Wind farm:
stirring up a gale

[This is the third in a series of articles on zoning in Wayne County.]

By TOM KANE

WAYMART — Wind farms aren’t as numerous in this part of the northeast as they are in California, where there are 40,000 wind farms. But one may be here soon, along a four-mile stretch of the Moosic Mountains in Waymart, in Clinton and Canaan Townships.

There’s not much the residents of the townships can do about it, since neither municipality has zoning ordinances in place.

A wind farm consists of a string of large mill-like structures the size of a two-story house with blades attached, each standing about 250 feet high (the blade can be as high as 330 feet). They are usually placed on mountain tops or high terrain where the wind is in plentiful supply.

A large, international company—National Wind Power (NWP) Company of England—is seeking a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit from the state to construct 47 of these structures in the two townships atop the Moosic Mountain range.

At the request of residents, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a public hearing on April 19 in the Wayne County Courthouse in Honesdale.

“We’ve formed a planning board, which is the first step in adopting zoning,” said Clinton Township resident Henry Steward, an opponent of the wind farm project. “It’s like locking the door of the barn after the horse ran off, but we’ll be ready for any other wild project that comes down the pike in the future.”

Wind farms are touted by some energy specialists and by the federal government as promising new sources of renewable energy.

“A lot of companies like this look for places that have no zoning,” said DEP’s Mark Carmon, who conducted the hearing.

The plan of the federal government is to have five percent of the nation’s energy from wind by the year 2020. But not everyone is crazy about this project—not even some environmentalists.

At the hearing, strong arguments were presented by both sides. Charles Bertram thought it was wrong for opponents of the project to deprive landowners of a chance to profit from their land. “People will drive from far away to come see these windmills and will spend money in our community,” he said.

Stephen Macken, project director of the wind farm for NWP, testified that the rationale for wind farms is to wean the public, even in a small way, from its insatiable addiction to fossil fuels that are clearly causing global warming.

“Power plants and not cars are the greatest cause of global warming,” he told DEP officials and the attendees at the public hearing.

Macken said his company did a wide search of the area around eastern Pennsylvania and found the Moosic Mountain site as possessing all the desired qualities.

Also testifying in favor of the project was Ed Shoener, the former northeast regional director of the Pennsylvania DEP, who is now a consultant hired by NWP.

Shoener said that there are no threatened or endangered species at the proposed site, nor is the site a major fly-way for migratory birds.

On the opposing side, there were some equally hard-fought positions.

“The earth disturbance at this site will have a major impact on the waters of the Lackwaxen River and the Lackawana River,” said Clinton resident and opponent of the project Donald Goetz. “The construction [will include] blasting for 35, 100-ton concrete footings, 30 feet deep each, to support a 200-ton 330-foot structure. Further blasting will be done to construct a six-mile-long trench, four feet deep, to carry interconnecting power lines.”

Goetz, along with several other speakers, deplored this kind of construction on an ecologically sensitive system like the Moosic Mountains.

Donna Salko, who owns 1,700 acres bordering the proposed Moosic Mountain site, said 1,500 acres of her land is part of an agreement with the Wild Land Conservancy. On her property, she is conducting a survey of the wild life: birds, reptiles and plants.

Salko said that the site is visited by migratory birds twice a year and is the habitat of several endangered flora and fauna on the list of Pennsylvania species. It also includes birds like the American bald eagle that has been frequently sited on or near the mountain range.

She urged that the first action by the state should be to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) before it gives permission to begin such a project that could be devastating to the plant and wild life along the mountain range.

Such a detailed study is not required by Pennsylvania law.

“The environmental study we conduct is very similar to an EIS,” Carmon said.

Another opponent of the project, Glenn Abello of Clinton, said that the project was moving ahead in Wayne County because county leadership is in favor of development at any cost.

“We’ll sift through the considerable amount of testimony we received at the hearing and afterwards,” Carmon said. “We have a lot of work to do. I don’t know when we’ll make the permit decision.”

Paul Ferraro, a Clinton Township resident, summed up the sentiments of all those opposing the mammoth project. “I have a lot of vested interest in this track of pristine land,” he said. “I have hunted, fished, walked the trails and meditated for countless hours along this range. It just breaks my heart to see what they will do to it.”