Democracy For The Greater Glens Falls Area

Greater Glens Falls DFA Endorses Windpower Project

Larry Dudley is an organizer of several state and local groups in New York. He sent us this report out of Glens Falls.

At its May 5th, 2006 meeting at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in downtown Glens Falls, Greater Glens Falls For Democracy For America hosted an audio-visual presentation and talk by Jim McAndrew of Adirondack Wind Partners on the wind turbine project being proposed for the old Barton Mines site near North Creek, New York.

Adirondack Wind Partners, LLC, is a joint venture between The Barton Group and Reunion Power. The group is proposing to place up to ten win turbines around a parcel of land that includes an old open pit mine and tailings from the garnet mining process. The Barton company has been operating a garnet mine on the site for over a century. It is also near the towers and trails cut into the mountainside by the Gore Mountain Ski area.

According to McAndrew, determining the number and placement of turbines awaits more data, but if there were ten wind turbines, they would produce up to 27 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 14,000 homes, more than half of all the homes in Warren County. It would also yield a reduction in global warming gasses equivalent to permanently removing 11,000 automobiles from the road.

Due to the recent run up in gasoline and other energy prices, and growing concern with global warming and acid rain in the Adirondack region, interest in the presentation by GGFDFA members was high.

According to McAndrew, "The only real objection to wind turbines is aesthetic. But the site has already been disturbed-- it is no longer a natural area. The open pit mine is over a mile long and there is a man-made mountain of tailings. There are adjacent industrial buildings and roads and high tension lines already exist. And that is not to mention the disturbance created by the ski area. The proposed site has many unique features. It is about half zoned industrial, despite the fact it is in the Adirondack Park, and it has wind conditions that are generally not found elsewhere. There is little danger of the proliferation of wind turbines throughout the Park. Local governments also need the tax revenue."

GGFDFA coordinator Larry Dudley noted, "Democratic candidates for office at all levels have expressed a high interest in renewable, clean wind power. It should be axiomatic we need to make America energy independent again. We also have to reduce global warming and stop acid raid. So it is disturbing there are people who are trying to kill this project, especially given its unique features, which means it doesn't threaten the rest of the Park. We should not be fooled as to who the opposition to this project is—mainly very wealthy second home owners from outside the area. Every state agency needs to get behind wind energy and make this project happen."

After the presentation and a brief discussion, the group voted to endorse the windpower project.

Support for the windpower initiative is non-partisan and is already broad based in the region. The project has been endorsed by Greenpeace and author Bill McKibben, the Warren County Democratic Party and the Boards of Supervisors of Warren, Hamilton, Essex and Washington counties and the boards of seventeen towns in the region.

—Larry Dudley