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Hartsville Discusses New Wind Laws

May 23rd, 2018

HARTSVILLE, NY – The Hartsville town board met Wednesday evening and discussed their first draft of a new wind law proposal for the town. The roughly 24 page document was for the most part entirely rewritten with some portions of the original wind laws remaining.

Some items of interest are that the board decided that no or very minimal work will be done on the towers on the weekends. A half day on Saturday will be the limit.

Also the wind turbines will be required to be 1400 feet or two times the height of the tower from an offsite residence, whichever is greater. Distant to the nearest property line will be 1.5 times the height of the tower.

Tower height will be capped at 600 feet with the possibility of amending that depending on how the new towers will be built in the future.

Also allowable noise will be in the 45-50 decibel range. The closest that a wind turbine is typically placed to a home is 985 feet or more. At that distance, a turbine will have a sound pressure level of 43 decibels. It was said last night, that the average air conditioner can reach 50 decibels of noise, and most refrigerators run at around 40 decibels.

Other issues discussed at the meeting were impeding wind flow, right to remove vegetation (trees) on adjacent properties, and landowner’s right to keep leftover concrete pads if the mills are tore down.

Also the board will be looking into repeaters on top of the windmills for better cellphone reception. Superintendent John Bowles said the current reception is very poor in the area and would like to see if the wind company can help that situation.

The next step will be to send a copy of the new wind law to a lawyer for approval, and if approved a public hearing would be held shortly after. You can obtain a copy of the proposed law at the town hall during business hours for $6 (25 cents a page).


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