by Ruth Melville

A suit to overturn the permission to build a third wind turbine in Colebrook has won its day in court. 

The decision of the Connecticut Siting Council to permit the construction of a third turbine that would be both larger and placed on a different parcel of land than was originally approved by the council in 2011 has been vacated by the Connecticut Superior Court.  

In 2011, the siting council approved BNE Energy’s Development and Management (D&M) plan to construct three wind turbines on Flagg Hill Road in Colebrook. The first two turbines went into operation in October 2015. 

In January 2020, BNE came back to the siting council to request approval to build a third wind turbine that would be both larger than had previously been approved and located on a different, adjacent, parcel of land. BNE argued that these changes should be considered modifications of the original plan, and the executive director of the siting council, Melanie Bachman, agreed.

A group of local residents—Julia and Jonathan Gold, who own property abutting the new location; a group of siblings calling themselves the Grant Swamp Group, who also own property adjacent to the new site; the Colebrook-based advocacy group Fairwind CT; and the Town of Colebrook—then filed a petition with the siting council to reconsider Bachman’s decision. The petitioners argued that neither the executive director nor the council had the authority to approve BNE’s significant changes as modifications of the original plan without a public hearing. 

The council denied their petition in December 2020, at which point the Golds and their associates decided to appeal the decision in Superior Court. 

The hearing was held on Nov. 29, 2021, and the next day the court ruled in their favor. Judge John L. Cordani agreed that the agency had exceeded its authority and acted unlawfully in approving BNE’s request.

The wording of the judgment was clear and direct: “The use of a modification to a D&M Plan to allow the Executive Director of the Council to approve an installation on a site that the Council has never considered is clearly inappropriate and not authorized by statute. . . . [This] use of the D&M plan modification procedure . . . is antithetical to the very purpose and function of the Council.”

BNE had three weeks to appeal this decision, but they did not do so.

After a two-year battle, Julia Gold is pleased and relieved to have prevailed in court, but she remains wary. She knows that BNE can always come back with a different plan. She also warns that this should be a wake-up call for the town of Norfolk, since BNE has taken out a long-term lease on additional adjacent property in Norfolk.