June 15, 2012
Hon. Jaclyn A. Brilling
Secretary, New York State Public Service Commission Three Empire State Plaza
Albany, New York 12223-1350
Re: Case 12-F-0036 -In the Matter of the Rules and Regulations of the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment.
Dear Secretary Brilling:
This letter is a supplement to the Cape Vincent Town Board's earlier comments submitted to you in a letter dated May l7, 2012. After reviewing the comments (May 29, 2012) from Mr. Richard Chandler, Director, BP Energy North America, we need to respond once more, since Mr. Chandler's comment states that BP will be submitting a proposal for an industrial wind project for Cape Vincent that far exceeds anything we have seen in the past and BP's comments suggest an insensitivity to the health and safety of our community.
Responses keyed to Chandler-BP comments:
Introduction: "The Cape Vincent Wind Farm now can reach upwards of approximately 285 MW in size. Given its long-standing and substantial investment in this project, BP Wind Energy is seeking an Article 10 process that will facilitate its development and construction. "
BP announced in their introductory comment that its proposed project for Cape Vincent suddenly increased by 43 percent. Previously, in a letter to the Cape Vincent Town Supervisor on February 6 and in a Watertown Daily Times article on April 26, both noted the combined project "could produce approximately 200MW." BP could have chosen a better method for announcing expansion plans to a community than through the Article 10 rule-making process. Perhaps the additional capacity will come from expansion in an adjoining community? Regardless, BP's ambitions continue to grow affecting a community that does not want bigger, but rather, prefers smaller.
B - Local Laws: "The local community should bear the burden of proof to demonstrate why the more restrictive requirements are appropriate rather than the applicant demonstrating why they are not appropriate." and "... to the extent that a recently commissioned wind project in New York meets community standards, such projects should be used as a guide by the Siting Board rather than having the Siting Board assume that any local law is reasonable unless refitted by an applicant. "
This was an important point in our May 17 letter. The draft regulations for determining the degree to which local action is unduly burdensome begins with BP's request for a determination. We support the rules in their current form where BP would also have to
justify the supplanting local law.
The suggestion by BP that standards for communities with existing wind projects in New York should be used by the Article 10 Siting Board to guide their application is totally unacceptable and insensitive to local requirements. Standards for our community should be our choice based on the interests of our citizens; not those from another community with entirely different concerns, resources and needs.
Our town is currently working hard to adopt a local zoning law that will guide industrial wind development and protect our citizens. Therefore, our revised zoning law should not be dismissively brushed aside by either the applicant or the Siting Board. Furthermore, during the deliberations of a wind law committee I established in 2010, Mr. Chandler's predecessors at BP lobbied intensively to weaken sections of our draft law that were designed to protect the health and safety of our community and BP's efforts eventually prevented the committee from reaching agreement. We are very sensitive to any entity, either corporate or State, discarding our local laws.
C - Study Area: "A Study Area extending five miles from all project components is overly burdensome and may result in work unrelated to the project. The Study Area should be restricted to the project footprint... .."
A 285 MW project could mean nearly 200, 1.5 MW wind turbines scattered throughout our town. For BP to suggest their study area would end at their project boundary, and not consider assessing the impacts on our extensive river and lake front residents situated less than a mile away from the nearest turbines is woefully inadequate. Visual, property and noise impacts extend well beyond any project boundary and a five mile requirement should be retained.
D - Duration of steps in process: "BP Wind Energy has already been engaged with the local community for years on the Cape Vincent Wind Farm project and such work should not be ignored, discounted, or required to be reproduced. .."
On page 3 of the memorandum of draft regulations issued by the Siting Board (March 27) it notes that "Experience has demonstrated that active and adequate public involvement can be critical to the success of an Article 10 review process." In contrast, however, the memorandum also states, "whereas poorly conducted public involvement programs by applicants tend to exacerbate differences and conflicts." Our view is that BP's six-year history in our community has fostered differences, divisions and conflicts within our community. Because of that questionable history, BP should not be requesting to forgo additional public involvement activities described in the draft rules, but should be embracing an opportunity to do a better job. Increasing the size of their proposed project by 43 percent without any notification to local officials is not an example of good public involvement policy. The Siting Board should insist that applicants adhere to the public involvement rules, regardless of their past history in a community, whether good or bad.
E - Business sensitive and confidential information: "Applicants should not be required to submit detailed cost and meteorological data, as such information is proprietary and confidential and will not assist the Siting Board in its work. "
If applicants refuse to provide financial information then they should not be allowed to insist that local laws are financially burdensome to their proposal. Applicants cannot on the one hand claim their financial information is proprietary and should not be revealed, yet later assert restrictive local regulations would "kill" their project proposal. The Siting Board must be consistent on the issue of assessing the impact of costs.
F - Public comment period: The timeframe for allowing public comment on a proposed stipulation should be defined rather than using the current language ("a reasonable opportunity to submit comments"). We should suggest using 5 days."
A 5-day review period is inadequate and an attempt to impose such a standard will be viewed as hindering public involvement; not improving it. Consulting with engineering and legal aides would require more time to be fair. Section G of the Pre-application Procedures stipulates a 21-day period to accept comments on the preliminary scoping statement. We would consider a three-week period much more reasonable than 5 days suggested by BP.
J - Design specifications: "Similarly, rather than provide manufacturer's specifications on proposed equipment to be used, it would be more helpful to instead describe parameters of the equipment."
If the applicant cannot specify the equipment used, in particular the model and make of wind turbine, then any assessment of noise impacts should be delayed until such time as BP can specify what turbine it will be using for a project.
L. Noise and Vibration: "An unduly large emphasis is placed on the assessment of low frequency and tonal noise. The current language proposes assessing compliance at property lines of noise sensitive receptors, which introduces uncertainty from a modeling perspective for a windfarm. We would propose that the SitingBoard adopt the language
changes proposed by ACENY."
Mr. Chandler and BP seem to be misinformed regarding the issue of low frequency noise. Requirement for C-weighted, low frequency assessment and modeling was dropped from the draft rules; therefore, BP should be satisfied with the current draft. However, many municipalities are deeply concerned that low frequency assessment and modeling are not part of the rules. There have been a number of requests, ours included, to re-instate low frequency turbine noise evaluation into the section on noise in the draft rules. We are insistent that to be competent the final rules must responsibly address low frequency sound.
If the PSC is entertaining more language regarding noise standards, background sound surveys, compliance testing etc., then the Town of Cape Vincent would urge the Siting Board to consider the detailed changes proposed by Dr. Paul Schomer to the PSC in early March (see attached). In the following I quote a section from Dr. Schomer's CV that speaks to his unique set of qualifications for dealing with a noise standard for the Article 10 draft rules:
"Dr. Schomer is chairperson of the United States delegation to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Acoustics and Noise committees, past chairperson of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Committee dealing with noise, chairperson of the ISO working groups which deal with environmental noise and with impulsive noise measurement, chairperson of the ANSIIASA working group which deals with environmental noise, and he is the United States representative to the International Organization for Standardization in the areas of aircraft noise and impulsive sources. He is the Standards Director for the Acoustical Society of America, a past member of the Society of Automotive Engineers Aircraft Noise Committee, a principle contributor to current efforts in the area of standardizing airport noise monitoring, and former Executive Director, past vice-president for membership, and twice a past member of the board of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. He is also a past adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Acoustics) and member of the graduate faculty of the University of lllinois."
Mr. Chandler and BP propose that the Siting Board adopt changes proposed by ACENY for the noise issue. In ACENY's comments, however, they fail to mention who drafted their suggested changes and their qualifications: "We have consulted with a nationally recognized sound expert and others with experience on this issue and have substantive comments described here and contained in the attached redline of the proposed regulations." This is not how the Article 10 rules and policy should be promulgated - using phantom sound experts and vague, unsupported standards.
Dr. Schomer's credentials, on the other hand, are impeccable and he has provided the Siting Board with a complete re-write of Exhibit19 on Noise (see attached). I would urge the Siting Board's inclusion of rules based on recognized national and international standards to protect people and proposed by the Standards Director of the Acoustical Society of America, rather than a standard designed to enhance the wind industry's bottom line.
The zoning law that we are about to adopt in Cape Vincent is built on protecting the health, safety and general welfare of all our citizens. However, BP in its comments and past actions in Cape Vincent suggests that our concern with health, safety and general welfare may be unduly burdensome to their project and financial interests. The credibility of their comments must be considered with that in mind - BP is here in Cape Vincent to make money and we were elected to protect people. However, we welcome any development so long as it does not jeopardize the health and safety of our citizens and also recognizes the special assets and resources that make Cape Vincent special and attractive as a community.
Thank you for allowing municipalities the opportunity to supplement their comments to the board.
Urban Hirschey, Town Supervisor
Brooks Bragdon, Town Councilman and Deputy Supervisor
John Byrne, Town Councilman
Clifford Schneider, Town Councilman
Town of Cape Vincent
1964 NYS Rte 12E
Cape Vincent, NY 13618
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