Appellate court upholds dismissal of Galloo Island wind farm challenge

An appellate court has unanimously upheld a state Supreme Court judge’s dismissal of the town of Henderson’s legal challenge to a proposed wind farm on Galloo Island in the town of Hounsfield.

In a decision entered Tuesday, the state Appellate Division, Fourth Department, affirmed Judge Joseph D. McGuire’s August 2010 ruling that, among other things, determined that the Henderson Town Council lacked standing to bring an Article 78 action against the Hounsfield Planning Board in which Henderson sought to have the board’s site plan approval for Upstate NY Power Corp.’s planned wind turbine project annulled.

Henderson had appealed the ruling in September 2010. Since then, the New York Power Authority has announced it will not award any power purchase agreements through its Great Lakes Offshore Wind project because of exorbitant cost. Upstate NY Power Corp. was one of five companies that bid on the project.

A company official said in October on a conference call with the state Public Service Commission that it was shopping its electricity to alternative buyers, a move which, if successful, could result in an underwater transmission line being built from Galloo Island to Scriba in Oswego County, negating the need for an overland route that would make landfall in Henderson.