Under the auspices of The Army Compatible Use Buffer (ACUB) program, Ft. Drum has recently spent nearly $2 million to purchase the development rights for 2,000 acres of adjacent farmland.
The ACUB program is a tool to protect an installation’s accessibility, availability, and capability for training, testing, and operations.
According to an ACUB year end summary [1] a challenge for Ft. Drum is to prevent the encroachment threats from wind energy development that could negatively impact the surveillance radar and pose potential safety and operational hazards to rotary-wing and fixed-wing training and operations by decreasing the safety margin for low-level flight operations.
Additionally, a recent report by WRVO Public Media [2] states that several years ago a wind developer had shown interest in the land in question.
This very same issue was broached recently at a SASS informational meeting in Cape Vincent. [3] Darrel Aubertine, the state comptroller's special assistant
expressed concern that SASS would be taking away land development rights without compensation.
expressed concern that SASS would be taking away land development rights without compensation.
Since SASS only comes into play with large scale industrial development like wind farms, I for one question his motivation.
Was Aubertine asking if the Department Of State was going to compensate landowners for not hosting industrial wind turbines? As a past wind lessee of British Petroleum and Acciona, do you think he was including himself in the compensation request?
[3]http://www.gnuvisions.com/
1 comment:
There's no doubt Aubertine is still interested in promoting big wind in Cape Vincent. His speech at the SASS meeting was nothing short of a direct threat to the State ,that if the DOS prevented him and his cronies from hosting wind turbines on their property, they could expect a lawsuit for loss of development rights. He knows the system and has proven more than willing to apply his political muscle to further his and his neighbors pocketbooks, regardless of whether it is ethical or scandalous.
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