Our family has just returned from a month long camping trip in the Southwest. It was beautiful and wonderful, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but Prattsburgh in the summer (fall and winter are pretty nice too, but spring is usually pretty muddy). For one glorious month I thought almost not at all about wind turbines, but now I am back, and tugging at my mind is often the thought that if Ecogen and Global Winds go ahead with their plans it sure is going to be different around here.

The SEQR (state environmental quality review) process is moving along. Ecogen has come out with its final scope which tells which areas of concern they will be studying when writing up their Generic Environmental Impact Statement. Several additions were made to their Scoping Document because of feedback received from all of us. This means that Ecogen must spend more time and work studying the environmental impacts of their project. Global also had their scoping meeting, but we have received no final scoping document as yet.

If we hope to preserve the beauty of Prattsburgh we must continue to contact legislators and agency officials with our concerns. My intent is to start updating the website http://xray.rutgers.edu/~matilsky/windmills/ and send out periodic suggestions as to whom you can write. Sometimes it may seem like our letters are going out into an empty void, but I do not believe that is the case. Especially when a government official receives a lot of letters, they take note and conversations go on behind closed doors.

Right now I am trying to get the attention of Hillary Clinton. You can contact her at http://clinton.senate.gov/ or you can call her office at 202-224-4451 or 202-228-0282. I believe the person to speak with in her office is Shalini Matani. I have e-mailed and made two phone calls and left two messages and will keep calling until I get through.

If enough of us write and call, Senator Clinton will get the idea of what is going on in Prattsburgh. What I said in my e-mail is that

“I do not understand why the governor and agency officials are pushing wind energy when there is serious reason to doubt that commercial wind electrical generating plants can provide enough electricity to reduce emissions. Tax cuts, subsidies, grants and legislation are being pushed to make things easier for the wind company developers and I am skeptical that concern for the environment is what is motivating them. I am worried that the beautiful Finger Lakes will be marred and serious environmental harm will come from this attempt to “save” the environment.”

Each of us has a different set of circumstances to share, and it is important that she hear from as many of us as possible.

Ruthe