Oswego Common Council approves Port of Oswego wind farm project 

OSWEGO – In a narrowly completed time-frame, the Port of Oswego was unanimously granted approval by the Oswego Common Council for a wind-mill project during last night’s Common Council meeting, Monday, February 14.

The proposal is part of the Vestas/Bluestone Wind Farm Project. According to Oswego City Attorney Kevin Caraccioli during last week’s February 7 committee meeting, the port was awarded the project late last year.

During last night’s meeting, Mayor Billy Barlow said the council gave the port nine to ten items/questions for further clarification about the project, saying the port was able to supply the needed caveats for the project to proceed forward; thus getting it on last night’s agenda for a vote.

According to General Counsel for the Port of Oswego Joe Porcello during last week’s committee meeting, the project will afford the city over $2 million in profit, running approximately from April 1 to Dec. 31, 2022.

Porcello reiterated the urgency to move forward with the proposal, stating the Port of Oswego won the bid, but could lose the project to Erie, Pennsylvania, if not acted upon quickly.

The nine-month project will require the use of residential and recreational streets in the second ward to move windmill parts from the old the Fitzgibbon’s boiler site next to Fort Ontario, along Mitchell Street, up to State Route 1, then onto State Route 104.

Points from the project are as follows:

Expected timeline for the project will take nine months, with truck loads moving from the Old Fitzgibbon’s Boiler Plant down along Mitchell Street (second ward)
The project will include five truck runs a day, several with 250-foot windmill blades being transported
There will be no truck activity on the weekends
Pilot drivers and State Troopers will accompany the trucks – the trucks driving at reduced speeds
Eighty-seven shipments of blades and 29 windmills will transfer over the course of the project’s timeline

Several questions of concern were addressed by the council during last week’s meeting, such as resident and business notification of the project, time disruptions, the impact on specific area’s used for hauling, and most importantly – residential safety.

For further review, the item was tabled until the February 14 Common Council meeting last night; the council giving the Port of Oswego until the end of last week to fulfill all the items the committee requested before their next meeting. The port did come through and the resolution was passed during last night’s meeting.

“I’d like to thank the council for agreeing to put this back on the agenda tonight to get it passed, and look forward to working with the port on more upcoming projects when they need our assistance,” Barlow said.

Councilor Kevin Hill expressed his gratitude to the port for fulfilling all requests put forth by the council.

“I’d just like to thank the Port Board and the attorney and engineer for their prompt attention to all of our concerns,” Hill said. “There was a lot of work that went in during this week to make the plan a little more tolerable to the residents of the second ward. And that’s really what this is about – at the end of the day, we answer to the residents of the city. And the residents of the second ward are really going to be bearing all the brunt of this project. It goes right down a residential street; you’ve got children – summertime, spring – and we really need to look out for them.”

All items on the agenda were unanimously passed. To view the administrative services agenda, please click here. To view the physical services agenda, please click here.

Common Council meetings are held the second and fourth Monday of every month. The next meeting will be held on Monday, February 28 at 7:30 p.m.