CHERRY VALLEY - A developer has plans for a $50 million wind park that would place as many as 50 wind turbines on Cherry Valley hilltops and generate enough electricity to power 37,000 homes.

The turbines will be clearly visible on the landscape and may put many resident's environmental views to the test as they try and balance the clean, renewable source of power with the project's impact on its surroundings.

Erich Bachmeyer and Daniel Albano, of Global Winds Harvest, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., based company, attended a meeting of the town board last Thursday to talk about the plan and on Tuesday they returned to have a sketch plan meeting with the town planning board in anticipation of submitting a site plan review application for the project in May.

Representatives of the company have been in the Cherry Valley area for more than a year assessing the wind and talking to land owners whose property is located where the turbines would be sited.

"There are many obstacles in developing a wind park," said Bachmeyer, who explained that data collected on winds in the area came back favorable.

Right now only a very small percentage of the electricity in the US comes from wind power, Bachmeyer said in his presentation to the town board, but that is changing. Last year the wind industry grew 63 percent in this county and worldwide by 31 percent, he said.

The wind park envisioned for Cherry Valley would be located on two sites. One is on East Hill five miles east of the village off County Route 50. The second is along a ridge two miles west of the village off County Route 54 in the vicinity of Irish Hollow Road, south of the Cherry Valley-Springfield school in an area known locally as "the cape."

Each site would have approximately half of the 40 to 50 turbines planned for the park. The sketch plan submitted to the planning board Tuesday night calls for a total of 43 turbines, but that plan is preliminary.

The turbines are similar to those in use in a wind park off Route 20 in Madison, N.Y. and are rated at 1.5 megawatts apiece - enough to power about 750 average households.

The towers are going to be between 235 and 270 feet high and have blades that are 130 feet in length. The turbines operate at approximately 12 to 19 revolutions per minutes and can survive a 150-mile-an-hour wind, Bachmeyer said. The towers are anchored on 50 by 50 foot concrete bases.

They would be located at least 600 feet apart and electrical cables connecting the turbines would be placed underground. The developers expect to feed the electricity generated into a NYSEG transmisison line along Route 20.

Currently the company would like to begin construction in March or April of next year and have the units commissioned and on line by December.

The majority of time in the eight month construction schedule is taken up with building the tower bases and roads to them. The towers themselves go up in day and a half or two days, according to Bachmeyer.

Not only does the plan have to be approved by the town planning board, it must also met the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration because some or all of the towers would have to have lights and also NYSEG because its transmission lines have to be able to handle the additional kilowatt load.

Following the presentation, Bachmeyer and Albano fielded questions from residents and landowners - some of whom were learning about the project for the first time.

"There is a trade-off with the historic landscape, Bachmeyer said. "We realize the towers are big, it's the one drawback with wind energy. They have to be high to pick up the wind."

Dr. John Davis, president of the Delaware Otsego Audubon Society, questioned if the wind turbines posed a threat to birds in the same manner telecommunications towers do.

"Yes," Albano said, "birds are killed in wind parks."

According to studies, he said, the avian mortality rate in wind parks in two birds per turbine per year. "It's not comparable to telecommunications towers," he said."

Residents were also concerned about ambient noise, lights and who would build and maintain the roads necessary to access the turbines which will dot the hilltops.

Because of their height, some or all of the towers will have to have lights, but they should not shed any light downward and would only be to mark the turbines' location for pilots. The number of towers which must have lights will be up to the FAA.

The turbine blades create what was described as a "whooshing" sound that measures approximately 45 decibels. A car passing by on the highway would register 60 decibels, Albano said, adding that he would suggest residents drive to the wind park in Madison and look at and listen to the ones operating there and judge for themselves.

Albano said the noise is a low frequency and he didn't believe it would carry as far as other types of noise.

Town supervisor Robert Loucks, who had an opportunity to see a more detailed map of the proposed locations, said he didn't think any of the turbines would be sited closer than a quarter mile from a house.

Bachmeyer assured the residents that the company would pay for the construction of the 12 to 15 foot wide gravel road. The road will snake from one turbine to the next in manner that is often described as a pearl string, said Albano.

The affect of the wind park on neighboring property values also worried East Hill Road resident Andy Minnig. "I can't ask the price for the property that I paid for it," he said.

Bachmeyer said there were no studies on how wind parks affect property values. "How you look at them is a subjective thing. If you think they're ugly, nothing will change your mind."

Roseboom resident Jim Pullano said that the visual impact would stretch beyond the town of Cherry Valley. "The towers are so big they don't just affect Cherry Valley. Many towns are affected by all this. The town may profit from the project, but people like myself suffer. It's not subjective, these are 250 feet high."

Albano said that all the issues come down to how to mitigate them. As developers, he said, there are costs and benefits. "How can we tip the scale? We're willing to bend as much we can with micrositing issues," he said.

Residents pressed the developers Thursday night for more detail about where the turbines would be located, but we're told that information would have to wait until they submit the site plan to the planning board.

In the meantime, Bachmeyer said, they are continuing to work on acquiring leases from property owners. "It's not entirely set as to where all the towers are going. We will have the exact location in a month at the planning board," he said.

One large landowner whose property has been targeted is the Wightman Lumber Company in Portlandville. Dan Wightman was at Thursday's meeting and said they had not yet agreed to the deal. "We have not signed on. We wanted to learn what the sentiment was. We're still riding the fence," he said. "Our ultimate objective is to grow trees."

Wightman said that not every decision is driven by financial considerations and that the company wants to be a good neighbor.

"There are issues here that go beyond what's in my back yard," he said. Wightman said he sees those issues forcing people to look at their own level of commitment when faced with a project in their own backyard that produces clean power from a renewable source and whether people would just "talk the talk or whether they would also walk the walk."

"This is a tough decision and we don't take it lightly," he said.

Landowners who sign on to the project will receive an annual payment from the company which is expected to be approximately $3,000 per turbine.

The town would receive annual payments into what is being called a "wind fund." The annual payments are still being negotiated, but are expected to be in vicinity of $2,500 per turbine per year, according to Supervisor Locks, who commented that Cherry Valley had to "come to some conclusion because they did not have the resources. If 50 turbines are erected the town could expect to receive well-over $100,000 a year.

The turbines are not taxable - at least not for the next 15 years - so they will not contribute revenue in that manner.

According to Steve Child, the Director of the Otsego County Real Property Tax Services, Section 487 of the New York State Real Property Tax law provides for a 15-year exemption for solar or wind energy systems.

Child said they have had people apply for the solar energy exemption, but never a wind system.

What happens, he explained, is that the value of the wind generating system would be added to the assessed value of the property, but the exemption would be in the same amount and negate the increase.

By the time Tuesday's planning board meeting rolled around, the crowd had shrunk to less than half the number of people in attendance Thursday.

East Hill resident Andy Minnig returned to the meeting room to talk about his concerns. "They (turbines) can look quite nice at a distance, but we'll be living in their shadow," he said. "I'm being asked to pay the price for the wind park. What can I do, but come here to each meeting and register my opposition. This is not good news for me."

Most people admitted that the idea of wind generated electricity is hard to argue with, but they had concerns about the visual impact.

How can you say no to clean energy?" asked Minnig's neighbor Deana Weiner whose farm will be almost surrounded by the turbines. "We're going to see 20 of these things. It's going to be horrendous."

Albano reiterated the company's earlier offer to do what they can to mitigate the impacts for those people near the turbines.

"At this point, if people want to take part, we are willing to work with them to the extent possible with siting." He explained that in some cases it may be possible to move some of the turbines to minimize the impact.

Theresa Winchester, executive director of the Otsego County Conservation Association addressed the meeting and cautioned about making a long-term decision in a short time. She pointed out that in Roxbury where three companies are interested in building wind parks they have instituted a moratorium on the construction of wind turbines to give the town time to consider a local law to regulate wind parks. Global Winds Harvest is one of the companies.

Winchester admitted that as an environmental organization, they would be hard put to oppose wind power, but that they have concerns about the impacts.

Bachmeyer said that the Cherry valley site was selected for a combination of wind speed, topography and proximity to a connection with the power grid and that there aren't as many suitable locations in New York as people might think.

In North Dakota, which is sometimes called the 'Saudi Arabia of wind,' he said, you can throw a dart and put wind turbines anywhere. "You can put a coal plant in the middle of nowhere, we can't do that," he said.

He told people the company wants the support of the community and wants their input into the project. "That's why we're here a year before construction," he said, but cautioned that not everyone of the land owners has signed on to the project yet. "We could be talking about a moot point," he said.

"This will no longer by the Cherry Valley of the past," Minnig said.

Vivian Langdon asked the planning board if this would be the biggest decision they had ever faced and all responded it was.

"No matter what decision this board makes someone will be mad," Harvey said.