Galloo Island - Article 10 - Visual Impacts

If visual impacts are an issue for the DEC in their Open Space Plan, how can the siting board, which includes DEC Commissioner Joe Martens, possibly approve an Article 10 proposal to erect 30, 600+ ft high industrial wind turbines on Galloo Island?

Excerpts from NY 2014 Draft Open Space Plan:

 

 Galloo Island wind as proposed 2009

The geographic area of Region 6 has a long history of providing for the generation and transmission of energy for all New Yorkers. Water power and hydroelectric generation shaped most of the region’s economy and communities. The region is home to many hydro generation facilities, including the state’s second largest hydroelectric generation facility at the Robert Moses St. Lawrence power project, the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi River and more than 20 additional proposed wind facilities, has one of the State’s three biomass-fired electrical generation facilities, as well as several large transmission corridors of international, statewide and regional significance. Clearly, the region is a major source of carbon free and alternative electrical generation capacity. This energy production and distribution capacity and the potential for future projects are important to New York State and the Northeast as a whole, and the future planning for and siting of electrical generation and transmission facilities has the potential to dramatically effect open space within the region.

In light of the current and future importance and impact to the region of energy generating

facilities, the Region 6 Open Space Committee strongly supports consideration of Open Space Conservation in the siting of these facilities including a review of the visual aspects and impacts on Open Space resources under the provisions of Article 10.

Link here to Citizens Task Force On Windpower Maine ~ to view more Galloo photos like the one above

Link here to read the NYS DEC 2014 Draft Open Space Plan