Hamburg, N.Y. (WBEN) - Although environmental activists were handed some great news in December with the New York State Energy Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) not moving forward with plans to put wind turbines in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, they know the fight on the matter is not over yet.
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"Since then, there's been a number of attempts by a number of federal, state and individual corporate organizations that are continuing to press the issue," said Citizens Against Wind Turbine In Lake Erie (CAWTILE) board member Dave Adrian in an interview with WBEN on Tuesday.
An emergency meeting was held on Tuesday along the Lake Erie shoreline in Hamburg with members of CAWTILE to inform everybody and let them know this battle is no where close to over, and what efforts are now being made to implement wind turbines in the Great Lakes.
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One of the efforts currently ongoing to push for wind turbines in Lake Erie comes from State Sen. Pete Harckham, who serves in Albany as the Chairman of the Environmental Conservation Board. He is putting forth a bill in the Senate chambers for a "demonstration" turbine in Lake Erie.
This bill calls for a pilot project in furtherance of "climate leadership and Community Protection Act clean energy standards in Lake Erie," and establishing standards for wind energy procured from this proposed project.
"Sen. Harckham was asked by an individual from the wind industry to do this," Adrian said. "The actual bill itself is constructed in a way to just simply take what the NYSERDA ruling was, which basically said it was supposed to be 1,600 megawatts they were proposing, they could only see a way to do 200 megawatts. This bill by Harckham was designed to try to take advantage of those 200, make a demonstration project of it, and I'm sure from there use that as a precedent in the future."
Adrian says he and other members of CAWTILE, including longtime Great Lakes fishing expert Jim Hanley, will continue to fight against the wind turbines, while educating as many people as possible about the adverse effects of these proposed wind turbines in the Great Lakes.
Over the last several months, the movement against wind turbines has gained plenty of steam in Western New York. That wasn't without a lack of overall awareness from lawmakers, at first.
"We had trouble even bringing this to their attention, because there are so many other items that people are concerned about. However, Sen. George Borrello was the first one to really bring this to the floor, and actually present legislation to fight the wind turbines," said Adrian. "They, one-by-one, have have jumped on board here, and as we speak to more and more representatives - both Republican and Democrat - we explain to them this is not as polarizing of an issue as you might think. In fact, it does seem to cross political boundaries.
"As the elected officials learn that, they are getting on board more and more, and they're willing to fight pretty aggressively for it."
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Members of CAWTILE are in the process of looking into a consensus poll to determine and demonstrate that of the people that have unofficially been asked about wind turbines in Lake Erie, 70% of Western New Yorkers are against it.
What more are activists with CAWTILE trying to accomplish going forward in the fight against wind turbines in the Great Lakes? Primarily, it's about getting the facts out to the public and educating more and more residents and elected leaders.
"I think all of us were kind of convinced early on that something like this might be good because it's 'clean energy'. The fact is, once we find out more and more about the construction of them, the maintenance of them, how they actually leak oil, what kind of disturbances would happen in the bottom of the lake, recirculating toxins that have been settled in there by zebra mussels, the cleanup of them after they reach their 20-year existence, the fact they cannot be put in regular dump sites - they have to be treated as toxic waste and there's absolutely no way of correcting that problem - the bill for when something goes wrong with them and the maintenance, and if the companies that originally built them go under how it becomes something the taxpayers have to pay for it, those types of things, I think, need to be demonstrated to people," Adrian said. "Our goal over the next six months is to hold a series of educational seminars where we can bring on that information to all groups of people and all ages."
In addition, CAWTILE is hosting a special Boat and Beach Rally event this upcoming Saturday at Sunset Bay Beach Club in Irving. The event starts at 12 p.m. ET with the boat rally, followed by some entertainment at the Beach Club at 2:30 p.m. ET.
A number of locally elected officials are expected to be in attendance and speak at Saturday's event, including State Senators Borrello and Pat Gallivan, State Assemblyman David DiPietro, Erie County Legislator John Mills, and a representative from Congressman Nick Langworthy's office. All of these locally elected officials have, at one point, put forth legislation to try and combat wind turbines in Lake Erie.
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