The Ohio Supreme Court will have the final say on whether Jefferson Township voters get to decide if they want to keep the township’s recently approved wind turbine amendment to the zoning ordinance.
The amendment has survived a gauntlet of legal challenges since it was first approved by the township’s zoning board in September. A decision in favor of the prowind property owners who filed the Supreme Court challenge on Wednesday would be the final stroke in making the zoning amendment official.
The opposite ruling by the state’s high court would leave the decision up to township voters who go to the polls for the March 4 primary election.
State Supreme Court justices this morning will hear arguments over a proposal to build 124 giant wind-power turbines along 23 miles of Greenbrier County ridges.
Local opponents of the Beech Ridge Energy LLC project are appealing the state Public Service Commission’s decision to approve the $300 million development.
Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy argues that the PSC ignored its own permit regulations and did not obtain adequate information about the wind project’s potential impacts before approving it.
Charleston attorney and former Supreme Court justice Richard Neely, representing the plaintiffs in the case, argued to Judge Phil Jordan of the 21st Circuit that Shell should be included in the suit because he has been unable to get information from NedPower or Shell to pursue his case. He said that the suit was originally filed “before the first footer was laid” and NedPower was the entity listed as building the project.
WARREN — A new court ruling will delay the Jordanville Wind project and is raising questions whether the developer might drop the project in southern Herkimer County.
State Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood of Onondaga County ruled that the Warren Town Board failed to look closely enough at the project’s potential impact. The town was the lead agency for a state-required environmental review.
The town’s process and decision to approve the review was “arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion,” Greenwood’s decision states.
State Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood ruled last month that the towns of Warren and Stark failed to follow the state’s Open Meetings Law, which voided their approvals of the wind farm and put the project and the hundreds of thousands of dollars it is anticipated to generate in jeopardy. Greenwood also ordered the towns to pay the legal fees of the wind turbine opponents who brought the lawsuit.
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The Ohio Supreme Court will have the final say on whether Jefferson Township voters get to decide if they want to keep the township’s recently approved wind turbine amendment to the zoning ordinance.
The amendment has survived a gauntlet of legal challenges since it was first approved by the township’s zoning board in September. A decision in favor of the prowind property owners who filed the Supreme Court challenge on Wednesday would be the final stroke in making the zoning amendment official.
The opposite ruling by the state’s high court would leave the decision up to township voters who go to the polls for the March 4 primary election.