The town wind law committee created to produce a zoning amendment to deal with wind farms added a sound measurement protocol and changed setbacks from roads during its meeting Thursday afternoon. The sound protocol came from recommendations from the acoustical engineering firm Cavanaugh Tocci Associates, Sudbury, Mass., based on a wind development zoning law written for the Association of Towns and rules for noise studies written by Cape Vincent resident Clifford P. Schneider.

Spanish multi-national Iberdrola unveiled a slimmer version of the Jordanville Wind Project before a packed town-hall meeting Monday, Nov. 10. It was unclear, though, if anyone has changed his or her mind on an issue that divided the townspeople of Warren and Stark, where the wind project is planned, and Herkimer from Otsego counties; the northern county gets the benefits, and two counties share the impacts.

"We had been all over the world looking for some place to live and we left our heart here in the Finger Lakes and this is where we came back to. We absolutely loved it here...until...we knew about the wind project," Judi Hall said. The back and forth over First Wind's bid to build wind turbines ended with the company's success. Champions of the project like Tom Casey, who sits on the town/village planning board, say the project puts Cohocton on the cutting edge of new energy and helps the economy.

According to Canadian Renewable Energy Corp., three to four barrels of diesel fuel were spilled around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. The fuel was being transferred between tanks on Sea Hound, a vessel operated by Nadro Marine Services Ltd., a contractor based in Port Drove, Ontario. Nadro Marine has been transporting wind turbines from Ogdensburg for the 86-turbine Wolfe Island Wind Project. ...Mark O. Mattson, president of the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, an environmental advocacy group based in Toronto, finds the incident ironic. "It's a bit of a shock. The whole purpose of the wind power project was to help the environment," he said.

When the acquisition is official, Iberdrola along with New York State will commit about $200 million to wind farms in hopes that wind mills will begin to pop up in fields like these. "My real concern is that that's going to happen in small towns through New York State that Iberdrola is going to come in and they're going to point blank tell the towns what they want and if the towns don't want or like what they want. They're just going to say well if you don't take what we want we're going to leave," said Lapinski.

Town officials have refused to let residents see a report evaluating the noise study done for Horse Creek Wind Farm. The officials claim the report, by Cavanaugh Tocci Associates, an acoustic engineering firm in Sudbury, Mass., is too complicated and preliminary to be released. Residents argue that the original noise study, done by consultant CH2MHill for Iberdrola, also was complicated, but that there are residents with acoustic expertise.

The local debates over wind power are driven in a part by a vacuum at the state level. There is no state law governing where wind turbines can be built or how big they can be. That leaves it up to town officials, working part time and on advice from outside lawyers, some of whom may have conflicts of their own. Two Franklin County towns, Brandon and Malone, have passed laws banning the wind turbines. But the issue remains unresolved in Burke, population 1,451, where two Town Board members recused themselves from the issue this year because they had leases with wind companies, leaving the board deadlocked.

"Listen," John Yancey says, leaning against his truck in a field outside his home. The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land. Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain. He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community. But Yancey hates them.

For decades dairy farmers have wrested a living from the Tug -- accepting lives of wind-swept hardship with little prospect of much change. Then, a few years ago, change roared onto Tug Hill. Overnight it seemed, caravans of trucks trundled onto the plateau and for a couple of years the village was ablaze with activity. Today, 195 turbines soar above Tug Hill, 122 metres high, their 40-metre-long blades spinning at 14 revolutions per minute. The $400-million Maple Ridge wind project, the largest in New York state, brought money and jobs and a wondrous sense of prosperity. But the windmills also came with a price -- and not just the visual impact.

Hamlin residents who oppose a new town law regulating the development of wind farms have sued the town. The Hamlin Preservation Group and 39 town residents filed a lawsuit Tuesday in state Supreme Court against the law, claiming it will ruin Hamlin's rural nature and environment. The Hamlin Town Board unanimously approved the law at a contentious meeting April 24.

A longtime landowner and farmer reproached the town board Monday for its apparent opposition to commercial wind tower construction. ...Orleans County Legislator and environmentalist Gary Kent respectfully rebuked Dudley's comments, as did a a handful of local and county residents. The price of hosting wind turbines will be diminished property values, Kent said. He cited his recent visit to Naples, N.Y., where a real estate agent told him that homes are selling for tens of thousands of dollars below their assessed value since the wind farms started going up. If turbines go up in Orleans County, he bets the same will happen here, too.

The Town Board recently agreed to collaborate on a letter to the state attorney general asking his office to intervene in a conflict between a Naples property owner and a company that plans to build a wind farm in Prattsburgh. The board wants the attorney general to require that windmills be set back far enough from the town line to allow Naples homeowners full use of their property.

In Vermont the parties are still waiting for a decision on the Sheffield project, which was argued before the high court in May. A clerk at the Supreme Court said Tuesday she has no idea when a decision might be announced. Meanwhile, the opponents of big wind in western New York believe they are finally getting the recognition they deserve with this month's announcement by the AG's office in Albany.

Several residents in the town's wind district are worried that construction of massive windmills will cause contamination of their wells. The wind district sits on limestone bedrock, under which lies an underground aquifer that supplies the water. ...The state Department of Environmental Conservation made comments on the groundwater issue during the state environmental quality review comment period for Iberdrola's Horse Creek Wind Farm. "Because water enters the carbonate rocks rapidly through sinkholes and other large openings, any contaminants in the water can rapidly enter and spread through the aquifers," it said.

Concern about noise impact on neighbors again delayed a vote to allow residential windmills in the Town of Ithaca. At a Monday night meeting, the Town Board voted 4-3 to send the law back to committee. Town Supervisor Herb Engman and board members Pat Leary and Bill Goodman voted against, hoping to get the law passed Monday. ...Board member Rich DePaolo called the change in the law a "loophole" that would potentially allow "the noisiest windmills in the quietest areas." "I think it applies the law unequally, based on where you live," DePaolo said.

Tourists have long treked to the region to see the Niagara River plunge as far as 188 feet over the Horseshoe and American falls. But what if windmills taller than the falls is deep soared above the city's skyline? A company founded by Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano has approached city leaders about building wind turbines on old industrial sites in the city. While the company sees economic opportunity, the prospect exists for millions of tourists to see windmills on the horizon of Niagara Falls. "The issue for us is one more of aesthetics than anything else," said Thomas J. DeSantis, senior planner for the city. "Is it OK to put a 600-foot wind generating station at Falls and First streets? Probably not. "I think because we're Niagara Falls, and because we have certain scenic and national resources that are important to us, that we'll want to try to protect them in some small way, we'll want to look at those issues."

Blades have begun to turn on 121 wind turbines here and in neighboring Ellenburg, a 35-minute drive northwest of Plattsburgh. Saturday, they turned with a soft whush, whush, whush. "Whush, whush, whush, all day long, all night long - I moved here because it was so peaceful and quiet," groused Allen Barcombe as he pointed to the nearest tower, jutting up 400 feet into the sky behind his house. ...The New York turbines, in two projects developed by Noble Environmental Power, are the first of nearly 400 expected to go up in five towns on a windy plateau just south of the Canadian border. When completed, the development about 90 minutes from Burlington will represent the largest concentration of wind turbines in the eastern United States.

[A]fter they had brought a house in Depauville, they found out about the proposed Horse Creek Wind Project. They and their doctor believe that the turbines will produce similar low-frequency noises and those noises will interfere with his defibrillator. ...The low frequency noise range of these wind turbines could interfere with the proper functioning of Mr. Wilkie’s AIC defibrillator leading to shutting down of the device,” Carroll L. Moody, Mr. Wilkie’s cardiologist, wrote in a visit report. The plans for the development show one turbine within a half mile and nine within 1 ½ miles. In six months Mr. Wilkie had lived up here, he had not had an incident, his wife said. But 12 hours after he returned to Florida in March to finish moving and visit his doctor he collapsed. A second collapse led to a five-day hospital stay.

Supervisor Frank Duserick said the town of Naples is investigating what legal standing it may have to protest the placement of wind turbines planned for neighboring Prattsburgh. "We're not against wind towers," Duserick said. "But we are for appropriate placement of towers. Our concern is they should have put them a minimum of 1,500 feet from the town line." Ecogen of West Seneca, near Buffalo, has proposed building up to 53 turbines - though the number could fall to 31 if it switches from a 1.5 to 2.5-megawatt model - in Prattsburgh in 2009.

State Department of Agriculture and Markets law dictates that Dr. Daniel Melamed can have a wind turbine to produce power for his goat and sheep farm and the only aspect related to the apparatus that town officials can regulate is the height. That is the message attorney Robert Fitzsimmons conveyed to the town's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) at an April 8 special meeting called to review Dr. Melamed's area variance application and supporting documentation for relief from the town zoning law's 75-foot-height limit. The meeting was also a continued public hearing on the matter. ...Farmer Ed Hull, Dr. Melamed's neighbor, said he did not understand why the doctor could not install more solar panels to produce more power instead of installing a wind turbine. Mr. Hull said he feared the noise and vibration from the wind turbine would present health risks to him and his family. "I live right across [from the wind turbine site]. Does one farmer trump another farmer? What if there are ill effects? Can you guarantee there will be no effects to myself or my family?" questioned Mr. Hull.