News Release
April 18, 2005
Contact: David Gibson, 518-377-1452, Ext. 301
Adirondack Protection Organization
Opposes Barton Mines Wind Power Proposal
Niskayuna, NY — Citing more than a century of legal history and policies designed to protect and promote the natural, aesthetic and scenic protection of the Adirondack Park, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks opposes a proposal to erect wind towers by Barton Group and Reunion Power, LLC just north of Gore Mountain in the Adirondack Park.
This project would build wind towers whose turbines and blades would rise more than 400-feet above the forested summit of Pete Gay Mountain on privately owned land.
The Association, a 104-year old advocate for the Adirondack Park, strongly supports Governor George Pataki's call for 25 percent of the state's electrical generation to be produced from renewable sources. However, the Association believes that this particular proposal:
- compromises too much of the Park's legal protection and wild forest character
- contributes little in the way of renewable energy
- sets a bad precedent for the entire six million-acre Adirondack Park
"While we are staunch supporters of increasing New York State's renewable energy mix, including wind power, the scope and scale of the Barton Mines wind energy project proposal is fundamentally incompatible with the protection of natural, wild and scenic resources of the Adirondack Park," stated Association Executive Director David Gibson.
"The Barton Mines wind power proposal calls for highly engineered wind towers and turbine blades on 3000-foot mountain summit that would reach heights over 400 feet - or the equivalent of a 40 story urban building. These wind towers would be visible from major travel corridors and impact scenic views from the adjoining Siamese Ponds Wilderness Area and from many other parts of the New York State Forest Preserve.
In this way the project would be directly inconsistent with Article 14, Section 4 of the NY State Constitution that makes it state policy to conserve and protect the state's natural resources and scenic beauty. Nowhere is this more important and appropriate state policy than in the Adirondack Park," Gibson noted.
Gibson added, "Moreover, the proposal would set a most dangerous precedent for tower construction throughout the park. Such tall industrial structures on a prominent ridgeline in the Adirondacks would be dramatically inconsistent with the character, description and purpose of the Park's Resource Management areas and the Adirondack Park Agency's 'Towers policy.' This holds true for windpower towers as it does for wireless telecommunications towers."
If the Adirondack Park Agency were to permit 400+ foot wind turbines on the Park mountain summits, then dozens of wireless communication companies will ask why they should not be permitted to erect their much lower structures on mountaintops anywhere in the Adirondacks," Gibsonconcluded.
Half of the proposed ten wind turbines are proposed for Pete Gay Mountain's Resource Management land, areas which are legislatively zoned strictly for forestry and open space purposes to assure that the forested, open space character of the Adirondack Park is maintained. Within Resource Management areas, commercial towers are neither a primary nor a secondary use according to the Park legislation.
In addition, the Adirondack Park Agency's policy on review of "New Telecommunication Towers and Other Tall Structures" states that Park's mountain tops and ridge lines are inappropriate locations for tall structures and that these structures should be substantially invisible from public roads, navigable waters and other public places. The Association believes that the wind towers would be readily visible from many surrounding mountain summits, lakes and roadways.
"Our Board of Trustees strongly believes that the aesthetic and scenic impacts of the proposal threaten the fundamental principles of the Adirondack Park and Forest Preserve as places set apart and not dominated by human impacts or technologies," stated Peter Brinkley, Board President who resides within the Blue Line in Jay, New York. "It is that wild legacy which supports and nourishes our recreational and tourist economy in the Adirondacks."
"We also recognize the fact that the Adirondack Park already contributes substantial renewable hydro and biomass energy to the state's renewable portfolio. We are working in Park communities and with the Governor's office to promote greater energy conservation that can better our contributions towards a more sustainable energy future," stated Conservation Committee Co-Chairman Dan Plumley of Keene, New York.
The Association calls for the state to play a leadership role in energy use reduction and conservation in the Adirondack Park by incorporating the latest energy conservation techniques in all state facilities and by encouraging the utilities and authorities like the New York Power Authority to provide financial incentives for "green" new construction and for energy retrofits to existing homes and businesses.
"While the ten wind towers likely would send their maximum of 25 megawatts of electricity into the regional grid for use outside of the Adirondack Park, coordinated state and private home energy conservation could dramatically reduce energy consumption directly in the Adirondack Park without compromising any of the Park's laws and policies," continued Plumley.
"If we value the very foundation of the protections afforded the mountains of the Adirondack Park and the reasons why people choose to live and visit there, then we must seek the highest standard of energy sustainability, a standard as high and as grand as our protected mountains," Plumley concluded.
The non-profit Association, founded in 1901, is the Adirondack Park's oldest organized advocate and it remains dedicated to the Park's natural health and economic vitality. Its Advocates for Wilderness Stewardship program seeks to raise the standards of excellence for the stewardship of the NYS Forest Preserve. The Association's Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna, New York serves as a conservation library and learning center.