Burke Friends Against Rural Mismanagement

* To:  Alicia Rivera (alicia.rivera@res-group.com), Manager, RES Marketing & Communications; Jess Kelly (jessana.kelly@res-group.com), RES

From:  Albert Johnson (farmburke@gmail.com), Burke FARM and former Town Supervisor, Burke NY 

Regarding:  Proposed RES industrial wind plant in Burke NY

Date:  April 22, 2019

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I’m writing as spokesman for Burke FARM (Friends Against Rural Mismanagement).  I write, as well, as a former Burke Town Supervisor and on behalf of the individuals who signed the petition, below.  

By way of background for some of you copied with this, RES is the abbreviation for Renewable Energy Systems, a multi-national wind energy corporation.  

Alicia & Jess, understand that the signatures on the petition are just a sample of the opposition.  They were collected over a mere 2-day period.  For example, the list does not include a sizable Amish group opposed to the project.  It does include several property owners from contiguous towns, since residents of  adjacent towns are routinely granted party status to NYS Article 10 procedures — which is where this project will wind up should you, RES, decide to pursue your plan.  

Not only are residents of neighboring towns eligible for Article 10 party status, but so are municipal governments from neighboring towns.  This means the Town of Malone can come onboard any Article 10.  I assure you the Malone town supervisor and board will do all in their power to convince the Article 10 Siting Board and its Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) that this is a bad idea.  I will go into those reasons in a moment.  

At the February 25, 2019 Burke town meeting, Burke FARM pretty much packed the room.  We made our case against the turbine height increase (to 725’), backed up by our petition.  The town board listened to us and duly filed our petition.

At the following town meeting, Supervisor Bill Wood informed the community that the board intended to approve the turbine height increase, offering no evidence justifying the height increase and oblivious to substantial town-wide opposition (as shown in the petition).  

On April 9, the town board voted to approve the 725’ height limit (click here).  Three members voted in favor, with Supervisor Wood and Councilman Lobdell recusing themselves for conflicts of interest.  

As an aside, Burke FARM is considering a declaratory judgment action and Article 78 proceeding against the board.  The declaratory judgment would focus on procedural missteps (there were plenty) related to local law enactment under NY Town Law, the Town Code, or General Municipal Law. The Article 78 would challenge the town board’s administrative decisions under SEQRA. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Burke FARM will deal with our town board and supervisor in the November 2019 election and, as I say, possibly in court; right now we’re dealing with you, RES.  We are formally asking you to withdraw all plans for an industrial wind plant in our community.

Why 50, 725-foot industrial wind turbines are a bad idea in Burke NY

Many of the “Yes” and “No” answers are questionable.  The “No” response to Question 12 (see screenshot, below) is especially alarming.  It fails to recognize that the Almanzo Wilder Farm is in fact listed in the National Register for Historic Places.  Under SEQR regulations, this means the turbines would have to be set back several miles (five, I believe) from the Wilder Farm. Whether the Article 10 Siting Board would honor SEQR recommendations remains to be seen.  Be that as it may, there is a strong likelihood the Almanzo & Laura Ingalls Wilder Association (ALIWA) would join the Article 10 in opposition to this project.  (Yes, I have discussed the matter with the ALIWA leadership.)

The report generally goes by the shorthand, ACRP (Airport Cooperative Research Program) 108.  It was done for the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Science at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as shown below (screenshots from the report).  

I have attached the full report (click here).  

ACRP Report 108 is the upstream, guiding document for FAA regulations and recommendations.  The National Academies of Science (NAS), founded by Congress in 1863, is parent to the National Research Council (NRC), created in 1916. The following paragraph explains the significance and authority of the Transportation Research Board (TSB), copied from the NAS website.

What does ACRP Report 108 say about erecting 50, 725-foot high industrial turbines in Burke?  It says, “No way!”  

Turn to p. 65 of the ACRP Report 108 for the following table (4.6), “Siting Guidance.”  600’ wind turbines (to the tip of the vertical blade) should not be built within 7 nautical miles (NM) of an airport. Seven (7) nautical miles = 8.05 miles.  

Now turn to p. 28 of the same document in abbreviated form (click here) for Figure 4.1, which shows the same guidelines graphically:

If a 600-foot turbine should be no closer to Malone-Dufort Airport than 7 nautical miles (8.05 miles), how close can a 725-foot turbine be?  Alicia and Jess, you can do the arithmetic, but we believe it would look something like this.  (Maybe you should be talking to Chateaugay about your project, instead of Burke?)

While I’m on the subject, we would likely counter your engineering experts with Dr. Malcolm Swinbanks, and your noise experts with noise engineers Rick  James and Dr. Jerry Punch (click here).  (Gary Abraham would relish squaring off with James Muscato, Esq., once again.)

(3) Border Security

The figures, above, give you some idea of the host of problems (“scattering,” “shadow,” “false targets,” and “clutter”) windfarms create for air traffic control (ATC) and weather radars.  I have cut and pasted several relevant passages from Angulo et al.

“So what?  Why does all this radar stuff matter?"

By now you may be thinking, “This is exaggerated!”  

Turn to p. 10 of the document, where you find the following (highlighting mine).  (TCO stands for transnational criminal organization.)

Read the Abstract and Overview, here:

On p. 2 the report lists Mobile Surveillance Technologies, Updated Fixed Surveillance Technologies, and Other new surveillance technologies, as shown below.

In sum, it’s a new ballgame for the northern border:

Let’s now revisit the border map, above, and consider locations 3, 4, 5, and 6 — all of them ports of entry (POE). 

All 4 ports of entry (3-6) are linked to our southern border with Mexico.

NBC News explained the connection in an article last month (click here):

“Illegal Border Crossings from Canada Quietly Rising, Data Shows”
(NBC News, March 9, 2019)

• First, we unscrew the cap:  Anyone willing to buy a one-way, $300 airline ticket from Mexico City to  Montreal or Ottawa can bypass the southern (Mexico) border and — presto! — land on the Canadian side of our northern border — without a visa.  Once in Canada, these people pay $7.00 for a Canadian Travel Authorization permit allowing them to travel freely throughout Canada for a period of days or weeks.  

The following is from the NBC News report.

Hogansburg/Akwesasne

• Are you aware that Mohawks have the right to cross the international border without going through US Customs & Immigration?  
• Are you aware that these privileges are guaranteed to the Mohawk Nation in treaties going back to the 18th century? 
• Are you aware that the Mohawk Nation does not have its own Customs & Immigration service for non-Mohawks passing from Canada into the US and vice versa?  
•  Are you aware that in the latter half of the 20th century there were pitched battles between Mohawks and US and Canadian authorities (witness Oka, Kahnawake, and Akwesasne) which the Mohawks won?  How did they win?  US and Canadian authorities simply backed off. 
  

In sum, Burke NY is within a stone’s throw of a “porous border,” where the porosity is vastly more legally vexing than our border with Mexico — because we’ve got an aboriginal nation sitting athwart this border that refuses to turn over border surveillance, policing, and interdiction to either US or Canadian authorities. (See “Seven Mexican nationals arrested for entering US without documentation near Fort Covington,” Malone Telegram, April 16, 2019.)

You get the picture.  Franklin County is a hotbed of drug trafficking.  And it’s getting worse.  

Here’s a table from the Dept of Homeland Security from a year ago. (OFO:  Office of Field Operations.)  For all ports of entry.  (Click here for full report.)

Border Security v. wind turbines in summary:

Federal/State policy conflict:

In the opinion of Burke FARM, border security has primacy over Gov. Cuomo’s wind energy schemes.  We don't want border security strategy, personnel, and surveillance to be handicapped or otherwise compromised and degraded by badly sited wind turbines.  

I repeat, we are hereby formally asking you to withdraw all plans for an industrial wind plant in our community.

Sincerely,

Spokesman for Burke FARM, farmburke@gmail.com
Former Town Supervisor, Burke NY

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