been working on it, but I would
19 request, Mr. Chairman, that if there is a DANC,
20 Development Authority of the North Country, engineer

21 here today, that he might be able to address some of our
22 concerns and fears in that matter, because that line has
23 been here for ten years now serving this community and
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24 all the communities all the way to Glen Park very well
25 with fresh water. We can deal --

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1 MR. MATHES: Don, that's your time.
2 MR. METZGER: We can't go without fresh water.

3 We can go without electricity, but we can't go without
4 fresh water, Mr. Chairman. Thanks. If I have more
5 time, I would appreciate it later.

6 MR. MATHES: Beth White. And you don't need
7 to reserve time. To the extent there's time and people

8 raise hands, that's fine. Beth White?
9 MS. WHITE: I'm Beth White. I'm in favor of
10 accepting the DEIS. The DEIS includes the project

11 description, environmental impacts, the layout and
12 design of the wind farm, as well as the decommissioning
13 process. The lease agreements also contain contingency
14 plans for the decommissioning. Sections 2.8, one

15 through three, detail this process. The process will be
16 in accord with all applicable state and federal and

17 local permits.
18 The restoration process is also explained,

19 including a two-year monitoring and remediation period.
20 The decommissioning includes aboveground and
21 below-ground structures, and the sequence for their
22 removal has turbines, foundations, collection cables,

23 substations, roadways, and paths.
24 The actual removal of the turbine is described

25 in Section 2.8.1.1. Then the removal of the foundation
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1 is described in Section 2.8.1.1. As you read the DEIS,
2 each element of the process is described in great

3 detail, leaving nothing to chance and covering every
4 possible angle.
5 I believe the wind company has gone to great
6 lengths to go above and beyond the ordinary scope of an
7 EIS.
8 I trust the Cape Vincent Town Board and
9 Planning Board to review this document and to approve it
10 as it deems appropriate.
11 I am in favor of the wind farm. Thousands of
12 turbines across the U.S. and the world are producing
13 energy safely. Control systems continually monitor the
14 turbines to assure safe and efficient operations. Like

15 many Upstate New York communities, Cape Vincent faces
16 economic challenges. The wind farm can be our solution.
17 MR. MATHES: Melodee Doull. I apologize if I

18 mispronounce your name. And feel free to pronounce it
19 for the stenographer too.
20 MS. DOULL: In several places the Supplemental

21 Draft Environmental Impact Statement proposed for the
22 St. Lawrence Wind Power Project states that the Acciona
23 project is in compliance with the local zoning ordinance

24 and land use regulations. This is not true. Cape
25 Vincent does not have a zoning law with regulations
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1 pertaining to commercial wind turbines.
2 The joint comprehensive plan was adopted in

3 2003 by Cape Vincent to regulate land use in the town
4 and village. This document clearly discouraged the
5 scale of a monumental turbine industry by specifically

6 mentioning towers or utilities.
7 The setbacks that the project claims to adhere

8 to in Section 3.5.1.3 are not criteria that have been
9 legally adopted by the Town or the Planning Board. The
10 report states that these setbacks were determined by

11 considering public comments after the public hearing on
12 the draft EIS. This is not how zoning regulations are
13 legislated.
14 This community is mired in a controversy over

15 conflicts of interest which have prohibited our local
16 government from adopting a fair and legal wind
17 ordinance.
18 In Section 3.8.3 mitigation measures are

19 discussed. Acciona believes reducing the number of
20 turbines from 96 to 53 will reduce the number of
21 turbines visible from a given location.
22 There is insufficient documentation to back up

23 the claim that downsizing the project is a viable
24 solution. Acciona also believes that reducing the

25 height of each turbine from 425 feet to 390.5 feet is an

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1 answer to mitigation. Turbines that are 390.5 feet tall
2 cannot be mitigated by the color they are painted or the

3 lack of commercial advertising, as stated by Acciona.
4 In the visual impact conclusion, 3.8.4,
5 Acciona states that since renewable energy sources such

6 as wind turbines are so important, that the residents
7 need to live with these large and visible facilities.

8 This is an arrogant and callous disregard for the rights
9 of nonparticipating residents. Natural or manmade
10 devices to mitigate the negative visual and auditory

11 impact of wind turbines do not exist. This is an
12 unacceptable living environment.
13 Where is the logic in offering this
14 questionable asset and ruining one of the most scenic

15 vistas in America? In several European countries, such
16 as Denmark and Germany, they are already reconsidering
17 the wisdom of their investment in large-scale wind
18 power.
19 In Paragraph 2.8 Acciona describes their
20 decommissioning plan. There is no mention of the
21 transmission lines; there is no mention of secure funds
22 to implement the plan. Will there be bonding? What

23 happens when the wind farm is sold to another company?
24 Will the new company adhere to the decommissioning plan

25 as described in the SDEIS? These questions need

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1 answers.
2 In Appendix J, supplemental shadow flicker
3 analysis, it states that the distance between a wind

4 turbine and a receptor affects the intensity of the
5 shadows cast by the blades, and therefore the intensity

6 of flickering.
7 One can assume similar effects relative to the
8 noise and low frequency vibration issues can be based on

9 the proximity of a receptor to a turbine.
10 A logical mitigation solution would be --
11 MR. MATHES: One minute left.

12 MS. DOULL: A logical mitigation solution
13 would be to increase turbine setbacks in order to lessen
14 the effects of flicker, noise, and vibration concerns.
15 MR. MATHES: Thank you. Urban Hershey?

16 MR. HIRSCHEY: Thank you and good morning.
17 Urban Hirschey, Cape Vincent, New York.
18 I'm going to confine my remarks today on the
19 cumulative effects, which was Section 4, and on the

20 alternative analysis on Section 7.
21 I think it's instructive and interesting that
22 the original DEIS on both of these -- on the -- the

23 number of pages on the cumulative effects was three, and
24 on the D -- on the supplemental DEIS it was 20.

25 Basically the same goes with the alternative analysis,

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1 there were four pages, and on the supplemental there are

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2 41 pages.
3 And as you look over here at the -- I think

4 there are two big volumes versus one smaller volume on
5 the original DEIS. So there's a lot more data and a lot
6 more words to look at and to study.

7 And it's also interesting that the DEIS
8 original was presented on January -- accepted on
9 January 24th, and the comment period closed
10 June 15th. Almost five months. This -- the

11 supplemental was submitted March 25th, accepted
12 March 25th, and May 30th is the comment.
13 Given the volume of information, it would seem
14 to me that it should be at least five months, which was

15 the original DEIS comment period.
16 Getting into some of the detail, in the -- on
17 Page 4-1 it reads, the SEQRA process requires that
18 reasonable related cumulative impacts be evaluated where
19 other projects have been specifically identified and

20 either are part of a single plan or program or
21 sufficient nexus of common or interactive impacts
22 warrant assessing such impacts together.

23 This is pretty interesting because, you know,
24 what does common mean? BP and Acciona are both projects
25 for Cape Vincent. They're within the bounds of Cape

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1 Vincent, and they share a transmission line, or they're

2 talking about sharing a transmission line. Clearly they
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3 are common, and they should be viewed as one. And it
4 seems to me that it's -- it's rather convenient that
5 they divided this township in two so that each one could
6 be considered separately, and therefore it wouldn't have

7 the cumulative effect of having considering 140 or 150
8 turbines versus 50.

9 Towards the bottom of the Page 4-1 it lists a
10 number of projects within 13 miles, I believe. And it
11 lists the BP Cape Vincent wind, it listed the

12 Hounsfield, which is Galloo Island, Horse Creek Farm in
13 Clayton, and the Wolfe Island project.
14 What it does fail to mention, though, is that

15 BP also has a project which is currently dormant in the
16 town of Lyme. But clearly the -- this project has not
17 been abandoned, the -- I would guess that the contracts
18 are still alive, and when this thing goes through, if it

19 goes through, Lyme is going to fire up again, and there
20 are going to be an additional amount of turbines that
21 are considered.
22 MR. MATHES: One minute.

23 MR. HIRSCHEY: 4.1.3, ecological resources.
24 They talk about significant cumulative adverse effects
25 are not anticipated because none of the projects when

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1 considered individually are anticipated to cause

2 significant impacts to wildlife or wildlife habitants of
3 the project taken together. It will not cause impacts

4 that interact with or increase the extent of the impacts
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5 of other projects.
6 This is pretty interesting because if you

7 consider some -- the migrating birds fly along the
8 eastern shore of Lake Ontario. And if you get a flock
9 of ducks or geese or whatever flying through, let's say

10 50. If -- am I going too --
11 MR. MATHES: It's time.
12 MR. HIRSCHEY: Okay. I'm going to forget that
13 part. Let's go to the last one, which is alternative --

14 this is the section that talks about what happens if
15 there are no turbines.
16 MR. MATHES: I'm going to have to ask you to
17 stop because we're past five minutes.

18 MR. HIRSCHEY: I'll come back later.
19 MR. MATHES: Okay. Theresa Ciocci? Do you
20 want to submit anything?
21 MR. HIRSCHEY: No, I'll do it later.
22 MS. CIOCCI: Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

23 Precaution is the principle of justice that no one
24 should live with fear of harm to their health and
25 environment.

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1 I am Theresa Ciocci, a property owner,

2 taxpayer, and registered voter in the town of Cape
3 Vincent. I'm a registered nurse, master's prepared in
4 nursing administration, and certified in education.

5 In my current job I am a member of a medical
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6 planning board with similar responsibilities to this
7 Board. The responsibilities include reviewing all
8 research prior to implementation for potential risk of
9 human harm. My role demands that I perform ethically,

10 unbiased, and without real or the potential for
11 financial gain to determine risk and to inform those

12 potential participants of those risks or to deny the
13 research in the face of unresolved risk uncertainty.
14 Most of my statements are excerpts from the

15 Precautionary Principle in Action Handbook written for
16 the Science and Environmental Network from the
17 January 1998 Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary

18 Principle. In order to accurately report their words, I
19 will be reading much of my presentation.
20 The public has typically carried the burden of
21 proving that a particular activity or substance is

22 dangerous. Well, those undertaking potentially
23 dangerous activities and the products of those
24 activities are considered innocent until proven guilty.
25 Chemicals, dangerous practices, and companies often seem

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1 to have more rights than the citizens and the
2 environment.
3 When citizen groups base their calls for a
4 stop to a particular activity on experience,
5 observation, or anything less than scientific proof,

6 they're accused of being emotional and hysterical. We
7 do not have to accept business as usual. Precaution is
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8 a guiding principle we can use to stop environmental
9 degradation.
10 The precautionary principle has become a
11 critical aspect of environmental agreements and
12 environmental activism throughout the world. It offers

13 the public and decision makers a forceful, common sense
14 approach to the environment and public health problems.
15 The National Environmental Policy Act requires
16 that any project receiving federal funding and which may

17 pose serious harm to the environment undergo
18 environmental impact study, demonstrating that there are
19 no safer alternatives. Risk assessment is fundamentally
20 undemocratic. Those exposed to harm are rarely asked

21 whether the exposure is acceptable to them.
22 The President's Council on Sustainable
23 Development expressed support for the precautionary
24 principle in the form of a core belief that even in the
25 face of scientific uncertainty, society should take

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1 responsible actions to avert risks to the potential harm

2 to human health or the environment is thought -- when
3 the potential for harm to human health or the
4 environment is thought to be serious or irreparable.

5 It is evident that this EIS has been guided by
6 ignorance, arrogance, and agreed on the part of this
7 planning committee and those who have the power,

8 control, and resources to act and prevent undue harm to
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9 human health and ecosystems in relation to the following
10 list of health and wellness insults: Noise emission
11 pollution, visual assault pollution, airborne toxin
12 pollution.
13 Ignorance and uncertainty are no longer
14 excuses for postponing actions to prevent harm. At this

15 time I can only question why arrogance and greed have
16 not been emergently dealt with by the New York Attorney
17 General Office for Public Integrity.

18 The precautionary approach requires that the
19 public be involved initially and intimately in the
20 ongoing decision making process. The public needs to

21 determine if we are dealing with something unknowable or
22 about which we are totally ignorant. High uncertainty
23 about possible harm is a good reason not to proceed with
24 a project.
25 The uncertainty surrounding noise emissions,

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1 visual assault, and airborne toxin pollution includes
2 but is not limited to the long- and short-term effects

3 of sleep deprivation, potentially leading to chronic
4 stress, increased rates of suicide attempts --

6 MS. CIOCCI: -- and their successes, smoking
7 and alcohol abuse in vulnerable populations, for

8 example, children and the elderly, which comprise
9 one-third of this community, as published in your Joint

10 Commission Comprehensive Plan for village, the town of
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11 Cape Vincent, a document also largely ignored by the
12 Planning Board, and soldiers and others suffering from

13 PTSD, ADHD, autism, depression and chronic fatigue
14 syndrome.
15 Potential for increased frequency and severity

16 of headaches, seizures, dizziness, irritability
17 disturbances in and child learning capability.
18 Potential for increased rates of respiratory
19 distress and disease, including lung cancer due to the

20 inhalation of dirt and dust during the unregulated or
21 ignored regulations during the installation phase of
22 such projects.
23 This is just one more airborne assault on our

24 lungs in addition to rather than protecting us from
25 other toxic airborne emissions.

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1 MR. MATHES: That's your time.
2 MS. CIOCCI: I'll finish at the end. Thank

3 you.
4 MR. MATHES: John Byrne?

5 In the back when people speak into the
6 microphone do you hear them?
7 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Not very well.

8 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you turn the volume
9 up?
10 MR. MATHES: That's all we've got. It's up

11 now.
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12 MR. BYRNE: Okay, I'll speak up for you, I'm
13 sorry. Thank you, Board members, for letting me speak
14 and letting the community have the opportunity to speak.
15 Thank you, fellow citizens, for listening.

16 We're here today to comment on a DEIS for a
17 wind power project in Cape Vincent. And in looking

18 through this DEIS I have noticed that it's extremely
19 inadequate in the sound studies in there. We're
20 supposed to be dealing with a project where the

21 developer is going to come in and give us an honest
22 assessment of what's going on in Cape Vincent, and
23 he's -- it's his job to determine what our ambient

24 background noise level is.
25 This is an extremely important topic because

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1 this is -- when you have an ambient noise background
2 you're going to have an increase over that. He's

3 already told us it's going to be louder in Cape Vincent
4 after the development than prior to. So that's
5 something I think everybody should get used to.

6 He's allowed to go 5 decibels above ambient,
7 according to what the DEC guidelines are going to allow

8 him. So in determining the ambient background noise
9 level it's going to determine what noise level we're

10 going to listen to afterwards.
11 Hessler & Associates, who represents both
12 developers in Cape Vincent in their noise studies, has

13 gone around town and taken some noise assessments. This
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14 is a typical site of what he's studying, okay? Now, I'm
15 going to hold this up if I can, Chuck. This is supposed

16 to be your typical farmhouse in Cape Vincent, okay?
17 Now, this looks lovely, I see a farmhouse over here, but
18 if you notice, over here there's a construction trailer.

19 You can show the audience this as well; I
20 think they should be entitled to see this. This looks
21 straight now. If anyone goes out to this site, which is
22 on Route 12, and they stand here and look at their noise
23 monitoring equipment and they look over their shoulder,
24 they see this, which is your staging yard for a
25 construction operation. If they think this is fair, I

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1 don't know what is fair.
2 This is dishonest, at the least. And it

3 borders on being fraudulent. And this is what we're
4 going to have to live with. 5 decibels above this noise
5 level for the rest of our lives, folks. Or at least 20

6 or 30 years. If you're comfortable with living with
7 this, it's good for you. I'm not comfortable with it.
8 That's why I'm speaking out on this.
9 And I think anyone that's here that cares
10 about what's going to happen in the future of Cape

11 Vincent needs to speak out on this. We can't allow
12 these guys to come in and do this. Pro wind people,
13 non-pro wind people, we're going to have to live with it
14 for the rest of our lives. I'm here to tell you you're
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15 going to have to deal with this noise. If you want to
16 deal with it, that's fine. I don't want to deal with
17 that. Thank you.
18 [Applause]
19 MR. MATHES: Dave Docteur.
20 MR. DOCTEUR: My comments as related to the

21 SDEIS under D, alternative analysis, St. Lawrence Wind
22 says that the project will meet all of the following
23 setbacks required by the Planning Board of Cape Vincent.

24 They are as follows: 1500 feet from the village of Cape
25 Vincent; 1,000 feet from a nonparticipating property

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1 line; 1250 feet from a nonparticipating residence; and
2 750 feet from a participating residence.

3 My question is why does St. Lawrence Wind even
4 consider coming within 1500 feet of this beautiful,
5 quaint, quiet, one-of-a-kind village located on the

6 St. Lawrence River when it's common knowledge that these
7 huge generating plants radiate sweeping shadows,

8 excessive noise, flicker, and in addition to this a
9 sickness called vibroacoustic disease that makes life

10 intolerable for the people living there.
11 The recommendation of the scientific community
12 is a setback of one and a half miles from a residence to

13 avoid the debilitating sickness called vibroacoustic
14 disease. Vibroacoustic disease is a result of the
15 inaudible low frequency energy transmitted from the

16 turbine generator causing body cavities such as the head
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17 and chest to resonate or vibrate. This can cause
18 sickness in the form of headaches, sleep deprivation,

19 nausea, dizziness, depression, palpitations, et cetera.
20 Why does St. Lawrence Wind propose to destroy
21 our little village like this? Other nearby towns are

22 proposing ordinances that will require a setback of
23 close to a mile from their villages. Anyone can spend
24 some time at Maple Ridge Wind Farm near Lowville to
25 verify these harmful effects. And I have included

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1 scientific evidence on vibroacoustic disease as a

2 reference.
3 A 1250-foot setback from a nonparticipating

4 residence results in putting the generating plant
5 practically on top of them and will cause intolerable
6 conditions with the shadows, flicker, and noise.

7 Especially the noise. Remember, it is recommended that
8 there be a one-and-a-half-mile setback, not two-tenths
9 of a mile.
10 Why should people have to abandon their homes
11 in Cape Vincent to satisfy some wealthy investors in the

12 country of Spain? Why does St. Lawrence Wind want to do
13 this? They know all too well the harm this can cause.
14 Don't they have any sense of common decency?
15 I have included written statements from people
16 in other parts of the country that are being driven from

17 their home because of this very situation.
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18 Also, a 1,000 setback from a nonparticipating
19 property line renders that property uninhabitable,
20 undevelopable, and for many causes unusable. Why does
21 St. Lawrence Wind want to do this? They are fully

22 knowledgeable of the harmful effects of doing this.
23 As far as a 750-foot setback to a

24 participating residence is concerned, you just have to
25 feel sorry for the innocent nonparticipants, the

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1 children, and uninformed adults who live there.
2 Why does this Spanish-owned company, Acciona,

3 St. Lawrence Wind want to destroy our beautiful
4 one-of-a-kind area where Lake Ontario meets the
5 St. Lawrence River with these unconscionable setbacks?

6 The reference for vibroacoustic disease and
7 the letter from one of the soon-to-be-displaced persons

8 is on the internet at WindTurbineSyndrome.com. A letter
9 to the editor written by Jessica Nuhn of Strykersville,
10 New York, is included as the other family whose life has

11 been intolerably interrupted by living too close to
12 industrial wind turbines.

13 MR. MATHES: Kenneth White.
14 MR. WHITE: Hi. I'm Ken White. I'm in favor
15 of the wind farms in the town of Cape Vincent. The

16 process of building a wind farm is not easy. There are
17 very many environmental and geological concerns. The
18 Town Board and the Planning Board have done a superior

19 job in handling the many aspects of the project with
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20 professionalism and diligence.
21 The Supplemental DEIS describes the entire

22 wind project from start to finish. It includes a scope
23 of project, including the description of layout and
24 design, the turbines, the transmission lines, and

25 geological concerns. The turbines will be grouped along

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1 individual electrical circuits and will be monitored by
2 sophisticated computer control systems.

3 The decommissioning process is described in
4 Section 2.8 and adheres to all applicable local, state,
5 and federal permits. Not only is decommissioning of the

6 turbines discussed in detail, but also the removal of
7 the underground cables, collection lines, substations,

8 roadways, and pads.
9 In effect, every possible aspect of the wind
10 power project has been addressed. The wind turbines are

11 a clean, renewable resource that we can take advantage
12 of in the town of Cape Vincent. The Town Board should
13 review the document and approve the Supplemental DEIS.
14 Cape Vincent is known for the abundant natural

15 resources we have, and one of these resources is wind.
16 Across the country and the world thousands of wind
17 turbines are producing power affordably without

18 polluting emissions and, most importantly, safely. The
19 development of wind farms brings solutions to our
20 present economy and curbs the pollution from
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21 coal-producing power plants, which will be part of the
22 solution.
23 The benefits of the projects far outweigh any
24 impact -- negative impact. The town should take

25 advantage of this windfall opportunity. I recommend the

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1 town accept the document as presented. Thank you.
2 MR. MATHES: Gary King.

3 MR. KING: Good morning, everybody. I trust
4 you can hear me. It's interesting, I have friends on
5 both sides of this issue, so consequently I took it upon

6 myself to do a little bit of studying about a little bit
7 of the rigmarole that's going on. And I went to five

8 wind farms throughout the United States and put my ear
9 not to the ground, but to the wind towers. The actual
10 transformer made more noise than the turbine as it was

11 running.
12 I believe there's a group of people, I don't
13 care what you're doing, if you were giving away $100
14 bills, somebody would complain and say oh, gee, mine is

15 bigger than yours or yours is bigger than mine. But
16 it's an important issue and, I hate to see the village
17 and the town divided.

18 I've lived here for 25 plus years, and I've
19 lived on this earth for 68, almost 69 years, and I
20 remember so many times and so many different things that

21 were going to kill me. The very first one I remember,
22 this is off the beaten path maybe, but it's important to
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23 me -- she agrees with me it's off the beaten path -- but
24 I remember when oleo first came out; oh, that's going to

25 kill you. I remember when cranberries were deadly.

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1 But I'll bet there isn't a person in here that
2 hasn't crossed in their life a dozen different things

3 that's going to kill them that later on turned out to be
4 a good thing.
5 Wind turbines are used all over the world. I

6 feel that this Board and the elected officials that were
7 elected by the majority of the residents of Cape

8 Vincent, knowing full well that they were going to be
9 voting, my only gripe is some of people elected not to
10 vote because it would pretend -- whatever the big word

11 is -- to be a conflict of interest. I believe it's a
12 conflict of interest when they don't vote when they were
13 elected to do the people's work.
14 MR. MATHES: Gary, if you can confine your

15 comments to the SDIS.
16 MR. KING: I don't know what he says because I
17 can't hear him.

18 MR. MATHES: If you can confine your comments
19 to the physical document.
20 MR. KING: I'm sorry. I'm all done. But I

21 thank the Board for a good job well done. And thank you
22 for all your efforts, and I'm sorry you had to take so
23 much abuse that I think is unnecessary.
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24 MR. MATHES: Tom Chapman.
25 MR. CHAPMAN: I'm a member of Crowe & Hammond.

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1 We have been through hell, like a lot of you have. And
2 I planned on talking maybe a little bit about the dBC

3 levels which the wind companies don't want to seem to
4 talk to you about, they just deal in dBAs. But that has
5 been covered pretty well. The gentleman back there was

6 right on when he talked about ambient noise. But if you
7 go to the wind companies they'll probably tell you it's

8 40 here when you're going to find if you get an honest
9 test it's probably about 25.
10 So I don't get a -- very often get a chance to

11 chew on wind companies, but seeing as they told us what
12 a wonderful job they've been doing in Europe and places
13 like that, I will address you. And for your people that
14 are dressed in green and think this is green energy, you

15 should be looking at things a little closer.
16 They talk about what a wonderful job they have

17 been doing in Europe with all these wind companies that
18 have been established, but they failed to tell you how

19 many fossil fuel plants have had to go up because wind
20 is so unreliable there. In fact, in Denmark, Spain,
21 Germany, they're doing away with the subsidies that they
22 get here because it's been such a failure.

23 And up in Denmark, for example, where they
24 have 6,000 turbines up already, the carbon emissions

25 have gone up 36%. They don't tell you that. I'll bet
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1 you the wind company representatives cannot tell me
2 anywhere where any coal-fired or fossil fuel generated

3 plant has shut down because they have erected a wind
4 tower farm anywhere.

5 I don't hear any -- another thing, I don't
6 know, I don't understand why you don't sign onto the
7 Attorney General's code of ethics.

8 MR. MATHES: Tom, if you can address the Board
9 and stay on the topic.
10 MR. CHAPMAN: Okay. I know what the Board has

11 gone through, they got misrepresented by some of the
12 statistics that are out there from the wind companies.
13 And most of the County Planning Boards were misled. And
14 you probably copied your plan from the County Planning

15 Board. And we had the same problem in St. Lawrence
16 County.
17 Now, we talk about how -- the jobs that will

18 be created by this wind energy business. Seeing this
19 company is from Spain, I'll go there. For every job
20 that was created by wind power, 2.2 jobs were lost. And
21 you know how much it cost to produce those jobs? They
22 got $2 million in subsidies for every job that was
23 produced.
24 Now, if you don't think -- you people that are
25 dressed in green think this is a green energy, you
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1 better do a little more looking into it because you may
2 going to find that it's not. Thank you.

3 MR. MATHES: Rick Lawrence.
4 MR. LAWRENCE: I'm Rick Lawrence. I'm -- my
5 wife and I are property owners in the project. Our son

6 works for St. Lawrence Wind, and I've seen the hundreds
7 of hours they've put into this -- these studies, and

8 they have done a very thorough job in my opinion.
9 And I want to thank the Planning Board and the
10 Town Board for all the hard work and countless hours
11 that they've put into this. And they are looking to the
12 future, and that's the important thing.
13 And I will add that wind turbines have much
14 fewer negative impacts than a nuclear plant somewhere on

15 the St. Lawrence River. Thank you.
16 MR. MATHES: Warren Johnson.
17 MR. JOHNSON: My name is Warren Johnson, and
18 I'm a councilman in the town of Lyme. And I'm here to

19 deliver a letter from our Supervisor, Scott Aubertine.
20 Dear Supervisor Reinbeck and Cape Vincent Town
21 Board: At our May meeting the town of Lyme Board
22 approved a motion to contact you regarding concerns it

23 has with the proposed wind project in the town of Cape
24 Vincent. The concerns of the Board are in relation to

25 the transmission lines and their location in the town of

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43
1 Lyme.
2 We as a Town Board would like to respectfully

3 request that you -- that your project comply with the
4 proposed town of Lyme Wind Energy Facilities Zoning Law,
5 presently in litigation, Article II, Section 4,

6 Standards for WECS, which reads: The following
7 standards shall apply to all WECS, unless specifically

8 waived by the Zoning Board as a part of a permit. A:
9 All power transmission lines from the tower to any
10 building or other structure shall be located underground

11 to the maximum extent possible and to the maximum extent
12 allowed by law, including all transmission lines
13 transiting the town of Lyme from wind farms originating
14 in other jurisdictions. Respectfully, Scott Aubertine.

15 I'd like everyone in this room to reflect on
16 the last ice storm we had. That was a horror story. We
17 replaced 6,000 telephone poles aboveground and 123 miles
18 of electrical wire. Let's do it right the first time.

19 Thank you.
20 MR. MATHES: Jerry LeTendre.
21 MR. LeTENDRE: I'm Jerry LeTendre. I've been
22 a resident of Cape Vincent since 1965. I love Cape

23 Vincent. I travel around the country, and the last
24 couple years I've driven all the way to the West Coast
25 each year. And on my trip I noticed lots of wind

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1 towers. Kansas has them by the hundreds, thousands

2 maybe even. Iowa has them by the hundreds and
3 thousands.
4 And you know what, the only person that's
5 going to bother in any of those wind tower projects is

6 the person that owns the land. Whereas we're living in
7 a place that's completely different. Cape Vincent is a
8 residential community, and any of you that drove into

9 town that haven't been here lately that looked across
10 the wonderful St. Lawrence River saw what Cape Vincent
11 will look like once this project is completed.

12 Okay. Anyway, so I've been around doing that.
13 My only question here today is going to be concerning
14 birds. I'm involved and interested in the whole
15 project, I've written comments several times and will

16 continue to do that. But a year ago yesterday I was
17 birding in my backyard and had 14 species of birds that
18 were migrating through. This is a high migration area.
19 Somebody started talking earlier, birds come

20 up migrating in the eastern corridor, and they get to
21 Lake Ontario, they come around, they come through Cape
22 Vincent.
23 Somebody seems to think that birds don't come
24 here. Well, anybody that's played tennis with me up

25 here at these courts knows I'm calling out every eagle,

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1 hawk, and vulture that comes by. There are lots of

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2 birds that migrate through; there are a lot of raptors
3 that migrate through. Somehow these people don't see

4 that.
5 But the worst thing I think is in 2005 there
6 was a great gray owl in Cape Vincent. I showed that

7 bird to over 3,000 people, and over 500 of them had
8 never seen that bird before. And when they were here I
9 always send them over to see a very interesting bird
10 that we had called the short-eared owl. Before they

11 left, they were here somewhere near evening, they went
12 over and looked at that.
13 The short-eared owl is a very important bird
14 in Cape Vincent. These guys have not found one. Not

15 one. It's a threatened New York State bird.
16 That's how they do their whole study. Sure,
17 they went from four pages to 21. They can go to 400.
18 They don't answer the question and they can't mitigate
19 problems with birds, they're wasting our time.

20 And that's how the whole project is. I'm
21 sorry, I could go through other parts of it, but -- it's
22 unconscionable what they're trying to do. That's the

23 end of my statement. Thank you.
24 MR. MATHES: Paul Sirianni.
25 MR. SIRIANNI: Good morning. My name is Paul

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1 Sirianni. I am a representative of the New York State

2 Ironworkers District Council.
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3 I have attended a lot of these meetings
4 throughout New York State, have given some opinions on
5 their Environmental Impact Statements, I give some
6 opinions in regards to economic development.

7 I'm here today, number one, to thank this
8 Board for having this meeting on a Saturday morning at

9 10:00. You do not know how many countless meetings I've
10 been to that have been held on a Tuesday at 8:00 in the
11 morning with a community that's not been given the

12 opportunity to speak as you are, and I commend this
13 Board for that.
14 In reviewing the impact statement here that's

15 put forth on this particular project, looking at the
16 construction portion of it, because I am a construction
17 worker and do represent the workers that potentially
18 would work on this project if you were to allow this

19 project to go through, and I'll make it very clear, that
20 I obviously -- I'm a construction worker, we like to do
21 the work, but whatever this town decides and your people
22 decide, that's truly up to you.

23 But I am here to say that in reviewing what
24 they have written down, what their procedures are in the
25 aspects of the construction of these projects and

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1 knowing full well how these projects pan out, because

2 the New York State Ironworkers District Council has done
3 every single one in the state of New York to date, we

4 have represented, put our people on these projects. So
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5 we do know how they are done and how they're done
6 properly. And from what I can see, I can honestly say

7 that it looks like their procedures fall right directly
8 in line with procedures that have been used in the past,
9 that have been used here successfully.

10 It's a kind of a quick impact at first, but
11 everything melts back into the norm. If you've visited
12 wind farms, I heard a gentleman say he did go out and
13 visit, I would -- if you're skeptical, I would suggest

14 that you do visit because some of the things you hear
15 maybe aren't what you're told.
16 But they -- their procedures for digging the
17 foundation are very adequate; the same type of

18 procedures that we've used on Maple Ridge and up in
19 Ellenville. Down in the Southern Tier south of Buffalo
20 and Rochester now there's farms that are going. I'm
21 understanding that their components that they use are
22 state of the art, very good components from that aspect.

23 What I would ask this community if you do
24 decide to move forward with this project, of great
25 concern to us is that we -- on the economic side of

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1 this, that the economic development a lot of it happens

2 with the construction portion of the project. There's a
3 lot of economic development that comes back to the town
4 through the developer as the stages go, as it goes on

5 and the farm is in operation, but the construction
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6 portion of it is a huge portion of economic development,
7 and I ask one thing: That they hire the local worker.
8 And the town should demand that the developer commit to
9 using local labor.

10 And that's what I'm about, that's what we're
11 about. It's -- it makes perfect sense to have the

12 people that live and work in the community, pay their
13 taxes, buy their groceries and their gas, be afforded
14 the jobs that are going to become available through the

15 construction.
17 MR. SIRIANNI: Thank you.

18 MR. MATHES: John Clark.
19 MR. CLARK: Good morning, my name is John
20 Clark. And thank you for having -- giving us the
21 opportunity to come here and speak this morning.

22 I'm a construction worker, and I am here to
23 speak in favor of the St. Lawrence Wind Farm. This
24 project will provide much-needed jobs for the
25 construction worker in this area.

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1 As a construction worker, I am in favor of
2 projects that will provide an income for me and my

3 family. We need these projects for power we consume.
4 As an outdoorsman and an avid fisherman, I would much
5 rather build wind farm windmills for power that we need

6 than I would to build coal-burning plants that continue
7 to affect our lakes and rivers with acid rain. We
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8 cannot continue to pollute our waterways.
9 I see this project as a win-win for

10 construction worker and for the environment. During the
11 construction of the wind farm in Lowville the
12 contractors and the workers made every effort to

13 preserve the land around their construction site. And
14 as this report indicates, this project would provide the
15 same. Thank you.
16 MR. MATHES: Bob Gauthier.

17 MR. GAUTHIER: First of all, I must apologize
18 because my show-and-tell guy didn't show up. I don't
19 know, I think he's over on Wolfe looking at birds or
20 noise or something.
21 But anyway, I would like to thank the Town
22 Board, Tom Reinbeck, and all the guys on there for all
23 their hard work that they've done. And especially I'd
24 like it thank Richie Edsall; the man has been through
25 pure hell. And the rest of his town and the rest of his

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1 members as well.
2 I'm all in favor of this project, as you can
3 tell, and I would just like to end by saying that
4 Mr. Reinbeck and Mr. Edsall, you guys look really cool
5 on YouTube.
6 MR. MATHES: Paul Mason.
7 MR. MASON: Paul Mason. I've been a resident

8 of this town for 69 years. I have helped feed the
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9 American people for probably the last 50 some years. I
10 have a dairy farm down on the St. Lawrence River, which
11 I enjoy just as much as anybody here in the town of Cape
12 Vincent or all the world.

13 I have a dairy distinction; I am a
14 conservation dairy farmer of the year. I have been

15 selected as environmental stewardship of the year for
16 New York State, which there's only one per year. So
17 don't call me I'm not an environmentalist, I am.

18 And I think this project, as all the studies
19 show, the birds, I work around the birds, I work around
20 the deer, the turkeys. I have a scope in my backyard

21 that looks out onto the environment. And I don't think
22 this environment is going to be hurt in any way.
23 Because I have talked with other farmers in these same
24 situations that we're going to be in, which the dairy

25 industry is one of the biggest industries in the town of

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1 Cape Vincent. But it's gradually diminishing, and it
2 will continue to diminish. And this is one thing that

3 could help the landowners, which I'm sure most of these
4 environmental people aren't concerned about.
5 Visual impact. That's a matter of opinion,

6 the studies show. I was actually -- had an impact when
7 I arrived at this building today. That's a visual

8 impact to me. Cell towers, we just was approved a cell
9 tower, another one going up in the town of Cape Vincent.

10 They're going up all over. That's visual impact.
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11 The other thing in here is the flicker effect.
12 Like I stated, I have many, many acres looking out my

13 back window, and this is my best view. I don't look at
14 the river, I love the river, but I have a visual impact
15 because of trees across from me that's been planted

16 there that I can't see the river that I used to be able
17 to see back when I was a little kid.
18 Okay? And when -- and this flicker effect,
19 I've been keeping track of it because there is a test

20 tower back of my farm. The sun rise is only a very few
21 days in the morning that I would ever get a flicker
22 effect. And you know what, about half of those mornings
23 or more are cloudy.

24 So I'm not sure, they say in this impact here
25 that on a cloudy day you don't get a visual impact -- or

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1 a flicker effect. We have 8,760 hours a year, and most
2 of these sites, 75, they say are going to have one hour.
3 MR. MATHES: One minute, Paul.
4 MR. MASON: 87 is going to have between an

5 hour and ten hours a year out of 8,760.
6 I would like to thank the Planning Board, the
7 Town Board, Richie, and Tom. You guys have done a great
8 job in spite of all of the abuse that you have taken.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. MATHES: Gail Kenney. I might be

11 mispronouncing that.
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12 MS. KENNEY: I'm not sure that I can't do
13 better without the microphone, so if you can hear me
14 I'll proceed that way and I'll feel much more
15 comfortable. Is that all right with everyone?

16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Of course.
17 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, sure.

18 MS. KENNEY: Okay. I want to thank you to
19 giving me this time to come up and speak here. I'm not
20 comfortable speaking. But my name is Gail Kenney. I

21 come from Wolfe Island. I'm chair of WIRE, the Wolfe
22 Island Residents for the Environment.
23 I put my name down on the sheet wondering if I

24 should take this opportunity, since this is your
25 project, it is not Wolfe Island's. But you have seen

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1 Wolfe Island's project, and I don't know if you have
2 been to Wolfe Island to see it close-up.

3 But there are many things that I've heard here
4 now that I think that the Board and the people here
5 should consider after having the experience that we have

6 had. And please, please bear with me because, as I say,
7 I'm not really comfortable speaking.

8 But first of all, I want -- just want to make
9 the comment that in -- we called it an environmental

10 review, the people who were not proponents, not
11 landowners that were going to have turbines were named
12 as nonparticipating receptors. So immediately what you

13 felt like was you weren't counting because you weren't
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14 really human.
15 Now, the nonparticipating receptors weren't

16 really people, that were the houses and buildings that
17 were going to receive the negative impact. So it was
18 definitely a negative name to have.

19 Now, these people aren't benefiting
20 financially in any way, nonparticipate from the project,
21 but they will definitely, along with the proponents, be
22 recepting [sic] or receiving any negative impact.

23 And I think that's one thing when I look at
24 this group and I see exactly what I saw on Wolfe Island,
25 here is one group and here is another group. And before

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1 this project came to Wolfe Island we were one group.
2 And people say nevermind, it will go away,

3 you'll get used to it. I -- I don't see that happening
4 yet on Wolfe Island.
5 So you need to be very careful. When the

6 gentleman said I have friends on both sides, you really
7 need to hold onto those friends on both sides and

8 understand -- try to understand where everybody is
9 coming from.
10 And I didn't mean to come to lecture, I'm

11 just -- whatever is coming into my head. But that --
12 tearing the community apart is what is happening with
13 these projects, and tearing families apart. And we have
14 to have more understanding there.
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15 Anyway, I'm a nonparticipating receptor. In
16 front of my home I see 28 turbines. A couple of them
17 are turning now. They're in the testing process.
18 We went through a year of construction period

19 that was very difficult. I don't see it getting better
20 at this point. The gentleman who mentioned noise and

21 said that he has stood beside them and he -- I did the
22 same thing, I went to Lowville, I stood under them, I
23 walked around them. I went to the conference that your

24 bird specialist talk about.
25 I also walk down my lane way in the evening

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1 when three or four are turning now with my dog. And
2 it's a lot different than what I heard in Lowville.

3 Because it's evening, the atmosphere is just right for
4 it, and they're pounding.
5 Sometimes in the daytime I go to my garden, I

6 hardly hear them, they sound like a little bit of a jet
7 going overhead. And these are only a few getting

8 started now.

10 MS. KENNEY: Okay. Sorry. I want to just say
11 about an environmental assessment, we went through
12 struggling through this issue. And I just want to say

13 that there isn't an environmental assessment that can
14 deal with everything you're going to deal with.
15 And even if you say oh, it's complete, there's

16 no way it could possibly be complete. But you need to
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17 have a protocol so that people who have concerns when
18 issues come up, people can go and say this is the issue
19 that I have.
20 So we've got one of those; we got what we
21 called a Community Liaison Committee. But they have no

22 authority. So we go and we say we have an issue with
23 this, this wetland is being intruded on or it was dumped
24 into or whatever, and they say oh, that is really too
25 bad, the community listens, we walk away, and nothing is

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1 done.
2 So you need to look into this environmental
3 assessment and see who has the authority to say to this

4 company, okay, you've got a contract with us, are you
5 keeping it? Who's monitoring them daily? Because the
6 proponents need that as much as the nonparticipating

7 receptors. If you've got a company on your land you
8 want to know that -- who's monitoring it, who's
9 responsible.
10 MR. MATHES: That's your time, Gail.
11 MS. KENNEY: I'm sorry, I'll stop. I would

12 like to invite you to come to Wolfe Island and see not
13 from a distance, but up close the turbines and talk to

14 the people on Wolfe Island. Thank you.
15 [Applause]
16 MR. MATHES: Tom Brown?

17 Oh, I apologize, I accidentally skipped Chuck
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18 Ebbing. But Chuck, you can go next and we'll be back in
19 order. Sorry about that.
20 MR. BROWN: Good morning. I think it's still
21 morning. My name is Tom Brown. I'm a resident with the

22 village and have been for a number of years.
23 I spent a career in the field of environmental

24 science. And I too love this community, and I love
25 living here. And what I would like to do today is among

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1 the number of comments that I had on the Supplemental
2 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, I've selected a

3 couple that I think are pretty pertinent, and I would
4 like to express those comments here today. And I have a
5 copy I can leave with your secretary.

6 The Thousand Island region is well recognized
7 for its unique beauty and holds a position of both state

8 and national environmental significance. Yet the
9 Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement fails
10 to assess what impact converting the Cape Vincent

11 landscape to an industrial wind energy site will have on
12 this unique quality and national standing.

13 The Supplemental Draft states the visual
14 impacts are unavoidable but necessary to achieve
15 renewable energy requirements. Yet I haven't found in

16 the environmental is assessment an effort to evaluate
17 other less alternative visually intrusive project sites.
18 Evaluation of alternative project sites has

19 always been a central requirement of the SEQRA planning
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20 process. Yet in this case the developer appears to be
21 relying on a law provision that may, and I underscore

22 may, allow a developer to avoid an alternative project
23 site evaluation to properties they own or have under
24 option.
25 The application of this provision is currently

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1 subject to a legal interpretation review. Regardless,
2 exempting alternative project site evaluation should not

3 be permitted and should be found unacceptable for sites
4 possessing such natural beauty and resource significance
5 on a state and national level.

6 Furthermore, what happens in Cape Vincent is
7 likely to be critically important as a precedent for

8 other such projects throughout the Thousand Island
9 region.
10 I want to make it clear I'm not opposed to

11 wind energy, I'm an environmentalist, and wind energy
12 has its place among renewable energy sources. But I am
13 opposed to it in the wrong areas, especially when there
14 are alternative sites that are less intrusive. Thank

15 you.
16 MR. MATHES: Chuck Ebbing.
17 MR. EBBING: Good morning, I'm Chuck Ebbing.

18 I think you can all hear me, and I think you're going
19 understand more of what I say if why use the mic than if
20 I do. If that's not the case, I would like to see some
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21 hands.
22 I had to cross the St. Lawrence this morning
23 in the rain, and I got all wet. So I finally dried out,
24 so I guess I'm not all wet now. At least I hope I'm

25 not.

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1 I want to talk to you about your impact
2 statements. And I looked at it, and obviously in the

3 amount of time I got it's darn near impossible to get
4 into detail, so I want to make this pretty simple.
5 If you look at the summary of impacts, the

6 first one is Table 7-1, and it basically says during
7 operation approximately 48 residences would have a

8 nominal project sound level slightly above the project
9 impact threshold of 60B over the estimated 42 dBA.
10 What I'd like to do is challenge that number

11 and also challenge on Table 1-1 when it talks about
12 impacts, potential impacts and what they're going to do.
13 It says the project will not have significant noise
14 impacts during operation. And it basically says a bunch

15 of stuff here that they're going to do things to fix it.
16 I question that.
17 Some of you know me, some of you don't. I'm

18 Chuck Ebbing. I retired from Carrier in 1991 where I
19 worked as a noise control engineer since 1967. I was
20 also an adjunct professor at Syracuse University and RPI

21 in Troy, where I basically taught people how to design
22 quiet entertainment venues and how to avoid noises in
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23 products.
24 I was deeply involved in creating acoustic

25 standards at the acoustic criteria, which are the guides

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1 now used by the heating, ventilation, and
2 air-conditioning companies addressing low frequency

3 noise problems in buildings.
4 That's pretty important to me because in 1978
5 I published one of the first papers saying we got a

6 problem, we have to deal with it. And we did. It took
7 20 years, but we now have a criteria for noise in

8 buildings, which recognizes that if you have excessive
9 low frequency noise in relation to the high frequency
10 noise it rumbles, and knowledge workers can't take it.

11 I've had people want to move out of buildings, new
12 buildings for Ford, other companies. So it's not a
13 phoney thing, it's for real.
14 When -- excuse me, I have the wrong one here.

15 At Purdue I picked up a thought that has always helped
16 me deal with acoustical problems or vibration problems
17 or problems in vibration, problems in general.

18 To be able to clearly answer the question what
19 is the real problem to be understood, you basically have
20 to look at that and understand it. And one of my profs

21 said at that point if you really understand a problem
22 and can write down what the problem is, you're a big way
23 there, because many times we don't understand the
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24 problem.
25 So I would like to give you my take on what

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1 the problem is with noise and what is going to most
2 affect you.
3 When you're home in your castle we expect to
4 be able to get a good night's sleep. Doctors will tell
5 you that constant sleep deprivation puts you in health's

6 harm's way, and I think we've seen more and more of that
7 in accidents and everything else.

8 At night in rural areas like the North Country
9 when the manmade noise is minimized and people are
10 asleep, the wind is usually quite low, and typical

11 ambients are typically in the range of 20 to 30 dB.
12 MR. MATHES: Chuck, one minute.
13 MR. EBBING: Okay. Basically Paul Shomer and
14 a number of other people have shown that that number

15 really is closer to 25. And the reason behind that is
16 we have a lot more days of what we call stable

17 environmental ambients, when the wind is low and the
18 noise is low. And the wind companies don't acknowledge

19 this.
20 As far as I'm concerned, the studies that have
21 been done have been done on a biased manner, and the
22 town really needs to know what the real numbers are.

23 This goes for the complete North Country, not just here.
24 There has been -- if you think that -- let me

25 just ask you the Board: If I was suing you would you
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1 let me pay for your attorney? Would you?
2 MR. MATHES: The Board's not going to respond

3 to your comments.
4 MR. EBBING: No, you wouldn't. Because

5 basically you have to have an unbiased person doing the
6 study.
7 The wind farm has used consultants that they

8 paid for, this town paid nothing for, and I think that
9 they need unbiased information.

11 MR. EBBING: Thank you.
12 [Applause]
13 MR. MATHES: Clif Schneider.
14 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: Hi, I'm Clif Snyder. I'm

15 going to be picking up on some of the comments that
16 Chuck made.

18 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: You can't hear me.
19 Thanks for the opportunity to make comments here.
20 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Still can't hear you.

21 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: You still can't hear me?
22 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: That's better.
23 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: Clif Schneider. I've

24 been a resident here for, I don't know, 40 years or
25 something like that, and I appreciate the opportunity to
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1 talk and speak.
2 I'm going to follow up on what Chuck Ebbing

3 was saying. The only thing I would say is that the
4 developer has hired Hessler and company to provide a
5 sound analysis, and Hessler delivered what the

6 developers wanted. I mean, that's not all that unusual.
7 And what they did in that is, in particular the thing I

8 have the greatest concern with, if you look at a lot of
9 things -- many of the technical issues and questions
10 I'll provide in written comment -- but the main thing is

11 their estimate of ambient.
12 Their estimate of ambient at 37 dB is about
13 10 dB high. And what that does is it focuses and
14 resolves and ends up in all kinds of negative impacts

15 with respect to that. So I got a problem with that.
16 And the interesting thing is you've got a
17 developer who's paying the freight to have these people
18 come in and make this kind of analysis, and you

19 anticipate and expect that they're going to shape it and
20 shade it in the way that the developer would like to
21 see.
22 That's why it's important that the town and

23 Planning Board hire an independent consultant to come in
24 and review that material and make a determination on it.

25 That's what you did, and I applaud you for doing that.

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1 I had to go through a Freedom of Information Act request
2 to find out what these technical professionals were

3 providing guidance to the Planning Board. Todd Mathes
4 gave me a copy of some of the information, didn't give
5 it all to me.
6 But in the review of this there were ten items
7 related to noise that they addressed and made

8 recommendations to this Board in which not one of them
9 ended up in the Supplemental DEIS. And some of those
10 were substantive comments about how you estimate

11 background, which is important. Another one was how you
12 conduct your models and how you parameterize your models
13 that make those noise impact assessments. None of that
14 was included. None of it.

15 So the question is if you don't do that, if
16 you're paying for good help and you don't get -- you're
17 not going to pay any attention to what they say, you can
18 have some problems and impacts.

19 And what I have here, if I can get it up and
20 running, is an interview with a congressman.
21 AUDIO RECORDING: Congressman Eric Massa.
22 Congressman, good morning. Good morning, and thank you

23 for having me with you today. Well, it's always great
24 to be on the line with you, Eric. I wish was wrong with

25 everything I said for the last three years has come

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1 true, but nowhere is that more apparent --

3 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: U.S. Congressman Eric

4 Massa from Western New York was interviewed on WLEA,
5 Radio Hornell, April 25th, and it had to do with noise

6 issues. And it has some relevance, and I will at the
7 end of the -- there's an excerpt here for about a
8 minute, and I'll tell you the relevance when we get done
9 listening to it.
10 AUDIO RECORDING: Today with Congressman Eric
11 Massa. Congressman, good morning. Good morning, and

12 thank you for having me with you today. Well, it's
13 always great to be on the line with you, Eric. I wish I
14 was wrong with everything I said for the last three
15 years has come true, but nowhere is that more apparent

16 than now with the fact that these wind turbines generate
17 so much noise that the very homes on the properties that
18 leased agreements to the wind turbines now can't be
19 occupied. Now, I'm not making this up. I have been in

20 my office with a virtual flood of constituents who have
21 come to me --

23 AUDIO RECORDING: -- both on and off
24 properties that were leased to the wind companies

25 saying --

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1 MR. MATHES: You can come back up.

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2 AUDIO RECORDING: -- if you can't live in the
3 houses anymore, then you can't sell them. And in fact,

4 the town supervisor of Cohocton --
5 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: If anybody's interested
6 I'll play the whole interview later at the end of the

7 meeting.
8 But in essence, the important connection here
9 is that town of Cohocton had exactly the same
10 environmental group noise consultant doing the work that

11 was done for St. Lawrence Wind Power and BP, came up
12 with exactly the same background and also exactly the
13 same criteria for making those determinations and
14 assessments. So I think it's important to pay

15 attention. They didn't do a very good job.
16 MR. MATHES: Janet Haskins.
17 MS. HASKINS: Janet Haskins. I live here --
18 can't hear me? Okay. How about that? Better?
19 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Still can't hear you.

20 MS. HASKINS: Well, my kids never say that.
21 I live here in Cape Vincent, and I just want
22 to thank everybody, because I think the comments that

23 we've heard today have been most important to all the
24 decisions that we have to make in our community.
25 I think the thing that I learned most and

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1 would like to address, has anybody done any information

2 with people in a study that have lived under the wind
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3 turbines. You know, there's a lot of information out
4 there about families that have lived under the wind
5 turbines, how it impacts them and their health. And in
6 our studies I see nothing about human beings that live

7 under these conditions. And I think for all of us that
8 is the most important issue.

9 While I am concerns about, you know, the
10 wildlife and everything else, I'm most concerned for our
11 families and our children and our elderly and anybody

12 that lives under them.
13 I have a son-in-law that has epilepsy, and the
14 blades of the turbines can cause seizures to him. He

15 comes to our home every weekend, and I'm very concerned.
16 He has two small children; I don't know if they'll have
17 that.
18 So I guess I'm addressing the Board and asking

19 them has this been addressed. Would anybody go and live
20 under these, as we've been invited to Wolfe Island, for
21 30 days, anybody, anybody that can make an objective
22 opinion and live under them in the conditions that they

23 are and report back so we know how we are impacted.
24 To walk under them, I've walked under them, to
25 see them or hear them visually, you know, you're only

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1 there briefly, and it doesn't look like it impacts us.

2 It's not that we don't want the wind; we don't
3 want it in the proximity that it impacts our quality of

4 life. And I think that should be important to all of
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5 us.
6 So I guess I'm asking is there somebody or

7 some way we can investigate that how -- to live right
8 under them for 30 days or whatever, it's a very small
9 period of time, in the evenings, and see how it impacts

10 people.
11 MR. MATHES: Brooks Bragdon.
12 MR. BRAGDON: Hi, I'm Brooks Bragdon, and I
13 live in Cape Vincent here. And my family's been here

14 going back into the 1920s, and I own a small real estate
15 company here.
16 What I'd like to talk about here predominantly
17 is the section in the DEIS environmental setting. And

18 in the environmental setting there is a key document
19 that had to do with a letter to the New York State
20 Public Service Commission, Mr. Andrew Davis, from John
21 Bonafide. And in that it says that the project will
22 result in adverse impacts and says we would recommend

23 that the applicant utilize visual analysis as a tool to
24 aid in the exploration of feasible and prudent
25 alternatives that avoid the adverse impacts.

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1 This all has to do with the Supplemental DEIS

2 going back to the original DEIS that was completely
3 inadequate. What happened was that St. Lawrence Wind
4 Farm itemized the different projects, different

5 properties here that didn't get at all involved with
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6 stating what the adverse impacts would be. I should say
7 that correctly, didn't say whether or not there would be
8 adverse impacts and didn't get at all involved in
9 getting into alternatives to mitigate those impacts.

10 What I'm saying at this particular point is,
11 and I say with respect, that it's not appropriate to

12 accept this DIS. This DIS is still deficient; it has
13 come part way on this subject matter of environmental
14 studies, but it really has not come the full way.

15 What's happened is that they have come up to
16 the point of admitting through the correspondence that
17 there are adverse impacts, but they have not in any way
18 gotten into itemizing what those adverse impacts are,
19 looking at alternatives to mitigate them, and taking
20 certain steps to actually mitigate those impacts.
21 One of the things that strikes me is that if

22 you look at this it says -- suggests that you use the
23 visual simulations for the purpose of itemizing what
24 those adverse impacts will be. Then when it gets into
25 describing what those views are they say, well -- I'm

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1 going to try to quote this, but it says that we've only
2 done it according to the types of -- the types of views

3 that most people will see.
4 But the reality is that they're going to have
5 turbines on both sides of the road coming in from Lyme

6 and coming in from Clayton. This is going to change the
7 setting, the architectural setting of Cape Vincent in a
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8 very huge, dramatic way; 40-story buildings, the
9 equivalent of it, four of them out here and many of them

10 down here.
11 And so what I'm saying is that the fundamental
12 action, what's required by the SEQRA, has not been being

13 done. The fundamental action required to identify
14 adverse impacts has not been taken. I'm not saying this
15 is fraudulent, but I'm saying it's getting in the
16 direction of being insincere. Well past incompetent.

17 The basic action that's supposed to be taking
18 place in here that's called for in this letter to the --
19 from the State Historic Preservation Office to the
20 Public Service Commission is basically not being done.

21 It is premature, it is wrong to accept this DIS as it
22 stands at this particular point.
23 One of the things that's -- takes place in
24 describing the environment from the level of adverse
25 impacts is it doesn't step back and it doesn't look at

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1 the significance of what's here. It breaks down in term

2 of how many you'll see views here, views there; it
3 doesn't get into saying what a dramatic, important area
4 we have.
5 We have from the Great Lakes coming into the
6 Thousand Islands here a great environmental area, and we
7 also have this area loaded with historic preservation

8 assets. The state knows this to be a very, very rich
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9 environmental area from the level of historic
10 preservation assets.
11 I know it's a tactic on behalf of the
12 developer to calculate this to say these are idealistic,

13 aesthetic things that are hard to measure. Well, yes,
14 that's true, but you can also equate those into tax
15 assessments. Let's look at the same information, the
16 same aesthetic information on the level of tax
17 assessments. And what you'll see is the great

18 preponderance of the tax assessment in the town of Cape
19 Vincent lies in water-view properties, waterfront
20 properties, and water-proximity properties.

21 And what you have here is a tiny little
22 economic click that is coming in to dominate the total
23 tax assessment, the total value here, this whole taxable
24 assessment in the town of Cape Vincent, $212 million,

25 has a 64% equalization rate.

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1 Well, with this new development it's going to
2 be a half-billion-dollar investment here to benefit a

3 relatively small economic minority to the detriment of
4 the whole economy. And I feel that that's unethical and
5 wrong.
7 MR. BRAGDON: What I think should be happening

8 here is a greater sense of checks and balances. Where I
9 started to say at the beginning, I'm not opposed to all

10 turbines, I just feel they should be put through the
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11 same set of checks and balances that everyone else is.
12 My small development company over here that

13 has 14 different subdivisions in it has added $1,300,000
14 to this tax base. This is not a lot, but it's over one
15 half a percent. I feel this is clearly jeopardized.

16 My family has been here going back to my great
17 grandfather was a representative from this area down in
18 Albany. I feel the aesthetics of this area is
19 jeopardized. I feel my back is to the wall.

20 I insist that the town and the developer fully
21 give me my rights under the SEQRA law, the National
22 Federal Historic Preservation laws, and other -- the
23 local zoning law here. I will defend myself legally if

24 I'm not.
25 [Applause]

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1 MR. MATHES: Cyril Cullen.
2 MR. CULLEN: I'll pass.

3 MR. MATHES: Mark Boss.
4 MR. BOSS: This is quite an issue, people.

5 I'll talk without the mic, I think you guys can hear me.
6 We talked about the decommissioning plan, and
7 some people feel it's adequate. Only thing that hasn't

8 been addressed is how it's going to be funded, bonding,
9 no bonding, deposits, whatnot.
10 No disrespect to the Boards, but I sat at a

11 Board meeting, two Board meetings a month ago, and the
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12 town is not together on whether it should be a bond, a
13 payment in a bank, and what to do with these things.
14 So it's extremely hard to come up with any of
15 this stuff if we're not together on it. And no

16 disrespect for you guys, I don't mean it that way,
17 there's a lot of issues going on here. But I don't

18 think that everything has been pulled together, looked
19 at, and assessed. And without a zoning law we're going
20 nowhere.
21 Like you said, Mr. Edsall, without a zoning
22 law there is nothing to stop wind towers on the river
23 and lake district, and there's nothing to stop literally

24 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.
25 We're going nowhere. We need a moratorium

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1 today and a zoning law.
2 [Applause]
3 MR. MATHES: Virginia Kobylarz.
4 MS. KOBYLARZ: Solar power and wind power are
5 part of the environment, of our energy policy,

6 hopefully. It's a niche. The climate of the West and
7 Southwest are more conducive to this type of energy. It

8 is not profitable. And when you get into the Eastern
9 United States the climate of the Southeast and Northeast

10 makes it questionable as to where to place them, if they
11 can be placed.
12 I'm a long-standing member of Ducks Unlimited,

13 and we are part -- a significant part of the Atlantic
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14 flyway. I'm very pleased and proud of the work that DU
15 is doing in New York State, particularly in the

16 St. Lawrence River and Black River areas.
17 Placing 400-foot towers in the immediate
18 vicinity of the St. Lawrence River where migrating

19 birds, particularly the geese, gather daily, the geese
20 rest at night, is counterproductive to Ducks Unlimited's
21 long-standing tradition, a successful tradition.
22 My other concern is that I would like a clear

23 legal statement to be made in terms of who is
24 responsible for the repair of these turbines and in
25 decommissioning who is responsible to bring the area

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1 back to its original environment. Whether there were
2 woodlands, brush, or just plain grasslands, that those

3 areas would be replanted and brought back to the
4 original environment.
5 I'm concerned that we're talking about

6 decommissioning when we're talking about building. So
7 it relieves to me a question of just how long is this

8 great energy source going to be part of us. It's
9 important, but we need to know the technology that's
10 going to be long-standing, not just 20 years.

11 MR. MATHES: Thank you. Jarvis Radley.
12 We have 25 more speakers. We had a bunch of
13 additional speakers sign up after 10:00, and we have an
14 hour and ten minutes. So to the extent you can make
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15 your comments nice and concise, that will be very
16 helpful so that everyone gets an opportunity to speak.
17 MR. RADLEY: Hi, I'm Jarvis Radley. I live on
18 Route 12 out here all my life, long, year-round

19 resident.
20 Two things I want to touch briefly on. Of

21 course, the study. The studies are vast and cover many
22 areas, and as I counted there are over 60 topics that
23 have been investigated. The table of contents of the

24 DEIS are nine pages long listing many impact analysis
25 and measures. This takes considerable time and a lot of

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1 going over specific topics.
2 Some of these studies are detailed way back to

3 April '06 and have been revisited to satisfy ongoing
4 concerns of now up to three years later. I believe
5 these studies are vast and complete and -- as possible.

6 Therefore, the DEIS should be accepted.
7 Secondly, I have attended many Planning Board

8 meetings, as I feel they are conducted in a very well
9 manner. The chairman and the two Board members I

10 attended school with. They have not changed their
11 community support they had then do now because of
12 conflict of interest --
13 MR. MATHES: Jarvis, if you could just keep on
14 topic, and especially since we have limited time.
15 MR. RADLEY: Okay. And the Planning Board

16 members are able-bodied people conducting these meetings
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17 with great concern for Cape Vincent. Thank you.
18 MR. MATHES: Tom Jolliff.

19 MR. JOLLIFF: Excuse me, I've been sitting too
20 long, I'm finding it hard to walk.
21 My name is Tom Jolliff, Cape Vincent. Lived

22 here some 40 some years. These comments pertain to the
23 Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for
24 the whole St. Lawrence Wind Power Project in Cape
25 Vincent and Lyme, New York.

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1 With something less than a comprehensive

2 review of the document, it appears to be basically sound
3 and containing most of the environmental information

4 needed for decision making.
5 A provision I did not find is identification
6 of liability in the case of damages caused by the wind

7 farm to persons or property and how they would be
8 handled, such as by insurance. Unless I overlooked it,
9 incorporating that would be beneficial.

10 Further to the document it is pointed out that
11 an EIS is not a decision process, but rather one of a

12 number of components for decision making. Also,
13 identification of unavoidable adverse impacts is not

14 grounds for stopping a project, but rather the decisions
15 should be based on the balance of benefits and whether
16 they redeem negative impacts.

17 Under the category of alternatives is the
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18 issue of global warming and how that can be affected by
19 decision on the project. Needless to say, that is an
20 elusive subject. However, the following may provide
21 some food for thought on this: A recent article

22 indicated one of the mechanisms for CO2 removal from the
23 atmosphere that is causing global warming is through

24 absorption into the ocean water that covers the majority
25 of the earth's surface.

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1 That rang a bell with me because of a profound
2 lesson in an oceanography course at Cornell 50 years

3 ago. And that is that most of the oceans are highly
4 stratified, and there is little top-to-bottom mixing.
5 So that once the surface layer becomes saturated with

6 C02, it won't easily accept more.
7 Furthermore, because there is little mixing in

8 the surface area, there is -- where there is enough
9 light for photosynthesis by tiny plants, vital nutrients
10 for photosynthesis, such as phosphorous have already

11 been used up because of the lack of mixing.

13 MR. JOLLIFF: The upshot of that is that the
14 majority of ocean surface is a virtual biological desert
15 where little photosynthesis occurs and CO2 could

16 otherwise be readily converted to carbohydrates and
17 oxygens.
18 Exceptions are some areas where currents cause

19 upthrusts of deep water containing lots of phosphorous,
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20 and that's where a lot of the fish production occurs,
21 such as on the West Coast of North America.

22 Because of this poor mixing, when you push the
23 button to shut off CO2, even your great grandchildren
24 won't see any difference if they're here.

25 MR. MATHES: That's your time, thanks. Gary

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1 Wood.
2 MR. WOOD: I didn't sign up.

3 MR. MATHES: Okay. Pat McTaggart. Up after
4 Pat is Sally Boss.
5 MS. McTAGGART: Hello. I only have one

6 comment. I've been a special ed. teacher for 30 years,
7 and if the wind turbines are going to affect our

8 children or our grandchildren and cause learning
9 disabilities, we really don't want them. So further
10 studies should be made.

11 MR. MATHES: Thank you. Sally Boss. Up next
12 is Harvey White.
13 MS. BOSS: I want to thank you for allowing me
14 to be here today. I'm one of four members of WPEG.

15 What I would like to say is Environmental
16 Impact Statement, this has impacted our community. When
17 anyone wants to say that our town is not divided, they

18 are wrong. Why wouldn't our leaders look at this
19 situation, step back?
20 When we first met -- when the public first
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21 really knew about this was March of 2006. And I sat in
22 the second row, and I saw people just churning up there
23 in front; they couldn't wait to be the first. We want
24 our turbines first before Clayton or anyone else.

25 Well, maybe we still will be first if we get

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1 them, but what have we gone through as a community?
2 Some people are talking about that they're -- I'm afraid

3 my husband is going to have a heart attack. It's on
4 both sides. I sometimes even feel sorry, even though
5 I'm on an -- not necessarily an opposing team, you're

6 the one that put us in the opposing side. We wanted to
7 do it right, if it is right for our community, and all

8 of us be able to have something to say.
9 MR. MATHES: If you can confine your comments
10 to the impacts.
11 MS. BOSS: Okay, I said it. Land mass. The
12 turbine companies between the two companies is going to
13 be 88% of our land mass. There's 50 square miles in the
14 mainland township. There are 32,000 acres in our

15 community. The project area from Acciona claims to have
16 7,849 acres in it with 53 turbines. If you take the
17 acres, the turbines from BP project at 140 turbines,

18 there's 148 acres per turbine. This totals up two --
19 twenty-eight hundred five hundred and eight --
20 82,000 acres, and it uses up 88% of our land mass. 88%

21 of this land mass.
22 Why don't we do a moratorium? Why don't we
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23 step back? We're not -- this is not a proud thing that
24 our community is doing without considering everyone.

25 MR. MATHES: Harvey White. Up after Harvey is

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1 going to be Hester Chase.
2 MR. WHITE: Hi, my name is Harvey White. I've

3 lived here all my life. My whole family's lived here.
4 I'd like to thank the Planning Board,
5 Mr. Edsall, Mr. Reinbeck, the Town Board, the Zoning

6 Board of Appeals for all the lies and the different
7 things that have been going on during this process.

8 I think the DEIS and the SDIS is a well done
9 and finished project, and I think it should help them
10 come to the realization that this project should move

11 ahead when they are done with all the legal
12 ramifications and all of the writings from this meeting.
13 And when people talk about compromises of the
14 project, this project started out with 96 turbines and

15 is down to 53 now. That's in the DEIS. That's almost
16 50%. That's a compromise. Thank you.
17 MR. MATHES: Hester Chase. Jamie Sheridan is

18 up after Hester.
19 MS. CHASE: Hello. I hope you can hear me.
20 Thank you --
22 MS. CHASE: You can't hear me? Last time I
23 had to yell, and I don't like yelling. Can you hear me
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24 now?
25 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes.

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1 MS. CHASE: Okay. Thank you for having this
2 hearing. And I would like formal clarification on an

3 issue about this sound. I know we don't have an ambient
4 sound yet set, but as I -- in your SDEIS it says what
5 your tractor work is 88 decibels, and you have to be

6 almost three-quarters of a mile away for it to be down
7 to about 35 decibels.
8 And so -- yet it also says that a
9 nonparticipating person, property line, you only have to
10 be 1250 feet away from it. There's a contradiction

11 between those two numbers, it has to be one or the
12 other, and I would like to know which it really is going
13 to be.
14 And then naturally I always have my other

15 agenda, which is I really object to the process of this,
16 which is it's a win or lose. If we get good setbacks, a

17 landowner is out of the project. And I don't really
18 think that's right, and I think it's the framework of

19 this. I don't like win and lose situations.
20 So I've been developing, and I'm still working
21 on it and we're making progress, a -- we're working on
22 an alternative project, and I want all of you to

23 participate, people who have signed up, people who
24 haven't signed up, and I would like to design a wind

25 farm that leaves the profit in Cape Vincent so we can
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1 have many fewer turbines, we can have generous setbacks,
2 all landowners can participate because it will be a

3 landowners' cooperative, and I'm not really -- and I'm
4 actually -- I want everyone to participate, Wind PEG,

5 Voters for Wind, everyone.
6 I don't see why in this world we can't come up
7 with a solution that involves everyone and gives us a

8 win-win solution. And we do have things developing, and
9 shortly I will be making a public announcement about
10 that; I'm not quite ready yet. Thank you.

11 MR. MATHES: Jamie Sheridan.
12 MR. SHERIDAN: No, I'm just here to listen to
13 both sides for the first time, and I hope we all listen
14 carefully.
15 MR. MATHES: Thank you. Mary Falcon.
16 MS. FALCON: Hi. Mary Falcon, Cape Vincent
17 resident year-round.
18 Just a couple of things. I've heard a lot
19 about the sound but have not heard -- now that we have
20 Wolfe Island over there, the red lights at night. It's

21 amazing. And I don't -- nonparticipants and
22 participants may be really affected by this, so curtains
23 are not going to help mitigate; it needs to be

24 addressed. You'll be prisoners in your own home at
25 night.
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1 So the -- there were some comments made about
2 construction. I'm concerned about protecting our

3 drinking water, our river. We know that the Maple Ridge
4 had water pollution issues in the construction process,
5 so I want to be sure that that's -- instead of being a

6 mitigated issue, it should be a strict procedural issue
7 up front; it should not be something that gets mitigated

8 after the fact.
9 And then finally, I don't have the federal
10 website in front of me, but the taxpayers currently

11 subsidize wind power at $22 a kilowatt hour or a
12 kilowatt, and if this isn't negotiated properly, we're
13 going to be paying for them to put it up and it take it
14 down and everything else, so just we need -- we need

15 up-front thinking in all this process, and it's not been
16 completely addressed. Thank you.
17 MR. MATHES: I apologize, I can't read the
18 last name on this. It's Michelle something. Is there a

19 Michelle who hasn't spoken yet? Anyone? All right, I'm
20 going to put it aside.
21 G.B. Oswald. Anyone? Dou [sic] Bourquin?
22 MR. BOURQUIN: Could that be Bourquin.

23 MR. MATHES: Sorry, yeah, Don Bourquin.
24 That's not may fault.

25 MR. BOURQUIN: Yeah, that's how I was going to

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85
1 start speech. I am a resident of Chaumont, and I
2 hesitate to speak in the town of Cape Vincent, but my

3 family is -- my great, great, great grandfather moved
4 into French Settlement, if I'm -- any of you know where
5 that is, over 150 years ago, and people in this town
6 still can't pronounce it.
7 Back about four or five years ago I was made

8 the chairman of the town -- the village of Chaumont
9 Planning Board. At that time I did not even know what a
10 SEQRA system was. Never even heard the word. Shortly

11 afterwards we had a project proposed for a subdivision,
12 and I talked to the county, studied all of the DEC
13 literature, and I still didn't know what they were
14 talking about.
15 So I came down to Cape Vincent and met
16 Mr. Edsall for the first time. Started attending town
17 of Cape Vincent meetings so I could learn the SEQRA
18 system. And one thing I did learn was Mr. Edsall knows
19 the system; he's good with the system. I've been to all
20 your meetings as far as your first impact statement; I
21 heard that they needed some more information. They
22 demanded more information. The developer came back with

23 more information.
24 And I have faith in this Planning Board and

25 the Town Board, if they need more information, they'll

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1 ask for it. They will not approve it until they get the
2 information they want. Thank you, Richie.
3 MR. MATHES: Dawn Mark? Might be pronouncing

4 the last name wrong; it's hard to read.
5 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How about Dawn Monk?

6 MR. MATHES: There you go. Okay, she left.
7 Mike Keith?
8 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: He left.

9 MR. MATHES: Dave Bell? Bert Bowers?
10 MR. BOWERS: Good afternoon. I've reviewed
11 the Supplemental Impact Statement submitted by

12 St. Lawrence Wind and find it grossly inadequate to
13 describe the impact on Cape Vincent and neighboring
14 line.
15 What is being proposed here is not simply an

16 industrial development within a town, but in combination
17 with BP's planned facility, the irreversible conversion
18 of the entire town of Cape Vincent into an industrial
19 power generation site.

20 The basic requirement for an Environmental
21 Impact Statement is that it be truthful and factual.
22 This report is nothing more than a public relations

23 document attempting to masquerade as an Environmental
24 Impact Statement.
25 Because of the numerous known negative effects

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1 of industrial wind in a residential area, many of which

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2 have been discussed today, I looked immediately to see
3 what the report had to say about the offsetting positive

4 effects. These would be principally the amount of power
5 generated and the quantity of fossil fuel use that might
6 be avoided by the use of wind power.

7 St. Lawrence Wind claims in Section 6,
8 Page 6-1 that the proposed wind project will deliver
9 approximately 79.5 megawatts of clean renewable energy.
10 This statement is totally false. This is the maximum

11 rated capacity of the turbines that rarely, if ever, be
12 reached. We all know that the wind does not always
13 blow, and even when it does it seldom blows at the
14 velocity needed for the turbines to produce their full

15 rated power.
16 St. Lawrence Wind goes on to say in the same
17 paragraph, the project will accomplish this without
18 having to produce, transport, store, or burn any fossil
19 fuel in the process. Production of this clean,

20 renewable energy will not create air or water pollution
21 or add to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This
22 statement again is totally false as it pretends that

23 industrial wind power can be an independent stand-alone
24 source of power.
25 In order for power to be available on a

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1 continuous basis, the wind turbines must be fully backed

2 up by a conventional reliable generating plant of the
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3 same rated power.
4 The fact that wind is not a viable power
5 source without being backed 100% by another more
6 reliable source of power fueled by coal, nuclear

7 reaction, gas, or hydro.
8 Wind is highly variable in nature and cannot

9 be controlled. The backup fuel powered generating
10 capacity must run continuously, always ready to take up
11 the slack when the wind dies or to throttle back when

12 the wind comes on strong.
13 St. Lawrence Wind, in calculating the
14 reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, assumes that

15 whenever the wind generator is operating, the required
16 backup generation is using no fuel and producing no
17 emissions. This is not possible.
18 In Denmark and Germany where wind turbines

19 cover a much higher proportion of electric demand, it's
20 been found that greenhouse gas emissions have not been
21 reduced.
22 On this most important issue of what positive

23 benefits the turbines might generate, St. Lawrence Wind
24 has produced a document that, far from being a serious
25 attempt to weigh the pros and cons of development, it's

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1 just another highly biased PR document. To be blunt,

2 they have lied to us, making a mockery of this process.
3 In another example of the report's striking

4 lack of candor with respect to the effects of wind power
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5 generation, it states, incredibly, the project will not
6 have significant noise impacts during operation.

7 MR. MATHES: You have one minute.
8 MR. BOWERS: The report's exhibit shows many
9 nonparticipating residences right on or near to the

10 predicted 42-decibel contour. In these rural areas the
11 nighttime ambient sound level is typically 25 to
12 30 decibels or less.
13 The planned increases in noise levels will

14 have a huge impact on those residents, as they may be
15 subjected to a 10 to 15-decibel sound level increase.
16 Such an increase vastly exceeds the 3 to 5 decibels that
17 people might find tolerable.

18 In summary, these few examples illustrate that
19 St. Lawrence Wind has treated the environmental impact
20 process as simply another opportunity to produce a
21 highly biased, patently false PR document. In doing so,
22 they insult the intelligence and integrity of every

23 member of this community. They've wasted our time; they
24 have again demonstrated that they are responsible for
25 the rancor that has permeated this process from the

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1 beginning.
2 If wind turbines were truly a boon to society,
3 they would have approached us in a straightforward and
4 honest fashion. Instead, they come sneaking in like

5 thieves in the night, attempting to compromise our
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6 politicians and individual citizens --
8 MR. BOWERS: -- while concealing their own
9 motives. Thank you.

10 [Applause]
11 MR. MATHES: Elaine Bowers. After Elaine is

12 Patrick Hayes.
13 MS. BOWERS: After listening to the many
14 statements today in opposition to the SDEIS based on

15 facts, not fiction, I would like to ask the Town Board
16 members, the Zoning Board members, the Planning Board
17 members of Cape Vincent and Lyme a question: Are you

18 still willing to sell our committee -- community to wind
19 developers for 30 pieces of silver? If your answer is
20 yes, God help us all. Thank you.
21 [Applause]
22 MR. MATHES: Patrick Hayes. Pat Hayes? Mabel
23 Walker? Mabel Walker?
24 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: They left.
25 MR. MATHES: Laurel Pike?

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1 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She left as well.
2 MR. MATHES: Rosemary Demick?

3 MS. DEMICK: Pass.
4 MR. MATHES: Did you say pass?
5 MS. DEMICK: Yes.

6 MR. MATHES: Okay. Howard Demick?
7 MR. DEMICK: No, I haven't had a chance to
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8 read your impact statement, I just came to observe.
9 We're from Hammond, and we're facing the shame issues.

10 MR. MATHES: Thank you. David Ballou? Might
11 be missaying that too. Spencer Falcon?
12 DR. FALCON: You know, I've been coming to

13 these things for the last couple years, and this is the
14 first time I've said anything.
15 I'm a physician. I am the medical director at
16 Samaritan, and -- but I'm also a psychiatrist. I can

17 tell you that the amount of rage and anxiety and tension
18 in this room is enough to have a significant portion of
19 you end up in my emergency room.
20 [Laughter]
21 DR. FALCON: The reality is that this problem
22 will not go away with the completion of this project.
23 You're going to feel like this when these are here. The
24 tension won't stop. If there is not a proper
25 accommodation prior to the time that these are

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1 installed, then this will never go away. You'll always

2 feel like this.
3 Those of you who have made the decision to
4 have them close to your homes, those of you who are

5 angry because of their proximity even far away; it's not
6 going to go away.
7 I live on Tibbetts Point. It's pretty

8 exciting right now. A lot of red. My wife Mary
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9 mentioned it. It's going to be turned on at the end of
10 June. Come on down, see what it's like. It's a mile
11 and a quarter away. That should give you a sense of
12 what things are going to be like in proximity to your

13 homes.
14 But my concern is this and my area of

15 knowledge is this: The psychiatric impact that you're
16 all experiencing and that your family is experiencing
17 and others who are not here are experiencing is going to

18 go on. It's going to have an impact. It already has.
19 We moved here from Boston because it was a
20 nice village community. We need to come to a resolution

21 that people can live with and not be angry about a
22 decade from now. Thanks.
23 MR. MATHES: Robert Uhlig? Robert? Ruth
24 Uhlig? Sam DeLong?

25 MS. DeLONG: I don't think I'll need a

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1 microphone either. Like Spencer, I have come to several
2 of these meetings, and I have never stood up and said a

3 public word. I am one of those people that a lot of
4 people in this room refuse to acknowledge.
5 My -- a lot of my adult life I have suffered

6 from migraine headaches. Having driven back and forth
7 between Tuscon, Arizona, and California and having

8 driven through Lowville, I will tell you that I am not a
9 statistic on a piece of paper; I am the real thing.

10 When I drive down the roadway in Lowville I
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11 get severe vertigo, which in my opinion affects my
12 safety as a driver, and the safety of others on the road

13 as passengers and other drivers.
14 I am a year-round resident of Cape Vincent. I
15 am also a registered voter. In the 12 years that I have

16 owned my property here in this community, I have
17 stimulated in this economy in Cape Vincent and Jefferson
18 County approximately half a million dollars. In return
19 I have asked for nothing.

20 I have given several thousand dollars -- a
21 couple of thousand hours of volunteer time because
22 that's who I am, because I love this community, and
23 because this community thrives on volunteerism.

24 I have never asked for anything in return.
25 Never. Both my husband and I have served in public

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1 office. The job that the Town Planning Board has, that
2 the Town Board of supervisors has is not an easy job.

3 Very few of you in this room, including myself at this
4 point in my life, would take on these responsibilities.

5 I have been a lobbyist, and I have been
6 lobbied. It is your responsibility as public servants
7 to take the inaccuracies on both sides and the accuracy

8 and develop that into a balance. It is also your
9 responsibility to do it ethically, and it is your
10 responsibility to first serve the people of this

11 community, for when you decided as a volunteer or as an
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12 elected official to take on the responsibilities that
13 you have chosen to take on, your first concern in
14 primary is the health, safety, and welfare -- the
15 health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of this

16 community. Not to feed the profit margin of a large
17 foreign corporation.
18 I thank you for the job that you do because
19 it's not an easy job; serving the public is not easy.
20 At the very highest point in your responsibilities you

21 will make 50% of the people happy 50% of the time.
22 MR. MATHES: Sam, you have two minutes if you
23 want to talk about the impacts.

24 MS. DeLONG: I'll tell you, the impacts of the
25 vertigo are very disconcerting, to say the very -- to

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1 say the least. I took my neighbor with me through
2 Lowville, and she had never driven through a turbine

3 complex. I had to stop at the side of the road while
4 she got out and vomited. And I think that all of you
5 really need to take that into consideration.

6 I put the visor down in my car, I put the
7 visor over my sunglasses down as far over my eyes as I

8 could, trying to concentrate on the line in the road and
9 not what was in front of me. It was a very windy day,

10 and there was motion on both sides of the road, with
11 miles of turbines in front of us. I feared driving back
12 that same road.

13 I ask all of you to consider the fact that
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14 this is a real problem. I speak not as a statistic, but
15 from experience. I do not want to deny anybody

16 anything. But by the same token, look around you, look
17 at the people who have been your neighbors, look at the
18 people who have been there to help you when you have
19 needed help and those people who you have helped when
20 they've needed help.
21 First and foremost, we must all live together
22 as one unit. Let us do it compassionately, fairly,

23 honestly, ethically. Because then and only then will
24 we, Cape Vincent, continue to live and thrive. Help us
25 to bring our history from the past into the future.

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2 MS. DeLONG: And regardless of whether you

3 agree with everything that's being done here, do not be
4 afraid to voice your opinion.
5 And I ask this Board when you are considering

6 this final acceptance of this report to take into
7 consideration balance. Health, safety, and welfare of

8 the people you have chosen to serve. Thank you.
9 MR. MATHES: Those are all the speakers that
10 were on the sign-in sheet. I have notes of four people

11 who actually stopped and had much more to say.
12 Could I just see hands from additional people
13 who would like an opportunity to keep speaking? Just so
14 I know how many people we have and how much time. So if
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15 everyone -- so I have one, two -- is your hand up, just
16 so I can -- three, four, five -- I have six people
17 and -- seven. I have seven people. You didn't speak
18 yet, right?
19 MR. EDGAR: No, sir.
20 MR. MATHES: So we'll let him go first. I

21 have seven people after that.
22 Is there anybody that didn't sign in who wants
23 speak? So I have two people. We'll let you two go

24 through, and then we'll go through the other seven.
25 We'll still do five minutes apiece or less, and that

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1 will use the time.
2 And if you could just give your name for the

3 stenographer since it's not written down.
4 MR. EDGAR: It's Chris Edgar, E-D-G-A-R.
5 My name is Chris Edgar. I don't think I need

6 a mic as a whitewater guide. I'm not a resident; I'm
7 not with the wind agencies. My background is

8 environmental science. And there's some great points
9 being made, but there are a lot of bias points being

10 made.
11 You are residents, you're talking about
12 aesthetics, but working with the federal government in

13 the Forest Service doing environmental assessments,
14 Environmental Impact Statements, NEPA did not set this
15 up to take into effect the pros, what does this do for

16 the community, what does this -- how does this impact --
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17 I mean, granted, health is important on the NEPA
18 projects, but NEPA was not designed to take into this.

19 So does it need to be revamped? Perhaps. But the
20 question was brought up about good benefits, where are
21 the good benefits. NEPA was not designed to come into

22 this. Questions about global warming are coming in.
23 Again impact statements, environmental assessments are
24 not designed to take into something global warming is
25 still feared.

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1 NEPA was set up to take fact. And if it's not

2 proven fact, it doesn't come into play in a NEPA
3 document. Okay, maybe these standards need to be

4 revised, again, because this was set up a long time ago.
5 But coming at it from working on wild scenic
6 rivers in Oregon, look into wind development on the

7 Columbia River Gorge, because this is a gorgeous section
8 of the world, they have aesthetics, they have tourism,
9 some of very same things that you all are dealing with.
10 So we can find a lot, and that's all I'm hearing today.
11 And again, I'm here to observe; I've got

12 nothing to lose, nothing to gain except for what future
13 generations have to gain, and that's a global issue, not

14 just a local issue.
15 You want to talk about global warming again,
16 theory. I look at it as dependence on foreign oil, and

17 it's not necessarily here. Natural gas is very
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18 prominent in how we produce our energy. Co-gen, very
19 small factor. So fossil fuels not as big, but then
20 again, we got to think globally. And we are dependent
21 upon foreign oil.

22 And again, I'm not a politician either, so --
23 but just look for the fact. And you're all very
24 passionate about it, and that's great to see, but it's
25 also kind of heartbreaking to see what it can do to a

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1 community this small where folks at one point in time
2 were not on opposite sides of the street.

3 So I guess what I'm really getting at and the
4 only point that I have is NEPA, environmental
5 assessments, environmental impacts, they are based on

6 facts. So where you may not feel that you're seeing the
7 information, it's because it doesn't necessarily at this

8 point in time, based on federal standards for doing NEPA
9 documents, don't allow for that.
10 If -- you need to make those changes, perhaps

11 we do. But you're not seeing them in this assessment,
12 which I've gone over, and I've gone over many over the
13 years -- I come from the School of Forestry at Syracuse,
14 work for the U.S. Forest Service -- they are not part of
15 the system.
16 And so you're finding things that aren't there
17 because they'll never go there until things are changed
18 within the federal system of how these documents are put

19 together.
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20 And that's really all I have to say. And
21 there's a lot of stuff here, and it's very interesting

22 to be here. Thank you for your time.
23 MR. MATHES: There was a gentleman, one other
24 gentleman. If you could give the stenographer your

25 name.

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1 DR. MOEHS: Dr. Moehs, Charles Moehs,
2 M-O-E-H-S.
3 I'm Dr. Moehs, and I wanted to make a few
4 comments --
5 MR. MATHES: If you can just stand there so

6 that we can see you too, that's all.
7 DR. MOEHS: I wanted to make a few comments in

8 relation to what I had said at the DEIS that was in
9 regard to health issues which I had brought out.
10 Some of these have been alluded to a little

11 bit. But they are, for example, seizures, we've talked
12 about that, low frequency noise, cardiac issues,
13 problems with the elderly, the problems with the young,
14 the problems with learning problems. And what I don't

15 see is any way of mitigating these. There's no
16 discussion of doing that.
17 To me this is a project that's put together by

18 big business that's trying to sell a project to the
19 community, and there's no mitigations for these. There
20 was a lady from Wolfe Island who said that it's
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21 important to have a way of dealing with these issues,
22 and there is no way of dealing with these except to
23 complain and to sue. And I think if this is going to be
24 a reasonable project, then there has to be some way of

25 mitigating about that, mitigating these issues, and it

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1 needs to be put in black and white into the plan. Thank
2 you.
3 MR. MATHES: Okay. I have notes on who ran
4 out of time, so I'll go through those first, and then
5 the remaining people, we'll go to you. Don Metzger.

6 MR. METZGER: Mr. Chairman, when I -- my time
7 ran out before I was talking about decommissioning.

8 That's very much an issue with me, and I like to always
9 stick to the script here, the Draft Environmental Impact
10 Statement, but if you will allow me, I will divert to

11 share with you a subjective story that took place just
12 this past weekend.
13 I had dinner with my sister-in-law; she's from
14 Sweden. I hadn't seen in her a while. I says, Oreka,

15 how are thing in Sweden? And she said Don, she says,
16 we're very upset. She says, we have a huge industrial
17 wind site in our area that hasn't been up for ten years
18 and already it's defunct. It's not running, it's rusty
19 away and falling apart, and we would like to have the
20 things taken down. And she said the developers and

21 operators have made their big bucks and left Sweden. We
22 can't find them. And we are stuck with these 400-foot
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23 high monuments to international greed and avarice. And
24 I said, Oreka, I'm very sorry. I'm going to be

25 testifying at a public hearing about decommissioning,

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1 and I would ask that the Planning Board relook at some
2 of the issues in decommissioning.

3 It does not say anything about the
4 long-distance transmission lines that run 9 miles from
5 here to the town of Lyme. Nothing about the

6 decommissioning of that; not a word mentioned.
7 And Donnie Bourquin, you apologized for -- you

8 were a little bit nervous about speaking because you're
9 from Lyme. I would not be nervous, Don, because the
10 Draft Environmental Impact Statement covers our town,

11 the town of Lyme, that multi-million dollar project of
12 the transmission line going through our town and trying
13 to commingle or co-exist, whatever the engineering term
14 is, with our Western Jefferson County waterline, the

15 Development Authority of North Country's waterline, it's
16 got to commingle. I have some issues there. I know
17 they can be resolved, but we got to have strict rules in

18 place to make sure that we don't have issues.
19 I happen to be one who thinks turbines are
20 beautiful to look at. I'm not ashamed to admit that.

21 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I love winter; my
22 mother hates winter. Some people like blonds, some
23 people like brunettes. It's aesthetics. I don't
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24 usually talk about that. But what disturbed me was when
25 I read on Page 4-3 that -- again, when I look at a

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1 turbine I love its design, I love -- the 14 rpm kind of
2 puts me to sleep.
3 But on 4-3, Volume I, if you total up all the
4 turbines that are going to go up within 17 miles of this
5 building, and if you include the ones in the town of

6 Lyme, we will have 485 turbines within 17 miles of this
7 building. And as one who likes to look at turbines, I

8 thought I would be excited by that, but I got to
9 thinking and saying, wow, that is a lot of 400-foot high
10 monsters to be in my community.
11 And on Page 4-14 it says, combined the
12 St. Lawrence project and the Cape Vincent projects would
13 encompass a majority, a majority of the land area of the
14 town of Cape Vincent. Views of the turbines would be

15 dominant and widespread. That kind of scares me when I
16 see wording like that.

17 We have -- we will have -- I can tell you now,
18 I've been dealing with communications for a long time.

19 We will have issues when the turbines go up with
20 communications. There will be a degradation of signal
21 with the cell phone, with the AM radio, with the FM
22 radio, with wireless communication, wireless internet.

23 There will be issues with the VHF and UHF communication
24 for our police, fire, emergency responders.

25 Those issues can be dealt with, they can all
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1 be solved, but the community should not solve those
2 issues, it should be solved by the deep pockets of

3 Acciona.
4 I don't have any problem with communications

5 issues because I'm sure the Board will see to it that in
6 the zoning it will stipulate that all communications
7 problems will be dealt with and resolved by the

8 developer.
9 MR. MATHES: That's your time, Don.
10 MR. BOURQUIN: We have a lot to look at on the

11 compute -- compliant -- complaint resolution Board,
12 leaves a lot to be said with the complaint resolution
13 Board. Read that more carefully. It completely
14 eliminates the two towns and only allows one town to be

15 on that Board. This is a two-town project. Thank you,
16 Mr. Chairman.
17 MR. MATHES: Urban Hirschey.

18 MR. HIRSCHEY: I've delegated mine already.
19 MR. MATHES: We're not delegating, but I'll go
20 through the list and we'll raise hands and go from

21 there. Theresa Ciocci.
22 MS. CIOCCI: Before I was asked to sit down I
23 was talking about the health and wellness risks, so I'll

24 continue to read my statement to be entered.
25 There is an ever mounting body of medical data
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1 that cause calls for precaution. This Planning Board
2 has again demonstrated ignorance and placed public

3 health and wellness at risk in their dismissal of new
4 data by using smokescreen uncertainty.
5 Smokescreen uncertainty refers to engaging in

6 strategies which conceal knowledge about the negative
7 effects, failure to conduct or report such negative

8 data, or worse, to focus discussions on other factors.
9 Coverup is also a way of deflecting public wrath.
10 Ignorance has two faces. Positively, it is a

11 humble admission that we do not know how much we do not
12 know. Negatively, it is the practice of making decision
13 without considering uncertainties.
14 Further ignorance has been demonstrated in

15 their failure to rigorously seek out and publicly
16 evaluate alternatives and stop the proposed activity
17 until all alternatives have been investigated.
18 Politically-induced uncertainty refers to

19 delegate -- deliberate ignorance of a part of -- on the
20 part of the agencies charged with protecting the health
21 of the environment and has compromised this Board's
22 public duty to monitor, understand, investigate, inform,

23 and act.
24 It is also clear that arrogance and greed have

25 tainted this Board's decision-making. Proof is evident

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1 in the fact that an unethical financial interest of the
2 decision makers has existed since the inception of this

3 project's planning.
4 Precaution prevents shifting burdens of proof.
5 Regulations alone are not likely to spur precautionary

6 behavior on the part of governments or those who support
7 a questionable activity. However, market incentives

8 such as requiring a bond for the worse possible
9 consequences of an activity or liability for damages
10 encourage companies to think about how to preventive

11 impacts. Such assurance bonds are already used in
12 construction projects around the world.
13 I would ask this Board that the liability for
14 damages must include unknown short- and long-term

15 outcomes of the health risks previously stated.
16 There is not enough time to reference the
17 rapidly growing medical database, the negative effects
18 of industrial wind turbines on humans. These effects

19 are only now coming to the forefront as these
20 installations creep closer and closer to more
21 densely-populated areas, and the supporters of such
22 projects continue to use old data to smokescreen or

23 simply not address the current issues.
24 In closing, I will, however, report that the

25 National AG Safety Database has an enormous amount of

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1 research related to the causes of sleep deprivation.

2 The publication Science Daily continues to report on the
3 risks of sleep deprivation or disturbance. In a recent

4 issue they stated among school-aged children, those who
5 get even one less hour of sleep than their peers have
6 been shown to perform more poorly on tests of memory
7 attention. And that self-reported sleep complaints
8 among the elderly serve as a risk factor for completed

9 suicide.
10 OSHA also has details on dirt and dust
11 inhalation and regulates and holds other industrial

12 projects accountable.
13 Additionally, I will inform you that the Maine
14 Medical Association has moved in line with the World
15 Health Organization in calling for careful siting of

16 wind turbines based on the alarming results of shadow
17 flicker and noise emissions from turbines on humans
18 living within 3500 feet of industrial turbines.
19 These organizations have stated that there is

20 little need to site industrial wind developments in
21 proximity to residential communities if there is a risk
22 of negative health effects.

23 Lastly, I will quote Nikki Horton, from the
24 Chatham Daily News, who presents the question how many

25 wind turbines is too many? The answer: One if it's too

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1 close to homes and affecting the health of our children,

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2 friends, and neighbors.
3 I invite you to see the children and elders

4 are all -- that are already affected. I have a poster
5 for you to view. The question now is who will be the
6 Cape Vincent poster child?

7 Thank you to all my neighbors and friends.
8 [Applause]
9 MR. MATHES: Clif Schneider.
10 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: Just a quick comment.

11 When I looked at the narrative for the sound study
12 report --
14 MR. CLIF SCHNEIDER: I'm sorry. The sound

15 study report has to do with the narrative in particular.
16 And there are -- if you go through the narrative there's
17 an awful lot of situations where they're talking about
18 exceedances. In other words, it's going to -- the
19 levels -- you go through a process where you have

20 impacts and that type of thing, but at the same time
21 they're sitting there and saying well, it conceivably
22 could be louder because of the data and how it was

23 taken; it could be conceivably louder because of
24 meteorological conditions, it could be conceivably
25 louder because of the seasonal effects of impacts. That

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1 whole narrative is laced with these little caveats and

2 cautions and telling everybody that, hey, it can be
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3 noisier than real impacts are.
4 And I'd hate like hell to see a levy or a dam
5 or a bridge built with that kind of thing where you're
6 saying the bridge could come down, the levies could

7 flood and everything else.
8 And there's a point where they made where you

9 tried to put in something with a complaint resolution
10 project, which is good to have. But the thing is if you
11 got all of the language in here where you're saying,

12 hey, these impacts can be exceeded, these levels that we
13 tried to design can all be exceeded, it seems to me like
14 it's a legal cover-your-ass document, and I'm sorry to

15 say that that way, in terms of down the road when there
16 are complaints. Because you can go back to the document
17 and say, hey, we said all along there could be noise and
18 the impact could be worse than we predicted.

19 So I'd say be careful with that language. I
20 would like to see something a little tighter than all of
21 these caveats and exceedances. Thanks.
22 MR. MATHES: Hands. That's all I made notes

23 of. And if you can just restate your name for the
24 record.
25 MR. EBBING: I'm Chuck Ebbing. I'll try and

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1 be brief here. I'd like to remind the Board that they

2 got a report from Greg Tocci, and you need to reread
3 that because he basically says that shotgun patterns

4 that Hessler puts in his report, which looks like a
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5 shotgun went into the graph, at certain wind speeds the
6 levels can go all the way from 20 dB up to 60, or some

7 number like that. It can vary from the line he puts
8 through there plus or minus a large number, 15 to 20 dB.
9 And Greg Tocci says basically you can't

10 represent this environment with a single number; you
11 have to address the quiet times and you have to address
12 the noisy times.
13 Well, if you have noisy times and the wind is

14 blowing, you know, at your location, it's going to blow
15 through the leaves, it's going to rustle the leaves.
16 And any time you blow on anything, it makes noise. And
17 so therefore the nature's providing a lot of noise and

18 you're not bothered by that. When are you really
19 bothered?
20 You're really bothered when you have stable
21 operating conditions, which Clif has shown in this area
22 is greater than 50% of the time at night, particularly

23 on starry nights when you have radiation cooling. The
24 earth cools off and you end up with a layer of air that
25 basically has different properties than the layer above

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1 it, and you basically trap sound.

2 There's no sound down at -- there's no --
3 practically no flow down at this area, but you go to the
4 treetops and the turbines are turning. Turning like

5 crazy. Producing their noise in a very, very quiet
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6 environment. That's when the problem exists, and that's
7 basically what you need to measure.
8 Greg Tocci points that out to you, and he also
9 pointed that out and to the sample noise ordinance he

10 gave to Clayton. And you need to deal with that.
11 Hessler has done a lot of these studies, and

12 each one I see approaches it the same way. He picks
13 locations which I don't think are typical; I think Clif
14 Schneider has some data on that that he can show for our
15 local area proving that these numbers are low.
16 If you look at the American Refrigeration
17 Institute, who helps people like you if you want to set

18 noise ordinances for air-conditioning -- this isn't the
19 case here, but there are a lot of localities where
20 that's so -- if you're dealing with rural areas they
21 basically say you can expect levels in the 30 dB level

22 or less. And it goes on, and I can show you a whole
23 chart of that that I'm getting at.
24 If you look at the wind publications
25 themselves, I've got one I can show you, which basically

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1 shows the noise level as a function of what's happening.
2 And it goes all the way from zero to I think 120 dB. I
3 looked at it and I says I can really use that in
4 teaching. That's one of the greatest charts I've seen.
5 Let's see what it says. And I check the number, yeah,

6 that's pretty good; yeah, that's pretty good. I look at
7 where it says rural areas, 20 dB. And underneath there
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8 in fine print is no wind, no insects, none of this
9 stuff.
10 And that's precisely the situation we're
11 getting at. If that isn't basically a situation where
12 you can -- essentially a gotcha, you can essentially

13 say, look, these are all true aren't they? One word can
14 change the meaning. And it does change the meaning.
15 I could go through, you know, four or five
16 things that Hessler does wrong in his studies; he

17 needs -- well, he. Not he. You need to take charge of
18 this, and you basically need to hire your own
19 independent consultant.
20 And the reason I said before, you may not like

21 to hear it, is that if you hire me, you're the client,
22 I'm going to listen to your needs. And I may not lie,
23 but I may not point out the things that's going to
24 destroy you; I may not give the whole truth. The truth
25 is somewhere in between. And that's why we have the

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1 jury system. That's what you got to wrestle with, and I

2 don't envy your position.
3 I think you got a lot to deal with. And the
4 lady that was up here that was talking about, you know,
5 your responsibilities for health and safety and welfare
6 I endorse a thousand percent. I think that that's where
7 we're dealing with things in Orleans, and that's

8 basically where the focus needs to be for this Board.
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9 Thank you.
10 MR. MATHES: Hands? Remaining hands? Can I
11 see them all just so -- because we only have about 14
12 minutes. So I have -- one, two, three, four -- if you

13 four could come up and use the 14 or so minutes we have
14 left, then we'll be done.

15 MS. KENNEY: I don't need to come up. I just
16 would like to say, please beware of the word feasible,
17 where feasible.
18 MR. JOLLIFF: I'll shout from here.
19 MR. MATHES: Can you say your name again?
20 MR. JOLLIFF: Tom Jolliff. Yeah, what I was

21 talking about before with the effects of this non-mixing
22 of the oceans and how it would affect the -- reducing
23 CO2 in the atmosphere, the implications are pretty dire.
24 If you upset some of the most negative impacts

25 of global warming, basically what it means is that if at

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1 some point a C02 level is reached that can cause some of
2 these bad impacts, it would probably be too late to do

3 anything about it from the viewpoint of the long-term
4 well-being of the human population and other
5 populations.
6 MR. MATHES: Thank you. Go ahead.
7 MS. GRANT: Cindy Grant. I still have grave

8 concerns about noise in your DEIS. It is vital that
9 ambient noise is measured in the area directly beside

10 each proposed turbine locations so that you have an
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11 accurate noise baseline to start with.
12 These members -- measurements should be

13 formed -- performed by an independent acoustic engineer
14 that is chosen by the Town Board but paid for by the
15 developer.
16 These ambient sound levels are so important;
17 this is the noise that people live with right now. Then
18 when a giant industrial energy company comes in they
19 should only be allowed to raise everyone's ambient noise

20 level by 6 dBA.
21 Again, it's important that you Boards require
22 the developer to measure the dBA and the dBC, the high
23 frequency and the low frequency noise. The developer

24 doesn't want to talk about low frequency noise because
25 that's the noise issue that will physically harm your

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1 residents.
2 Right now they want to obey and please your

3 Boards because they want your okay. But after you give
4 them their wind farm here in Cape Vincent, they cannot

5 be made to correct any deficiencies that exist in the
6 project as it is now.
7 I also want to mention too that something to

8 be done is testing beforehand people's drinking water
9 and for radon. Because right now if people have water
10 after the blasting to put in the foundations, they might

11 find that they don't have water or they don't have the
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12 quality or quantity that they had before. And also
13 radon is an issue in our communities, and by blasting
14 they do sometimes open up pockets. So this is a health
15 and safety issue.

16 Also too you might want to consider a buyout
17 clause, so after this project goes through if some of

18 the people feel they cannot live next to it that they be
19 bought out by the wind company for what their places
20 were assessed for beforehand so that there's an option

21 for some of the people to get out of here. Otherwise we
22 have situations around the country and around the world
23 where people just sit there or just walk away and have
24 nothing. Thank you.
25 MR. BRAGDON: Hi. I'll try to be very brief.

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1 I'm Brooks Bragdon. I just wanted to read very briefly
2 from the statement from St. Lawrence Wind Farm. This

3 has to do with their conclusions. So I just want to be
4 clear about it.
5 The proposed wind turbines will be the tallest

6 visible elements on the horizon and will be
7 disproportionate to other elements. This will result in

8 the proposed project being perceived as a highly
9 dominant visual element.

10 Even though there's some changes, it says,
11 although the current project includes fewer turbines,
12 the same visual resources will likely view one or more

13 turbines.
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14 Finally, in the letter to the PSC, the
15 adjustments that are possible, the assessment of

16 potential impact avoidance options may include a
17 reduction in the number of turbines; the relocation of
18 turbine units.
19 And so finally on the page that lists all of
20 the agency correspondence, this stops, there's no
21 further communication after this letter from Acciona to
22 the State, no follow-up whatsoever in terms of

23 delineating what the adverse impacts are, and no
24 discussion whatsoever about relocating turbines or
25 coming up with greater setbacks.

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1 MR. MATHES: Go ahead. Is there anyone else
2 that wanted to go a second time that did not have an

3 opportunity?
4 Okay, this will be our last speaker. I'm not
5 going to go a third time because not everyone could have

6 a third time.
7 MR. BYRNE: Thank you, Board members, again

8 to -- for a second speech here.
9 My name is John Byrne, resident of Cape
10 Vincent full time. Just a few notes that I want to go

11 over with people.
12 I think we're all aware that Acciona is using
13 47 decibels as our ambient background noise level.
14 New York City and commercial districts has a rule, it
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15 says, commercial noise standards shall apply to all
16 legally occupied buildings and goes on and on and on.
17 It basically states between the hours of 7 AM to 10 PM
18 no one shall conduct or be conducted activities

19 associated with commercial establishments that cause an
20 LEQ noise level measured for any 30 minutes in the

21 sleeping areas of nearby residents to exceed 45. 45.
22 In New York City, they're not allowed to exceed 45 in
23 New York City.

24 But yet in Cape Vincent our ambient noise
25 background noise level is 47. That should make people

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1 question the legitimacy of this study that they did.
2 And this is why the residents are coming to the Board

3 saying what's going on here? Something doesn't add up.
4 It's not the Board's fault; the Board did not
5 conduct this study. But please look into this because

6 we feel very strongly that this study has been flawed.
7 If you can give me a couple of minutes here.

8 One of the statements in Hessler's study is that noise
9 level could be attributed partially to insects. Now,

10 when you're doing an ambient noise level study you're
11 supposed to take that noise out; you can't do it and
12 have that in there.

13 As a matter of fact, there's been a study -- a
14 paper published in Sound and Vibration, which is an
15 acoustics magazine or an acoustics association. This

16 paper is titled Baseline Environmental Sound Levels for
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17 Wind Turbine Projects. To read a little further it
18 says, insect noise during summertime survey frequently

19 causes a dramatic increase in recorded A-weighted sound
20 levels, a situation that might easily design -- that
21 might lead to a background level that is not valid

22 during quieter times.
23 Basically what it's saying is if you take that
24 insect noise and leave it in the study, it's going to
25 give you a study that's flawed.

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1 Just so happens that that same paper was

2 written by George Hessler of Hessler & Associates. He
3 himself knows that he increased that level of the

4 ambient noise level here in Cape Vincent.
5 He did it for one reason. The only way they
6 can get this project through and have as many turbines

7 as they're going to have is the fact that they need to
8 get them close to the homes, close to the residents,
9 close to the participating and nonparticipating

10 residents who will be living with them. Not the
11 developers; the developers will be out of town. But

12 we'll be living next to them.
13 I think I better leave it at that. Thank you

14 very much.
15 [Applause]
16 MR. MATHES: With that said, we're going to

17 close the public hearing today. Again, to the extent
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18 you want to make a written submission to the Town, write
19 it to the attention of the town supervisor's office.
20 The town supervisor secretary has been collecting
21 written comments. Those written comments can be

22 submitted to the Town up through May 30th.
23 As I alluded to in the beginning of the

24 presentation of the purpose of the public hearing today,
25 the DEIS and the SDIS are not decisional documents,

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1 they're documents meant to inform the public so that the
2 public comment can be gathered, can be responded to, and

3 so that decisions can be made.
4 So again, it's not a decisional document, but
5 your written comments on the substantive content of the

6 SDIS are more than invited, and to the extent they
7 pertain to the substantive content of the SDIS, there

8 will be a responsive process. Thank you.
9 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can you explain the
10 process for here on out in terms of getting to the final

11 environmental impact statement and what further public
12 review opportunities there will be?

13 MR. MATHES: I'm going to close it with this,
14 but just to reiterate, you can make written comments up
15 through May 30th. After May 30th, whether or not

16 that date is ever extended or there's a supplemental
17 DEIS or an FEIS is at the discretion of the Planning
18 Board based upon the comments made today and the

19 comments it receives.
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20 So as of today if you want to make a written
21 comment, address it to the town supervisor's office,

22 write it concerning the substantive content of the SDIS,
23 and the Planning Board will thereafter decide whether
24 and when to commission other studies, prepare a

25 responsive document, prepare an FDIS, whatever it may

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1 be. There's no defined path.
2 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How about the final?

3 What kind of a public comment or review opportunity is
4 there to --
5 MR. MATHES: That's all I'm going to address

6 for now. Okay? There's no answer to your question
7 until we get the comments.

8 (The proceeding was concluded at 12:57 PM.)
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
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21
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25

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1 C E R T I F I C A T I O N
2
3
4 I, SALLYANNE B. MAIORANO, Registered Merit
5 Reporter, Certified Realtime Reporter, Certified CART

6 Provider, Certified Shorthand Reporter, and Notary Public in
7 and for the State of New York, DO HEREBY CERTIFY that I

8 attended the foregoing proceedings, took stenographic notes
9 of the same, that the foregoing, consisting of 121 pages, is
10 a true and correct copy of same and the whole thereof.

11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19 _________________________________________
20 SALLYANNE B. MAIORANO, RMR, CRR, CCP, CSR

21
22
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23 Dated: June 3, 2009
24
25

315-436-7775

Page 117

Public Hearing On Cape Vincent's Proposed St. Lawrence Wind Project

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PUBLIC HEARING ON THE PROPOSED

ST. LAWRENCE WIND ENERGY PROJECT

Held on May 16, 2009, at 10:00 AM, at the Cape Vincent

New York, before Town of Cape Vincent Planning Board Members

Richard Edsall, Chairman, Tom Ingersoll, and George Mingle.

Court Reporter was Sally B. Maiorano, Registered Merit

Provider, Certified Shorthand Reporter, and Notary Public in

and for the State of New York.

PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

1 MR. MATHES: Good morning. I'd like to

3 attorney from a law firm --

5 MR. MATHES: If we can quiet down so we can

8 law firm at Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna in Albany. We

10 town with the administration of their responsibilities

11 under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

13 chairman, he's here, we have Tom Ingersoll and George

14 Mingle, the town's engineer is here, Kris Dimmick, we

15 have a stenographer here today -- has asked me to

17 few ground rules really quickly so everyone has

18 expectations in terms of how this can run.

19 As of right now I only have 37 people signed

21 for five minutes of time to speak. I would ask that no

22 one delegate their time to another person, but certainly

24 five-minute period, to the extent everyone has an

PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

1 remaining time, you can certainly go again.

3 hearing, today's hearing is a discretionary public

9 Environmental Impact Statement, which was prepared by

10 St. Lawrence Wind Power, the project applicant for the

13 Planning Board meeting.

14 Publication and notice of the hearing was

16 DEC's website; it was also posted in the newspaper.

17 I'll just add, you know, in sort of further

18 elaboration of the purpose of the hearing, what happens

19 in this process is during the public hearing and during

21 going to end May 30th, so if you want to submit

22 written comments you can up until that date. Your

25 to in a final Environmental Impact Statement, to the

PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

1 extent they pertain to substantive matter in the SDEIS.

6 the mitigation measures proposed in the SDEIS, they may

8 SEQRA regulations to respond to non-substantive comments

11 about that, those are very helpful. There's plenty of

13 it for about 30 years under SEQRA and have engaged in

14 this process, and it's a very productive process to the

16 you as the public have knowledge about the physical

17 project site and things which consultants and planners

18 just can't know.

20 comments, and we hope that you will offer those

22 With that said, there's some representatives

24 maps, and they're going to make a very brief

25 presentation of the project for those of you who are

PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICES, INC.

3 MR. ERIC SCHNEIDER: So thank you very much.

9 to be here and honored to have the chance to talk about

12 have more than 35,000 employees. We operate on five

13 continents and in 30 countries. And a pioneering in

16 hours of electricity from renewable energy sources,

17 which avoided nearly 5.5 million tons of CO2 emissions

19 We're the second largest developer of wind

20 farms in the world. And we're the second largest

21 producer of renewable energy. We're well diversified in