Call it a double header, call it a double feature, the fact remains that Wednesday, November 8, is the date for two meetings about wind towers in Sheffield and Sutton. Actually, there are three, if you count the site visit scheduled by the state Public Service Board (PSB) for Wednesday morning.
The PSB will hold a public hearing on UPC Wind’s revised plan to place towers on the ridge lines of Sheffield and Sutton. The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Millers Run School in Sheffield. All members of the public are welcome to voice their opinions at the hearing.
At the same time at the Sutton Elementary School, a special Town Meeting will get under way to decide whether the town ought to spend more money on legal fees to oppose the wind project. Sutton voters opposed the project by nearly a six-to-one margin in a non-binding resolution Town Meeting Day, Timothy Simpson, a Sutton selectman, said Monday. The vote against the project was 120-23.
Sutton selectmen hired a lawyer to represent the town in July, he said.
“We were advised by the Public Service Board and the secretary of state; we were strongly advised we would need counsel,” Mr. Simpson said.
The selectmen authorized up to $25,000 in legal expenses, with the understanding that if the cost exceeded that amount they would go to a Town Meeting for a decision on whether to spend more.
The legal fees have exceed the allotted amount and town residents have petitioned for a special Town Meeting to decide whether to appropriate more funds for the cause. In the meantime a group of town residents have raised $11,000 to help defray the added legal costs.
Mr. Simpson said Sutton selectmen would have called the meeting, which starts at 7 p.m., even if they had not received the petition. He also suggested the town may petition the PSB to order UPC to pay the town for some of its costs because the company has changed its proposed project.
He said he thought that people had not changed their minds about the project, but might feel differently about spending more money “now that it’s hitting you in the pocketbook.”
Mr. Simpson said selectmen won’t take a position on the matter. “We’ll stay neutral on this one and let the voters decide,” he said.
“This whole thing is kind of a lawyer’s lunch. This could go on for a long time. I hope it doesn’t,” Mr. Simpson said.
In Sheffield the PSB will hear opinions about UPC’s revised plans, which call for 16 wind towers rather than the 26 in the original design.
UPC Wind’s revised filing with the PSB calls for the elimination of the six turbines planned for Hardscrabble Mountain, and the reduction of the northern array of turbines from 20 to 16. That means that four of the six turbines that were to be sited in Sutton are no longer part of the planned development.
The reduced number of towers will produce a smaller amount of power, a maximum of 40 megawatts, down from 52 megawatts. Although there will be fewer towers, the new plan calls for the 16 towers to be somewhat larger than those originally proposed.
Members of the PSB plan to visit the site proposed for the towers. The visit is currently scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on November 8. The parties will meet at Wheelock Town Hall on Route 122. According to PSB Clerk Sue Hudson, these arrangements are subject to change, and anyone planning to participate should check the PSB web site at www.state.vt.us./psb or telephone her at (802) 828-2358.
The PSB is not expected to make a decision on whether to grant the project a certificate of public good until sometime in 2007.
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