Cape Vincent Wind Farm: TOCV responds to BP's recent submission to the DPS of their Cape Vincent Wind Farm Public Involvement Program Spreadsheet

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

TOCV responds to BP's recent submission to the DPS of their Cape Vincent Wind Farm Public Involvement Program Spreadsheet

March 10, 2013

Honorable Jeffrey C. Cohen

Acting Secretary, NYS Board of Electric Power Generation Siting and Environment

Three Empire State Plaza

Albany, New York ~ 12223-1350

Re: Case 12-F-0410 Cape Vincent Wind Power, LLC

Dear Secretary Cohen:

This letter is in response to BP's recent submission to the DPS of their Cape Vincent Wind Farm Public Involvement Program tracking chart through February 28, 2013. Since we are beyond the minimum required 150 days for their Public Involvement Program, the contact activities outlined in BP's tracking program to date may represent their final list of contacts. We want to point out to the Siting Board several deficiencies between what BP has completed to date and what they stated they would complete in their revised PIP.

The following is a list of organizations/stakeholders that BP planned on contacting in their PIP, but were not listed in their tracking chart:

1. Jefferson County

2. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

3. New York State Department of Transportation

4. New York State Office of General Services

5. New York State's Empire State Development

6. Department of Defense Clearinghouse for Energy Development

7. U.S. Federal Aviation Administration

8. NYISO & National Grid

9. T.I. Central School District

It is possible that some of the above were contacted, but failed to be identified in BP's tracking chart. For others, however, BP should be made aware of additional stakeholder contacts they need to complete in order to comply with their PIP program.

There were a number of other stakeholder contacts suggested by DPS that were never included in BP's PIP, albeit they should have been included, such as adjacent municipalities:

“The PIP should identify a proposed Study Area, and identify any additional stakeholders or stakeholder groups that are within that broader area. Representatives and residents of adjacent municipalities (i.e., Town of Clayton; Wolfe Island, Ontario) should be considered as potential stakeholders based on regional scale impacts of the proposed large-scale wind energy project, and potential cumulative impacts with existing or proposed wind energy facilities in those jurisdictions.”

BP has not only failed to reach out to adjacent communities as suggested by Department of Public Service, but also has ignored a direct request for some form of communication by municipal officials from Wolfe Island (Comments of Denis Doyle, The Township of Frontenac Islands, 2/19/2013). Because Wolfe Island has had an 86 turbine wind farm operating across the St. Lawrence River from Cape Vincent since 2009, all of us could benefit from this contact. Regrettably, BP chose to ignore a stakeholder whose advice, counsel and experience would be uniquely pertinent and would add immeasurably to the record.

We agree fully with DPS that adjacent communities within the Thousand Islands region and Jefferson County, NY have a great deal at stake in the outcome of the Cape Vincent Wind Farm proposal by BP. These communities have a similar demographic character, with valuable waterfronts, tourism based economies with abundant wind resources. They should all be included in BP's list of stakeholders for the sake of their future development.

BP pointed out that the northern part of Cape Vincent was part of an Environmental Justice area and therefore has certain, special requirements in an outreach plan. This was stated by BP in their planned outreach activities:

“Cape Vincent Wind Power will confer with DEC and community leaders initially to identify the specific methods of communication that would be most successful for the stakeholders within the environmental justice area. For instance, Cape Vincent Wind Project will work with community leaders to determine if additional public meetings, located within the environmental justice area are needed to solicit input from stakeholders in the community and to provide an opportunity to engage in a dialogue with members of the Project team.”

At the January 22 meeting with Towns of Cape Vincent and Lyme municipal officials BP staff discussed the issue of environmental justice and were given advice regarding special, personal contacts. Again, there was nothing listed on BP's tracking chart that provided any indication that any special contact was made for those people within the environmental justice area that would be impacted from BP's project proposal.

The above mentioned stakeholder contacts should be completed, not only so that BP's Public Involvement Program can be considered complete, but more fundamentally, so that BP, the Siting Board, and the people of the area can have the fullest possible understanding of BP’s proposal and all its implications. We are also concerned that lapses in BP's effort at this stage may be a harbinger of their future behavior and future attention to the Article 10 process. We would like some assurance that BP will move forward with their application by being attentive to the process, the rules and recommendations by DPS.

Respectfully yours,

Urban Hirschey – Town Supervisor

Brooks Bragdon – Deputy Supervisor

John Byrne – Town Council

Clifford Schneider – Town Council

Michelle Oswald - Town Council

We the undersigned appointed officials from the Town of Cape Vincent endorse and

fully support this Town Board letter to the Public Service Commission regarding the

Article 10 application for the Cape Vincent Wind Power project proposal.

Richard Macsherry – Planning Board Chairman

Robert Brown – Planning Board

Cyril Cullen – Planning Board