The group, composed of community residents and alternative-energy experts, has created regulations for wind farms, including setbacks, heights and locations for turbines. The meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. in the Hammond Central School cafeteria, is open to the public. No public comment will be taken at the meeting.

"I think we have a good document," said Crayton L. Buck, chairman of the town's wind power committee. "We have about 90 to 95 percent of what the county had in the ordinance. They wrote it and we crafted it to our community."

The committee was formed last summer. The group used a model wind farm ordinance created by the St. Lawrence County Planning Board and Environmental Management Council as a guide for its development of a proposed law.

The committee has spent the past several months collecting information and talking with wind turbine experts. Public hearings on the ordinance will be needed before its adoption, town officials said.

A wind power developer recently proposed installing 50 turbines in the town. PPM Energy of Portland, Ore., proposed the 100-megawatt project that could cost an estimated $200 million.

The project would consist of 50 2-megawatt turbines, reaching a height of nearly 410 feet each. The earliest wind turbines could be erected here is at least three years, because companies that build turbines are backlogged with orders for other projects, PPM officials said recently.

Several obstacles remain for the project, including determining how to transmit the electricity generated, conducting environmental studies and obtaining the acceptance of landowners and the proper permits.

The wind project would be the first in St. Lawrence County.

The council in February enacted a 240-day moratorium on the construction of wind energy facilities within the town, allowing the committee time to carefully craft regulations for wind farms. The moratorium measure banned issuing permits for construction of wind turbines.

Some advantages to having wind turbines include rents from tower sites for property owners who host them, property taxes that the Hammond Central School District, town and county would receive on the development and the addition of renewable power to feed the grid.

Proponents of wind farms say the turbines are more environmentally friendly energy sources than fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Opponents say that windmills towering 400 feet above farm fields are an eyesore and a danger to birds and other wildlife, and that the power generated is not reliable enough to retire carbon-fueled power plants.