I'll take the peace of this monastery any day over the whirring turbines of a wind farm. They should grow their whirlimagigs over the ocean, not on land.
Posted on 01/07/2008 4:57:46 PM PST by kawaii
Monks gain support in fight over wind project
Historic preservationists say Mohawk Valley turbines would disrupt serenity of monastic life
By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer
First published: Saturday, January 5, 2008
JORDANVILLE -- The sky above this rolling Mohawk Valley farmland is a battleground between golden onion-shaped domes of the nation's largest Russian Orthodox monastery and sweeping wind turbine towers intended to harvest clean power. On Friday, a statewide historic preservation group sided with Holy Trinity Monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, where monks fear a proposed wind farm a mile away will disturb contemplative religious life.
"The monastery is of extraordinary historic, religious and cultural significance, but it is currently threatened," said Jay DiLorenzo, President of the Preservation League of New York State. The group named the monastery as one of its seven historic sites statewide in need of protection.
If built, the Jordanville Wind Project, located about 85 miles west of Albany, could have as many as 49 wind turbines on private land that would generate enough power for up to 60,000 homes.
Last month, state Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood blocked the project because the towns of Stark and Warren issued approval permits without adequately considering potential environmental impacts.
Father Luke Murianka, deputy abbott for the monastery, in a press statement called the site "a place of immeasurable importance" for the church. A message left at the monastery seeking comment was not returned.
Russian-speaking monks, along with seminary students and lay workers, run a publishing house, an icon-painting studio, a library and a historical museum with pre-Russian Revolution artifacts.
Turning rotor blades will "cause the sunlight to flicker, and the hub of the turbine will make a high-pitched whine. At night, 24 blinking red lights will fill the sky facing the monastery, and the serenity that the monks and pilgrims have long sought will be gone, quite literally, with the wind," said Tania Werbizky, league regional director of Technical and Grant Programs for western New York.
Wind power advocates say opponents are overblowing the impact of windmills on the 80-year-old religious community.
Paul Copleman, a spokesman for project developer Iberdrola Renewable Energies USA & Community Energy, said six proposed wind turbines were voluntarily removed from the project.
After an 18-month state environmental quality review, the towns of Warren and Stark, Herkimer County and State of New York Public Service Commission approved the project without noting any potential impacts to the monastery, he said.
Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or by e-mail at bnearing@timesunion.com.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=652698
(and they're damn near as ugly as she is...)
18 months? How many public dollars were wasted in this review, I wonder? What on earth would take 18 months to figure out, when it appears that no one decided to talk to the monks about the project?
That being said - hello? You decide to build a monastery on your land, I decide to put wind turbines on mine. So what if they're ugly? Don't like it, ask me how much I'll sell my land for.
ping
If it were a bunch of Mohammedans worshiping their devil-god, plotting jihad and converting the weak-minded among us, you can be sure that the local government would see to it that there’d be no windfarm in the area unless the rag heads wanted it. Orthodox Christian monks? Who cares about them? All Orthodox Christians are good for as far as the U.S. government is concerned is bombing practice for us and target practice for Bush & Clinton’s Mohammedan buddies.
I'll take the peace of this monastery any day over the whirring turbines of a wind farm. They should grow their whirlimagigs over the ocean, not on land.
So they are demanding Serenity Now?
You know you’re right. you see they go about it all wrong. in the catskills (probably 2 hours from Jordanville) there’s a muslim extremist camp. No one goes near that place out of fear! These Christian monks are just naive; if they want peace they should scare the pants out of people by blowing up a bunch of people!(/sarc)
that or ski centers which aren’t used half the year and aren’t disrupted by wind anyway.
Wind farms are awful. They’re not only ugly, they’re noisy. We could generate all the power we need with a nice, clean nuclear plant that wouldn’t bother anybody, but instead the environmental fruitcakes clamor for something that even they then decide is horrible and, actually, environmentally disruptive.
I think EVERYBODY should protest wind farms.
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