To The Reader’s Forum:

With the construction of Cassadaga Wind underway, Cuomo’s $33 billion energy plan for ‘renewables’ continues like a plague across rural western New York. Recently, 30 men from Iron Workers Local 6 and Operating Engineers Local 17 picketed Cassadaga Wind to expose the use of out-of-state workers on the construction sites in Charlotte and Cherry Creek. Workers called out the license plates at the sites: Utah, California, Oregon, Maine, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Idaho… Cuomo’s “promise of good paying local jobs” was not true. (See 2-minute video “Hey Cuomo! What about those jobs?” Chautauqua Updates on YouTube). The $13 billion debt the state has accrued continues to grow as more people and businesses are driven out by bad policies. The original Cassadaga Wind owner, Ever Power, sued new owner, Innogy, for $69 million in non-payment. The case is not yet settled. Innogy has since dissolved being consumed by German company RWE. Is the state concerned about the viability of the project?

Those who live in the area can see the ongoing waste and destruction. Thousands of truckloads of gravel, cement, rebar, repair parts, fuel, water, oil for dust mitigation pass hour after hour, day after day. Equipment is transported on a fleet of ‘lowboys’ that carry tree removal shovels, tree grinders, bulldozers, excavators, earth compactors, off-road cement trucks, off-road gravel carriers, small, medium and large cranes which move from one of several turbine sites and back again – all at what – 6 miles to the gallon diesel fuel in hundred gallon tanks? Ironwood specialized trucks haul ‘swamp matts’ to build 47 miles of temporary roads across fields and through forests to allow the above mentioned vehicles plus 500-ton cranes to crawl across the landscape. When it is done, the jobs gone, the habitats fragmented, the forest ground into chips, and the money banked in Germany, we are left with 37 twirling crucifixes of stupidity, which have a claimed capacity of 124.6 MW. NYISO describes WNY wind capacity as 10 % of that claimed. Dunkirk’s NRG gas power plant at 635 MW could provide reliable, affordable, dispatchable power 24/7 on 98 acres. Each turbine takes 900 tons of steel, 2500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of plastic to build – the manufacture, transport, construction, and disposal of each turbine uses more energy than it can produce in its lifetime.

Karen Engstrom

Mayville