Residents, attorney urge Albany County to halt ConnecGen construction over missing site plan, FAA approvals and noise concerns

At the Albany County Commission meeting on March 4, 2025, an attorney and several residents asked commissioners to halt construction at the ConnecGen Rail Tie wind project, saying the developer is building before providing a required final site plan and before obtaining certain Federal Aviation Administration lighting approvals.

The concern was raised by Mitch Edwards, an attorney with the Nicholson Tangeman law firm, who said the developer “appears to us that they're out moving dirt or . . . digging holes for the location of wind turbines.” Edwards said his clients — identified in his remarks as Michelle White, Mariah White and Steven — had submitted a letter to the county and that construction activity appears to be under way despite the lack of a final site plan the attorney said the approving statute requires.

The lack of a final site plan, speakers told the commission, matters because it prevents independent verification that the project complies with county setback and safety requirements and with other approvals that depend on fixed turbine locations, such as FAA marking and lighting determinations and the project’s noise analysis. Edwards said his research of FAA records indicates some turbine sites in the northwest portion of the project do not have approval for aircraft detection lighting systems (ADLS).

“We brought with me today . . . a current status map . . . derived from our research with the FAA,” Edwards said, adding that, from his review, “the 10 that they have dug are all turbine locations that have not had ADLS approval.”

Brian Carpenter, a resident who said his home is “less than a mile” from one turbine site, told commissioners he and his wife were “very concerned in the long term about my and my wife's ability to live there and not have health effects.” Mariah White, who identified herself as a nearby resident, said the project’s submitted noise study does not reflect wind conditions residents experience and warned the project would exceed the county noise limit at multiple locations.

On the county noise standard, White said the regulation requires noise to “never exceed 55 decibels” except for momentary, unique events, and told commissioners that the developer’s own map showed 12 turbine locations that would exceed that limit. She also said the project's noise study used a reference wind speed of 22 miles per hour while residents regularly observe sustained wind speeds higher than that.

Speakers asked the commission to “halt construction” until the developer provides a final site plan that demonstrates compliance with county setback regulations, noise standards and FAA marking/lighting approvals. No motion ordering a halt to construction appears in the meeting record and the commission did not take formal enforcement action on the record during the March 4 meeting.

Commissioners heard the public comments during the designated public comment period and closed that portion of the meeting after several speakers urged the county to review permit compliance. The record does not show a formal county response or a staff report presented at the meeting describing any next steps.

The county’s planning and zoning files or subsequent correspondence would be the formal record to show whether the developer has filed the final site plan or obtained outstanding FAA approvals; those filings were not presented on the March 4 meeting record.