New York Wind Farm Proposal May Get New Life With New Developer

A wind farm that was planned for the upstate New York town of Beekmantown and shot down by town officials after a collapse of a turbine at a nearby park, may be back on again.

A new developer has submitted plans to the town, the Plattsburgh Press-Republican reports. The town council voted down a plan submitted by Windhorse Power LLC in March. Among the reasons cited were contentious lawsuits filed by residents, inaction by Windhorse Power and fears of an incident similar to a turbine collapse in neighboring Altona.

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Penn Energy Trust, which had been the land purchasing agent for Windhorse Power, has submitted new, but identical, plans to the town, seeking to build a 13 turbine park and billing the project as a way to make sure the wooded land isn’t developed, the newspaper reported.

The town council passed an ordinance in June 2008 prohibiting industrial wind turbines, but Penn Energy believes its project is grandfathered from that ordinance. The next step is for the town’s zoning board to hold a public hearing.

Officials are still studying the cause of the Altona turbine collapse, but park owner Noble Environmental Power has cited “wiring anomalies” as a probable culprit.

Photo Credit: David Laribee’s Flickr stream, via a Creative Commons License.

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