Lawmakers in Jefferson County are about to get a crash course in wind farms and the revenue they generate. Tomorrow, the Board of Legislators will meet with Syracuse attorney Kevin McAuliffe, who specializes in payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreements relating to wind projects. Because there are a number of wind farm proposals in the county, lawmakers are looking into ways PILOT programs can be structured. In any PILOT deal with a wind farm developer, money is paid to the county, school districts and municipalities where the turbines are located. Legislature Chairman Ken Blankenbush said he'd like to see a uniform PILOT deal - a one-size-fits-all package for every wind company.

Many area residents voiced their concerns - some by talking softly, some by yelling - over a proposed tax reduction for the Cohocton wind power projects Friday morning. The hearing, hosted by the Steuben County Industrial Development Agency, was a way for SCIDA board members to receive some specific community input on a Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement the board is negotiating with Canandaigua Power Partners and Canandaigua Power Partners II, according to SCIDA Executive Director James Sherron. "This meeting is for you, the public to be allowed the opportunity to give comment relative to what the IDA has been asked to do," Sherron said, adding SCIDA's jurisdiction extended only to financial assistance. ...Cohocton Wind Watch ringleader James Hall, in his 11-minute speach, told Sherron he did not approve of giving a PILOT with lower payment rates than what UPC had previously said was budgeted for the project. "In writing, in the formal application, (UPC) admitted, and said publicly, they're willing to pay $4.5 million in taxes," Hall said. "Not bad. Sounds like we might even drop a lot of our opposition. I'd like my taxes to go down."

“I’m not sure everyone knows what they are voting on,” Bono, District 11, said prior to the vote. ...information included guidelines for the contract negotiation, which include a proposal for a payment in lieu of taxes of $8,000 per megawatt, for a total of $640,000 on an 80 megawatt project. The information also said that the county would receive a one-time payment of $360,000 to $400,000 in its general fund for use on other projects such as the construction of a new county correctional facility. “One of my main concerns is how can I justify an 85 percent tax break for this company and not for anyone else,” Bono said. “We want to attract businesses to Herkimer County, but we cannot give 85 percent tax breaks to everyone. We need to continue to work with the numbers.”

When LIPA ...first proposed the offshore wind project in 2003, costs were estimated at $200 million. The company said it would have little to no impact on electricity rates. That was the last published cost estimate until fall 2006, when under a Freedom of Information Law request from Newsday, the power authority released the original, winning bid from FPL Energy of Florida: $356 million. The price increases didn't stop there. ..."Long Islanders shouldn't believe for one minute that any major form of renewable energy is going to be cheaper than traditional resources produced by oil or natural gas," Kessel wrote.

Lingering hard feelings over negotiations for wind-farm-tax agreements last month may lead Franklin County to create a planning department. ... Thursday, when IDA Executive Director Brad Jackson came before the County Legislature's Economic Planning and Development Committee, he was criticized for not doing enough to look out for the county's interest at the negotiating table. Saranac Lake Democrat Timothy Burpoe said legislators thought Jackson was supposed to be the county's representative in the room. Burpoe said higher megawatt figures could have been obtained with a tougher stance against Noble and the towns. But because a deadline was imposed to reach the deal quickly, Burpoe said, he and some other legislators felt pressure to settle for a deal even though the county ended up with the smallest share.

The Lackawanna City Council on Monday unanimously adopted a law that would allow the city to collect property taxes on a portion of the Steel Winds turbine project. By state law, renewable energy projects, like the partially completed Steel Winds farm along Lake Erie on the old Bethlehem Steel site, are tax-exempt. However, municipalities that host such projects are allowed to opt out if they adopt a local law rescinding that tax exemption, which the Lackawanna Council did Monday at its regular meeting.

Boston utility NStar's plan to let customers buy wind-generated electricity is running into a gale of opposition from a rival "green power" provider, who said yesterday NStar's program would violate state law. Although Attorney General Martha Coakley and the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston legal-environmental group, are backing the NStar plan, Larry Chretien, executive director of the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance, said it violates the 1997 state utility restructuring law. That law, Chretien said, limits utilities to being "distribution companies" that deliver power that customers buy through the utility from independent third-party energy producers and means NStar can't legally become the supplier of power through contracts with wind farms in upstate New York and Maine. NStar plans to begin offering wind power by Jan. 1, pending state approval.

The Boston utility NStar plans to allow its residential and small business customers to buy their electricity from environmentally friendly wind farms - for a price. In a first of its kind for Massachusetts utilities, NStar is proposing to let its 1.1 million electric customers in Boston and 80 eastern Massachusetts cities and towns buy their power directly from a wind farm in upstate New York and a second under development in Maine. Because the wind farms are more expensive than conventional sources like coal and nuclear power, a typical homeowner would pay a premium of about $7.50 to $15 monthly. The program, being announced today, will need approval from state utility regulators before it is launched, which could be as soon as Jan. 1.

Summertime, with its heat waves, monster electric bills and crippling blackouts, may not seem like the best time for Con Ed to try to sell you on pricier power. But marketers at ConEdison Solutions, a subsidiary of the giant utility, are betting that, if they ask the right people, they'll find some willing to pay an average of $10 more a month to switch to wind power. "Despite the fact that everybody would like to pay less for their electricity, there are growing numbers of New Yorkers who are deeply passionate about the environment and want to do something about climate change," said Peter Blom, a ConEd Solutions manager.

The benefits that wind-farm operations could bring to Franklin County will be shared next week during talks on whether property taxes will be waived in favor of negotiated payments. The Franklin County Industrial Development Agency is bringing together the parties impacted by the wind-farm projects in the eastern portion of the county, called Noble Chateaugay Wind Park LLC and Noble Bellmont Wind Park LLC. The meeting, set for Wednesday at the IDA Office on Elm Street, will include the developer, Noble Environmental Power of Connecticut, and representatives from the Town of Bellmont, the Town of Chateaugay, Chateaugay Central School and IDA Executive Director Brad Jackson. Noble plans to build 72 towers in Chateaugay and 14 more in Bellmont on 8,623 acres south of Route 11 and east of Route 374.

The Dolgeville Central School District has been in discussions with the Manheim Town Council regarding the proposed wind energy project that will bring 41 industrial wind turbines to the town. Superintendent of Schools Ted Kawryga said Tuesday that he and Manheim Town Supervisor Tim Parisi have talked about the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement, and the share the school district will receive.

The Final Environmental Impact Statement has yet to be completed, but the Spitzer Administration is showering largesse on Community Energy's 68-turbine Jordanville Wind Project. The project is one of nine wind projects - 21 clean-energy projects in all, when hydroelectric and biomass are included - targeted for $295 million in "performance incentives" in Gov. Eliot Spitzer's speech, "15 by 15, A Clean Energy Strategy for New York," delivered to Crain's Breakfast Business Roundtable in New York City on Thursday, April 19. He said such incentives have attracted $2 billion in private investment to date in clean energy.

The Warren Town Board voted Monday night to rescind a law passed two years ago that made wind turbines, solar-energy projects and any other green-energy sources taxable, Warren Town Clerk Anna Halkowich said. This means that the Jordanville Wind project's 68 turbines are tax-exempt and eligible for a payment in lieu of taxes agreement, she said. The project's turbines are planned for the towns of Warren and Stark.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer unveiled a new energy strategy yesterday that relies on reducing the state's energy use by 15 percent by 2015, investing $300 million in renewable and "clean" power projects and increasing supply by enacting a law to expedite power-plant siting. Simultaneously, the state gave a big boost to wind power by awarding performance-based grants to nine new "wind farms," including three in Steuben County in western New York and one in Herkimer County in the north-central section of the state. These sites, which state officials predict will open next year, will significantly increase the state's use of wind. There are now just four large-scale wind power sites that supply power to the electricity grid, state officials said.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer today unveiled a new energy strategy that relies on reducing energy use 15 percent by 2015, investing $300 million in renewable and "clean" power projects and increasing supply by passing a new law to expedite power-plant siting. "The result will be lower energy bills, a cleaner environment that addresses climate change and thousands of new jobs fueled by a new industry born from clean power," Spitzer said in a speech to a business group in Manhattan.

Madison County leaders turned down a six-figure payment from the developer of a 19-windmill project in three southern townships, citing a need for a comprehensive county policy on how to handle payments from windmill developers. The county had been negotiating a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with Citizens Airtricity Energy, the company that plans to build a 28.5-megawatt windmill farm in Eaton, Stockbridge and Madison this summer. The county’s share of the PILOT would have been $500 per megawatt, or $14,250 per year. The payments would continue for 16 years and increase with inflation. The county estimated the total payments would have been nearly $250,000After three hours of discussion Tuesday morning, supervisors instead voted to forgo the money. The county’s $500 share . Madison County’s portion of sales tax to stay 4 percent Page B-2 will be split among the other taxing jurisdictions, which will now share $8,000 per megawatt. The windmill debate has dominated conversations among county leaders for the past two weeks. Some vocal opponents said the county shouldn’t have been a part of the negotiations at all, since previous windmill projects in Fenner and Madison were built without the county taking a portion of the windmill payments.

WAMPSVILLE - Some Madison County supervisors believe the county's involvement in negotiations to receive a share of the payments from the latest windmill project are too little too late. Town of Sullivan Supervisor Alexander Stepanski says negotiations have been going on between the towns and the company Airtricity for a couple of years.

Critics of the PILOT have said AES Somerset is highly profitable and does not need special accommodation from the county to stabilize its tax bill. They are also concerned that the PILOT will shift the tax burden from the plant onto everyone else, especially residents of the Barker School District, who will see their tax bills rise the most unless other economic changes take place, such as cuts at the district or a growth in the tax base. The plant is proposing a $20 million port for ships and a wind farm, which will cost between $60 million and $70 million. While the wind farm will create “minimal” jobs, Pierce said, its operation will stabilize the jobs at the power plant.

Sue Brander of Advocates of Stark and also a wind farm opponent, sees several other economic disadvantages. Brander sees the wind farms as a federal tax scam. She said the federal policies were designed by Jeffry Skilling, the former Chief Financial Officer for Enron, who is now in jail. The 68-turbine project proposed for the Stark, Jordanville, Warren area would cost approximately $136 million. Under the current system, the owner of the project can deduct 64 percent of the investment in two years, which comes out to $96 million. Brander said that Congress needs to review these laws and change them because investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, are buying them just for the tax write off. She also sees an economic disadvantage for real estate value. Brander said that although some developers and market analysts have said property prices would not go down, properties up for sale around wind farms see less interest than homes away from wind farms. “It is all supply and demand, and people are seeing losses in their real estate value,” said Brander.