Councilmen Russell Stewart and James Pitcher recused themselves from the discussion at a public hearing on the ordinance Monday, Town Clerk Darlene Amyot said. Supervisor Janie G. Hollister and Councilmen James Langtry and Ronald Tully still can vote on the ordinance. No action was taken on the issue.

"It went very well," said Mrs. Amyot, noting about 100 people attended the hearing held in the Hammond Central School gym. "It was a good discussion."

State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo recently began investigating whether wind companies improperly influenced elected town officials around the state to get permission to build wind towers, as well as whether different companies colluded to divide up territory and avoid bidding against each other for the same land.

A wind energy committee formed last summer collected lots of information and talked with several wind turbine experts to help them craft the proposed law. The Town Council in February enacted a 240-day moratorium on the construction of wind energy facilities within the town. The moratorium bans the issuing of permits for construction of wind turbines.

PPM Energy of Portland, Ore., which is part of the Spanish company Iberdrola SA, has proposed 50 wind turbines in the town. The 100-megawatt project could cost an estimated $200 million.

The St. Lawrence County Planning Board will need to review the proposed ordinance before the Town Council makes a final decision, county planning officials said Tuesday. The Town Council next meets Sept. 8. The Planning Board meets Sept. 11.

Some advantages to having wind turbines include royalties from towers for property owners who host them, property taxes that the 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.

PPM officials said recently that some obstacles need to be resolved, including determining how to transmit the electricity generated, before a wind farm could come here.