johnbyronkuhner.com

The Ulster County Planning Board has its meeting to review the wind turbine here in Denning on Wednesday the 4th.  I expect to attend.  The online petition opposing the turbine, to be built inside the “forever wild” Catskill State Park, is here.  Emails for people on the UCPB are ddoy@co.ulster.ny.us, and rlei@co.ulster.ny.us.  I wrote the letter below expressing my thoughts on the issue:

To the Ulster County Planning Board:

There is an request before the Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of Denning to grant a variance from current zoning law for the construction of a 177’ tall wind turbine. The Ulster County Zoning Board has expressed a desire to examine this issue and advise the Denning ZBA before it makes its decision. I urge the Ulster County Zoning Board to advise against the project.

I write as a conservationist. I support the wind power industry, but I do not believe any wind-power project should be placed inside Catskill State Park. I especially believe that such projects cannot be allowed to be exempt from local zoning law, which would be a horrible precedent for the entire region. As John Judge, President of the Appalachian Mountain Club recently wrote, “Even renewable energy sources like wind can have negative environmental consequences. Inappropriately sited wind power projects, and the maintenance roads and other infrastructure that comes with them, threaten mountain ecosystems and compromise the wilderness experience.”

The Zoning Board should look at this case as but the first of many to come, which makes it all the more important to keep zoning law in place. The entire Catskills region offers a perfect staging-ground for wind energy production: remote ridgetops. Mr. Hirsch’s property, where the proposed turbine would be built, is but one of many such large ridgetop properties throughout the Town of Denning and the Catskills generally. The Zoning Board of Appeals in the Town of Denning is legally empowered to grant variances only when “the circumstances applying to the property are unique and do not generally apply to other properties in the district” (section 7.6.1). This is far from the case in this instance. Whatever is done here will become a precedent for the entire Catskills State Park.
Some may applaud the possibility of such development. One of the Councilmen in the Town of Denning, Mike Dean, a strong supporter of the project, said he would “like to see the mountains covered with wind turbines.” It would be a twenty-first century industry for an area which has few economic advantages. But it would also compromise the “forever wild” character of the park written into the State Constitution. Large mechanical structures on ridgetops – prominent locations visible by hikers – will change the wilderness and historical character of the area. Any 177-foot-tall structure would have to come with a guarantee that it would be one of only a few for the entire park (some would contend that cell towers are acceptable in this regard). But this is for the personal electric use of one property owner. All property owners in the Catskills have electrical needs, and in the name of fairness, if you grant one person the right to violate zoning law and build a 177-foot-tall tower for his own electrical needs, you should grant it to all. Such a situation would violate another Town of Denning Law regarding variances, that “the variance will not alter the essential character of the surrounding area.” And it would certainly violate the vision of the conservationists who created the Park as a wilderness area. As our society’s energy needs grow and grow and grow, there is going to be increasing pressure on using even our wildest areas for energy production. We should resist the pressure and keep the sanctity of the park boundary.

The engineer of the project, Mr. Chase, noted that there was no objection to a similar project in the town of Grahamsville. Of course not – the project was outside of Catskill State Park. I did not object to the wind turbine there and I do not object to more being placed on ridges and farms in New York State outside of state parks wherever they are allowed by zoning law. But I certainly object to their being placed inside state parks, particularly inside the second-largest wild area in the entire state, especially when there is zoning law against structures of such a height.

I wish to also briefly say a word about the particular area where this turbine is being placed. I visited it while campaigning as the Democratic Candidate for Town Council in Denning. Mr. Chase has provided data about the sound output of the proposed turbine. The number he offers is that the turbine produces 45 decibels of sound at 1,000 feet distance. I find this use of statistics somewhat misleading, first of all: 45 decibels of sound at 1,000 feet must mean that the actual sound production at the source is around 100 decibels – about the same as a lawnmower. Listening to neighbors’ lawnmowers is sometimes necessary, but to imagine a lawnmower going all day and all night is not pleasant. And 45 decibels was noted as being essentially equivalent to “background.” But the chair of Denning’s Zoning Board of Appeals had to admit that background noise at the end of Mountain Lane, by the proposed turbine, is not 45 decibels, but 30 decibels or even lower (his decibel meter would simply read 30 or “LO” at the site). This confirms what we who live in the mountains suspected: “sound travels here,” we say, which really just means there is so little competing noise to drown it out. And the alteration of the sonic profile of the area – the loss of that silence that many of us come here for – to be replaced by a continual mechanical drone, no matter how understated, is a serious loss. Town of Denning law specifically prohibits “noxious” uses of property, citing as one such reason “emission of noise.” But to me even if we were discussing a completely silent 177-foot-tall structure I would object to its being placed inside Catskill State Park.

Let us look at one more consideration: perhaps there are arguments against putting other types of tall structures up, but isn’t there a compelling ecological reason for wind energy? Doesn’t that perhaps trump other considerations? My answer: this project is not in the least ecologically sensitive or viable. You cannot “green” luxury. This is the construction of a 177-foot-tall structure priced at $360,000 – largely funded by taxpayers – for one property’s electric needs. Even if it miraculously ran for thirty years without any additional financial input or maintenance, the cost of the electricity produced over thirty years would be $1,000 per month. There will be no grid-tie: this will be for one property! The words for this are “extravagant,” and “wasteful,” not “green.” I see no compelling public benefit for such a vanity project.

In summation, I think the proposal should be rejected as 1) ill-advised and out of proportion to the Park and its proper uses 2) against the laws of the Town of Denning, even those governing the granting of variances and 3) without compelling public benefit or good cause. And as I say – this is not the last such case. The wind turbine built in Grahamsville was only recently built, and others will follow. We need to uphold local zoning laws on this issue now, and set only precedents which will be good for the character and purpose of Catskill State Park.

Sincerely, John Kuhner

An article in the New York Times which captures pretty well the kind of contempt and arrogance of the owner and designer of the Denning wind turbine project.

As more information has come out, it’s become clear that Mr. Hirsch’s project is just a vanity project and not green.  Building a $360,000 structure (much of the price paid for by government subsidies) for 30 years of electricity works out to $1,000 of electricity per month.  The system is not grid-tied and will not produce electricity for anyone else.  Needless to say, any truly green person would not have energy needs like this (I use less than $10 per month in electricity, by comparison, using a high-efficiency gas generator.  More gas will be used to set this wind turbine up than I will use over a lifetime of living in my cabin).

There’s a town board meeting tonight at 7 p.m., and one of the items of business will be our petition to get a stay on the decision to build a 177′ wind turbine here in town.  I’ve heard complaints from some of my environmentalist friends – we need renewable energy sources – but I still think it’s a terrible idea to put the energy industry inside our state parks.  Catskill State Park and Adirondack State Park are “forever wild,” and they have to be defended that way.  I understand, mountaintops are great places for wind energy – but they have a value far beyond that.  Thoreau from his essay “Walking“:

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil… What I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.

I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock, spruce or arbor vitae in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. Some of our northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughterhouse pork to make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure—as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw.

But my perspective will always be the minority position – though it was absolutely, positively the reason for the creation of these parks in the first place.  What people can understand better is that this is the first proposed 17-storey structure in the town; but if approved others will be proposed, and each time it will be harder and harder to say no.  This changes the entire area, and the wildness people look for here, they will soon need to look elsewhere to find.  I quote the letter from the President of the Appalachian Mountain Club in the November/December 2013 issue of AMC Outdoors Magazine, to show that this is a phenomenon occurring all over the nation:

We hear a lot about the need for new sources of energy, whether from traditional or alternative sources. The fact is, conservation is the greenest energy there is: the cleanest energy is that which is not used.

Our nation’s insatiable appetite for energy affects more than our health and national security. Increasingly, it is threatening our public lands….

Even renewable energy sources like wind can have negative environmental consequences.  Inappropriately sited wind power projects, and the maintenance roads and other infrastructure that comes with them, threaten mountain ecosystems and compromise the wilderness experience.  AMC is working with several states on implementing siting guidelines that lead to smart choices about where these projects are placed.

In local terms: keep these kind of projects outside the second-largest park and wild and scenic area in New York State, the Catskills.