Hearing planned for Riverhead wind turbine

Riverhead Town is poised to become the region's wind-industry kingpin with a single utility-size turbine that would be the island's tallest and biggest power producer.

On Feb. 15, the town is scheduled to hold the first public hearing on a proposed 750-kilowatt wind turbine to power the town's sewage treatment plant. The plant, scheduled for a mandated overhaul, is next to the Indian Island Golf Course at the eastern waters of the Peconic River.

If all goes as planned, the 275-foot structure (measured from ground to tip of the blade) would be the third tallest structure on Long Island, after the 600-foot Northport power-plant stacks and the 288-foot Stony Brook Medical Center complex. Plans for the project were first reported in the Riverhead News-Review.

Standing beneath a 120-foot test tower that measures wind velocity at the Riverhead facility last week, Michael Reichel, superintendent of the Riverhead Sewer District, said a recently completed feasibility study shows the turbine will pay back its $1.8-million cost in eight years or less, and significantly cut fossil-fuel consumption and the district's energy bill.

"The turbine will pick up 40 percent of our electrical consumption," he said - an electric bill that approaches $800,000 a year.

Sean Walter, Riverhead's supervisor, said projected savings have changed his perceptions about wind power.

"I was very skeptical at first - not now. I'm a believer," he said. The town board will vote on a resolution to issue a bond for the turbine after the hearing.

If it's approved, residents would pay an average $22 a year to repay the bond, but that cost will fall annually. After the eighth year, there would be annual reductions in their tax bills. The costs don't take into account any federal, state or LIPA subsidies, which would shorten the payback time. Riverhead also has yet to work out a plan to sell excess power back to LIPA, another potential cost savings - a concept to which LIPA says it is open.

Gordian Raacke, director of Renewable Energy Long Island, a green energy advocacy group, said the Riverhead project shows wind power is "growing up on Long Island," and he hopes it will inspire others to follow suit.

Wind-power turbines have had a short but controversial record around Long Island. The Long Island Power Authority proposed a 40-turbine project for the coast off Jones Beach seven years ago, but the project was scuttled for cost and aesthetic reasons. LIPA is now backing a much larger project farther off the coast, but it won't be built until 2016 at the earliest, and some worry its cost could drive up electric rates.

East End farms, from Half Hollow Nursery in Laurel to Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck and, just last week, Osprey's Dominion in Peconic, have installed wind turbines for power.