Office of Borough President James P. Molinaro
Staten Island, New York
B.P. Molinaro's Earth Day wish: A wind farm operating at Fresh Kills by 2014
"We Already Have a Plan in the Hopper - Why Not Use It Now?"
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Borough President James P. Molinaro today shared his Earth Day wish to New York City -- install wind turbines at the former Fresh Kills landfill.
“My wish for Earth Day 2011 is that we have a wind farm operating at Fresh Kills by Earth Day 2014,” Molinaro said. “All that stands in our way is the common sense understanding of government agency approval.
“The just-released update to the PlaNYC does not go far enough,” Molinaro added. “While I do not oppose solar power, and I believe it can certainly play a part of the energy needs of the City, the lack of focus in the update on wind is not acceptable to me.
“As Borough President, I originated the wind turbine concept at Fresh Kills almost 10 years ago,” Molinaro continued. “I was the only elected official to fully back implementing a New York State Energy Research and Development Agency wind study at the landfill, and that study demonstrated that a private company would be able to create and run a wind farm at NO cost to taxpayers, under a lease agreement with the City. I, however, cannot give this initiative the ‘green light.’ Only government agencies can, and I am urging them to do so.”
“Furthermore, this past Tuesday, an update report was provided to my office and other City agencies by the NYSERDA-sponsored wind developer,” Molinaro said. “In that report, it became clear that wind energy is a reality at the landfill, that engineered foundation designs to support the turbines can be constructed at the top of the landfill’s four mounds, and, most critically, that if the go-ahead was given today, that the wind farm could be operational within the next four years.”
Molinaro praised the report for outlining, for the first time, several basic steps that would bring the proposal to reality. In essence, if the “green” light is given today by all City agencies:
- The Request for Proposals would be issued for a Fresh Kills wind energy developer
- A developer selected by end of this year
- By the end of 2012, the developer would have started and completed power interconnections, executed power purchase agreements, completed environmental permits, completed engineering designs, and finalized financial details for completing the project
- By the end of 2013, wind turbine procurements and deliveries
- In 2014, the turbines would be constructed and commercial operation begin.
While this may seem overly optimistic to many, Molinaro believes it is the naysayers that are behind the delays in moving the project from idea to reality.
”The wind turbine proposal has been on the table since 2006,” Molinaro said. “The NYSERDA-wind sponsored consultant completed his Fresh Kills wind analysis while the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process was going on so that all the new wind information would be available and included in the draft and final Fresh Kills EIS.
“My office blasted the Parks Department for not only completely ignoring all of the NYSERDA information in the EIS, but to then demand that anyone who wants to develop a wind farm at the landfill would have to do their own supplemental EIS,” Molinaro added. “This was ludicrous as it would do nothing but add more and more bureaucratic time delays to what is a no-brainer project. By my accounting, and with this basic timeline in front of me, if we had started in 2009, we would be seeing the first turbine going up by the end of this year.
Continued Molinaro, “Just look at one detail in the updated PlaNYC report -- it states that at least 250 acres would be needed to generate 50Mw of solar power. The total foundations footprint for the seven wind turbines at the landfill, generating a maximum of 30Mw of power, would not even take up more than an acre of land. We have a plan in the drawer – it doesn’t make sense to ignore it and throw it away.”
April 21, 2011