High Bridge Wind

01/13/2022

We will have a timber company on-site starting next week to assess the value of the timber located within the High Bridge Wind Project’s tree clearing limits of disturbance. Newman Forest and Wildlife Management, based out of Windsor, New York in neighboring Broome County, will be conducting appraisals to determine the monetary value of timber that will be potentially removed during the project’s tree clearing activities. Dan Newman will be accessing most if not all properties on foot over the next 2-4 weeks to carry out this task. [I’ll link to the Newman Forest Website in the post]

Pursuant to our agreements with the state, IF YOU ARE A PARTICIPATING LANDOWNER, you are permitted to either keep the timber that is cleared from your property or receive the appraised value for that timber. If you choose to receive the appraised value, High Bridge Wind will be responsible for removing that timber from your property. If you want to keep the cleared timber, PLEASE REACH OUT TO US AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. In that case, once the timber is cleared from your land, it will be placed along the access route clearing where it was cut for you to retrieve it at your own time and cost.

If you have any questions or concerns during this process, please call Jenn Nichols at (607) 226-9004 or John Palombaro at (607) 222-6888 or send an email to [email protected].

Newman Forest and Wildlife Management LLC | Windsor, NY

11/19/2021

We are excited to share that on Wednesday morning, the board of the Chenango County IDA unanimously passed a resolution approving High Bridge Wind’s request for a sales tax exemption, mortgage recording tax exemption and PILOT agreement. We want to thank everyone who attended the October 27 public hearing or wrote letters to voice their support for the project and for our application – the project wouldn’t be where it is without you.

11/17/2021

The team at Atlantic Testing Laboratories has completed 60% of the geotechnical borings on the project. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our participating landowners and neighbors who have helped the team gain access to a couple of remote sites over the last couple of weeks. With the gun season opening on Saturday and the Thanksgiving holiday coming up next week, the team will not be on site at all next week. We will finish up this Friday, then resume borings on Monday, November 29. Fieldwork should be completed by the middle of December.

11/15/2021

We are thrilled to announce that on Wednesday evening, the Guilford Town Board unanimously voted to approve the Host Community Agreement (HCA) with High Bridge Wind. Some of the HCA highlights include:

• High Bridge Wind will pay the Town of Guilford $400,000 per year, including an annual 2% inflation adjustment, for the next 30 years, totaling $16.2 million over the life of the HCA
• The first payment is due at the start of tree clearing, which is expected to begin in early 2023
• The HCA requires the creation of escrow accounts to ensure the Town’s legal and professional costs related to the project are covered
• The HCA contains provisions regarding decommissioning and cultural resource mitigation, providing another layer of protection to the Town
• In addition to payments made to the Town pursuant to the HCA, High Bridge Wind will make additional payments to the Town, Chenango County, the Bainbridge-Guilford Central School District, and the Gilbertsville-Mt. Upton Central School District pursuant to a PILOT agreement, which is currently under review by the Chenango IDA

We would like to thank the Guilford Town Board for their diligent and thoughtful review of the HCA over the past 20 months of negotiations, and we look forward to being a good community partner to the Town for years to come.

10/19/2021

Geotechnical borings have begun on the High Bridge Wind project site. We're starting in the northwest corner of the project area, beginning at turbine locations T101 and T102 today and moving on to T103, T104, T105, and T106 later this week and early next week. Over the next several weeks, boring will take place at all turbine locations in the project area.

The subcontractor we're working with for this effort is Atlantic Testing Laboratories based out of Rochester, New York. They're using a small drilling rig set on tracks and should be able to access all turbine locations with minimal disturbance.

The boring for each location will only take a few hours and all holes will be filled in after the drilling is complete.

08/30/2021

Did you know… turbine foundation blasting is a controlled activity timed to the microsecond?

The video below is a blast that we performed for the Bluestone Wind Farm, currently under construction in Broome County. The blast was completed only July 19 to excavate the foundation at T13 on the ridge off of Pazzelli Road. The blast dimensions were 75 feet by 75 feet, making it one of our largest blasts to date. The video was taken approximately 500 feet away from the blast site and illustrates that the sound of the blast dissipates rapidly the farther you get from the point source. In addition, we take specific steps to further minimize any impact to the surrounding area. For the blast captured in this video, 280 holes, each housing a charge, were drilled to a depth of 14 feet. For each blast, all charges are not activated at once – when the first charge is triggered, there is a delay of 25 microseconds between each charge. This is done to cause an energy wave in the ground that fractures the rock into small pieces. In addition, we use blast mats, which serve to contain blast debris. Since construction began, we have completed blasts at 9 foundations across the project area and have not received any complaints about this activity from our neighbors or the general public.

07/01/2021

We are pleased to announce that today, the New York State Siting Board reaffirmed its prior approval of the High Bridge Wind Farm and denied an April 9, 2021 petition requesting a rehearing. To read the full Order on Rehearing, please visit the High Bridge Wind DMM here: http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterSeq=56497 and click on the filing from 7/1/21.

In the coming months, we will begin filing detailed design documents for the facility for review and approval by the state as compliance filings. These filings will include the tree clearing plan and, eventually, a civil design plan, which will define the final construction limits of the project.

03/29/2021

In addition to providing a long-term economic boost to host communities, wind projects, like the High Bridge Wind Farm, are an important part of building a sustainable future:

Concerns about wind farms ("Guilford group: State ignored our wind-farm concerns," Daily Star, 3/18) need to consider more than the balance between local costs and benefits. They also need to

03/12/2021

We are pleased by the decision by the Siting Board approving construction and operation of the High Bridge Wind Farm. The decision approves a facility design that incorporates three years of comments from regulators, town and county officials, landowners, neighbors and community organizations to maximize clean energy production and minimize and avoid impacts on the environment and the community. We appreciate the amount of support we have received and look forward to continuing to work closely with Chenango County and the Town of Guilford over the coming months to advance this project, which will bring new jobs and a long-term economic boost to the area.

03/05/2021

We are aware that some have raised concerns regarding the use of local labor for the Bluestone Wind Project tree clearing activities. The Wesson Group, our main contractor for the project, is based out of Johnstown, New York. In spite of the out-of-state license plates on their leased commercial vehicles, all three employees currently supervising the subcontractor on tree clearing activities are New York residents, as is our environmental monitor. The tree clearing subcontractor, Supreme Clearing, is based in Connecticut, and of their current labor force on the project, 66% are residents of Broome County and the wider local labor area. We expect that number to exceed 75% as we approach the next stage of tree clearing activities.

01/09/2021

We are aware that the light on one of our met towers, the larger one north of CR37, east of the intersection with Phillips Odell Rd, is not functioning properly, and we are diligently working to resolve the problem. We issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) earlier this week to ensure the safety of pilots in the area, and a crew will be in the area next week to repair the issue. Thank you for your patience. Please reach out to Chris Stanton, at [email protected] or 512-557-8843, if you have any questions or immediate concerns about this matter.

01/06/2021

https://www.aweablog.org/job-creation-and-clean-energy-go-hand-in-hand-in-post-pandemic-recovery/

A recent study shows that clean energy has the potential to add $1 trillion in capital investment to the American economy and employ nearly 1 million Americans over the next decade, 800,000 of these in construction and technician positions.

In addition, wind and solar energy projects are expected to pay $39 billion in state and local tax contributions and $25 billion in landowner payments over that same period, which will help drive recovery efforts from the economic impacts felt due to COVID-19.

Vaccine approvals are paving the way for an eventual end to the pandemic. While there is light at the end of the tunnel, recovery from the economic devastation left by COVID-19 will be one of the greatest challenges Washington policymakers have ever faced. Our country will need to support jobs for h...