From IthacaJournal.com:

To Champagne’s dismay, he believed some of the public officials approving the contracts were also leasing their own land to the wind developers. Champagne found as many as seven town-board members in Franklin County who allegedly had conflicts of interest.

“These elected officials (who had lease agreements with wind developers) were the same ones who would have to pass the appropriate local legislation to allow them to be constructed,” Champagne said in his office last week. “And they would do it.”

As New York seeks to produce 25 percent of its energy through renewable sources by 2013, the push by developers and the state to expand wind farms is creating unintended results: bitterly divided communities, accusations of corruption and complaints of poor state oversight over a new type of energy.

Champagne calls it New York’s version of the “gold rush” and said it’s the next Enron scandal in the making. He sent out a memo to every town board in the county urging them to adopt stronger ethical codes.

Some critics question whether the wind farms will produce adequate wind energy, or are being built to tap into public aid and to sell wind-energy credits in the open market to help offset pollution from other industries.

Michael Lawrence, supervisor of Brandon in Franklin County, said the battle over whether to have a wind farm “has created devastation in the community.” Champagne has turned over his cardboard box of documents on cases across the state to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo issued subpoenas to two of New York’s major wind-farm developers this month, saying “if dirty tricks are used to facilitate even clean-energy projects, my office will put a stop to it.”

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