Wind power pays off in upstate New York

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Five years ago, the Town of Eagle in Wyoming County, New York was in the early stages of researching how wind energy could generate money as well as power.

"Our goal was no town taxes, free garbage pickup and to put enough money away for the future," said town Supervisor Joseph Kushner.

Since then, the idea has become reality and the town of 1,200 is enjoying what Kushner had envisioned and more. The bounty of the turbine-dotted farmland includes newly paved roads, free senior and summer programs and, last year, a new $130,000 ambulance was purchased. More recently, the town added a new fire truck and plow truck, each of which cost $200,000.

Income from two wind projects helped pay for all of it. Kushner said Eagle will get approximately $970,000 this year from them. As a bonus, residents pay no town taxes.

Eagle is home to 93 turbines: The 67 first were completed in 2008 and are part of the Noble Bliss Windpark. In a second phase completed last year, 26 more were built as part of a project that also saw 58 go up in Wethersfield.

Kushner estimates the largest company in Eagle to be a 250-cow dairy, small when compared to 2,000-cow dairies nearby. Most of the nearly 850 land parcels in Eagle, he said, are owned by non-residents and/or for recreational use such as summer homes or snowmobile trails.

So when Noble Wind Energy LLC came looking to talk about setting up a wind farm, Kushner listened. He said the first project went smoothly, but negotiations for Phase II became complicated.

He said that’s because Noble hired family of a board member he would not name. The company did this to get contract language written in a way that favored it, he said.

"Let’s just say we got thrown under the bus," Kushner said.

Of Noble, he added: "They questioned our integrity; they tried to divide and conquer. My warning to anybody doing projects like these is that they (the wind company) will try to influence your town board or city councils. That’s the way the game is played."

Kushner said those negotiating on Noble’s behalf painted a picture of Kushner, a town construction engineer and the highway superintendent as being dishonest during negotiations.

But as upset as he gets when talking about Phase II negotiations, he refers to Brett Hastings, who lives in Bliss and is director of operating projects for Noble Environmental Power LLC, as one whose "integrity you cannot question."

Read the full story in Business First of Buffalo.