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Friday, May 24, 2013
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State, federal policies ignored at hearing

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Scott Aubertine, supervisor from the town of Lyme, said the most intelligent comment of the night at the Cape Vincent town hall meeting on wind energy. Mr. Aubertine’s issue was with our legislators in Albany.

He is absolutely right. Our elected legislators are the ones who passed Article X giving New York state power to override the local town governments’ authority when it comes to state energy requirements.

It was an overwhelming majority of both the board members from Cape Vincent and Lyme that the towns are prepared to fight the wind farm issue with the state and BP. The only winners with this issue will be the lawyers’ bank accounts as they defend the towns.

My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Richard Chandler, BP’s representative for this area’s wind farm project. He presented the projects’ key issues and how BP was going to implement the project using the state’s Article X.

It was unfortunate Richard failed to have another BP colleague with him to help answer some of the questions. I have to give him credit, because it was like a lamb being consumed by a pack of wolves.

If I were Richard, I would be more inspired to encourage BP’s management for legal assistance. Urban Hirschey, Cape Vincent’s supervisor who conducted the proceeding, said in the beginning there would be no audience participation. This failed because the majority of the anti-wind people waved signs in support of the board’s points.

One of the board members resorted to using language that was totally uncalled for. I suggest the anti-wind people buy tee shirts. The pro-wind people sat quietly with their green energy shirts.

This issue has divided the communities, and the same here. The room was divided with the “anti” on the right and “pro” on the left. Hopefully Mr. Hirschey will keep the audience under control because this issue is not going away.

Mr. Aubertine failed to take issue with legislators in Washington, D.C. They found the resources subsidizing green energy.

President Obama’s course to energy independence is green energy. We all are wasting our energy with the local governments.

Mr. Hirschey said the demand for electricity would go down because of all the natural gas. But then you have the anti-fracking people, along with the anti-nuclear, anti-hydro, anti-coal, etc. We should take lessons from the Amish. Look how well they get along.

Charles B. Kingsley

Three Mile Bay

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