CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

The potential environmental impacts from a wind farm on Galloo Island transcend municipal boundaries and have to be weighed on a broader basis in a review process better handled by the state Department of Environmental Conservation than a town agency.

The town of Hounsfield Planning Board wants to be lead agency for the required state environmental quality review on Upstate NY Power Corp.'s proposed 77-turbine wind farm on the island. However, the island's location in Lake Ontario is 12 miles from Sackets Harbor, and the project's underwater transmission line will make landfall in the town of Henderson. This raises concerns that the DEC should handle despite lobbying by Thomas E. Boxberger, district director of the Department of Health, on the town of Hounsfield's behalf.

Jack A. Nasca, chief of DEC's energy projects and management division of environmental projects, made a persuasive case for his agency taking the lead. He noted in a letter to his boss, Alexander B. "Pete" Grannis, that the "anticipated impacts" of the wind farm are "primarily of statewide and/or regional significance as opposed to local significance."

The project will require installing an underwater transmission line along with other construction activity, which will mean heavy boat traffic to and from the island, and could disrupt fish spawning and bird populations with long-term ramifications that go beyond the temporary concerns cited by the Department of Health.

"The impacts from the loss of a unique habitat of regional importance and the potential for impact to resident and migratory bird and bat species of statewide importance will remain for the operational life of the project," Mr. Nasca wrote. Terns on the state list of threatened species nest on the island, which is also near other important bird habitat.

The regional and statewide consequences of the project should have state oversight through the DEC.