Windmills spark jobs and power

A developer submitted an application for a wind farm in Cape Vincent last week. According to the Watertown Daily Times, AES Acciona Wind Power NY wants to erect 65 wind turbines south of the village along Route 12E. The company will set up an escrow account to pay expenses as the town conducts an environmental review. Cape Vincent planning board chairman Richard Edsall told the Times, “we have the right to outside professional expertise, and we intend to use it.” Two wind farm proposals in Cape Vincent have sparked controversy over how far turbines should be allow to be built from homes, roads, and the St. Lawrence River.

A boom in the wind power industry nationwide is helping the St. Lawrence Seaway. Freighters are carrying loads of turbine blades and tower pieces from Denmark and other countries in Europe to ports in the Great Lakes. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they're running into a supply problem. Now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills in the U.S. It's all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. The Environment Report’s Stephanie Hemphill reports.