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.
“I'm going to make you a promise today,” Hall said. “There will be no more Article 78's. The three that we have pending, that's it.
“But, there sure is going to be other litigation,” he added. “And it's not going to be on procedural changes that could have been done differently, we're not asking for a municipality to do something over. We're going to look at fraud. We're going to look at criminal conduct.”
The Steuben County Supreme Court, by Decision dated January 9, 2008 has made a ruling in the Town of Cohocton wind turbine case.
In the matters of Cohocton Wind Watch and James Hall et al. against Canandaigua Power Partners et al, and two related cases, acting Supreme Court Justice Marianne Furfure has determined that with one exception in one case, the petitioners in each of the three pending lawsuits have standing to proceed with the actions. In addition, Judge Furfure denied the respondents' motion to dismiss the cases, finding that the petitioners did not violate the stature of limitations and that the petitioners did not fail to exhaust their administrative remedies by not appealing a decision of the Town's Code Enforcement Officer to the Town's Zoning Board of Appeals. Finally, Judge Furfure declared that all of the individual property owners whose lands are to be a part of the wind turbine projects are necessary parties to the actions.
Judge Furfure has given the petitioners additional time to serve some of the landowners with copies of the petition in the actions, and has given counsel for the respondents sixty days in which to serve their answers to the petitions upon counsel for the petitioners.
“Keeping costs down also means keeping energy costs down...I will again send you a bill to fast-track the building of power plants. And again, I will apply a simple principle: We must get more supply into the grid, but if we are going to fast-track any kind of energy production, it must also help us confront the challenge of global warming.” -Governor Eliot Spitzer (January 9, 2008)
THE collapse of the Hesket Newmarket wind turbine is a serious incident which could have been tragic.
Wind farms are set to play a big part in national and regional targets for renewable energy production and last year Cumbria’s councils produced the 62 page Cumbria Wind Energy Supplementary Planning Document.
The guidance highlights windy Cumbria’s obvious suitability for wind farms. But it also draws attention to Cumbria’s “high quality environment containing wide ranging nature conservation sites and species, a diverse historic legacy, important landscape character...” and says “a clear understanding of the environmental, economic and social issues is needed to determine the best place for wind energy development”.
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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.