SIDA had used the law firm of Barclay Damon LLP as outside counsel, with partner Susan R. Katzoff attending meetings and advising the board and staff on legal matters.

Katzoff has left Barclay Damon for another Syracuse law firm, Bousquet Holstein PLLC. She and fellow Barclay Damon alumna Jean S. Everett head the firm’s new public finance practice group.

SIDA issued a request for proposals in May, seeking “qualified law firms and/or attorneys to serve as general/transaction counsel and/or bond counsel to the Agency and the Syracuse Local Development Corporation, if required.”

Two firms responded with complete proposals and on June 19, the board voted to accept the proposal from Bousquet Holstein, Katzoff’s new firm.

Barclay Damon kept some business, however. The board voted to have the firm continue to represent SIDA in six eminent-domain cases that are ongoing.

Under the accepted proposal with Bousquet Holstein, SIDA will pay Katzoff $305 an hour, a discount of 20 percent from her standard rate of $380 per hour.

That rate is “virtually identical,” to the rate the agency paid before, says SIDA Executive Director Honora Spillane.   

HOPKINTON — A wind-farm project planned for St. Lawrence County has been withdrawn by the developer.

The New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment said June 22 that Atlantic Wind LLC, a subsidiary of Avangrid Renewables, announced it was no longer going to pursue regulatory approval.

In a letter to the town board in Hopkinton, the company said that because of revote on a town law that would essentially block wind development in the town, it would “cease all development efforts on the North Ridge Wind Farm.”

A letter to leaseholders offered a similar explanation, lamenting the process. “As we’ve publicly expressed, the most disheartening thing about this abrupt reversal and improper revote is that it surrendered to the handful of opponents that used intimidation and fear mongering tactics. The board’s action ignores so many voices in the community, including the 250-plus residents of Hopkinton identified during our recent door-to-door outreach and post-card campaign.”

The proposed wind farm would have included up to 40 wind turbines in the towns of Hopkinton and Parishville and supplied power for 25,000 average New York homes, the company said in a web posting.

Atlantic Wind estimated landowners and others in the local area would collect more than $38 million in payments over 30 years.

The company said some $500,000 a year would be paid for leases, easements and “good neighbor payments,” while another $750,000 would be paid in town and school district taxes.

The project faced opposition in the communities. Filings show multiple letters from residents concerned with the impact of the wind farm on scenic views, on animals and plants. One document highlighted concerns that the flowering plant purple trillium could be affected. “Purple Trillium is listed as endangered in Illinois, threatened in Rhode Island, and exploitably vulnerable in New York State,” according to the document.

The region’s largest employer and main economic driver also submitted a letter expressing concerns about the wind project.

The Fort Drum Regional Liaison Organization, and others, warned that wind turbines in the area could threaten the fort’s future. “It is a proven fact that wind turbines adversely affect the radar capabilities at Fort Drum’s Wheeler Sack Army Airfield as well as the Doppler Weather radar site at Montague. Two projects, Maple Ridge in Lewis County and Wolfe Island in Canada, already exist in the region; they visibly distort radar and present negative impacts on safe flight operations for helicopter and fixed wing aircraft, as well as doppler weather radar located in Montague,” the organization wrote.

“As the largest single site employer in New York State, there is no argument that we need to protect Fort Drum so that it remains the major economic driver of the North Country,” it continued.

According to federal figures, New York gets 3 percent of its electric power from the wind, more than it obtains from coal, oil, and solar power combined. More than one-third of the power to the state’s grid comes from natural gas, nearly one-third from nuclear power, and 22 percent from hydropower. Biomass, from the burning of wood and other materials, accounts for just less than 2 percent.

The withdrawal comes as another Avangrid project — Mad River Wind Farm planned for Redfield and Worth — is facing opposition among some residents of the Tug Hill Plateau.  

The simmering trade war between the United States and Canada has one dairy co-op asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture for help.

Agri-Mark, a dairy co-op with more than 500 members in New York and headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts, has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue, asking him to “use his authority to set minimum wholesale price floors for butter at $2.30 per pound, cheddar cheese at $1.64 per pound; and nonfat dry milk at 81 cents per pound,” according to a release.

The problem is rooted in Canadian rules that make it difficult for value-added dairy products to be exported to Canada, according to Agri-Mark spokesman Doug DiMento. He says most exports to Canada by the co-op’s members are lower priced ingredients, not finished dairy products.

The request to Purdue comes as dairy prices have collapsed, the co-op said. Neal Rea, a dairy farmer in Cambridge, in Washington County, who is the co-op’s chairman, explained the collapse came just when it looked like dairy farmers were getting a break.

“After more than three years of extremely low income, farm milk prices were finally rising earlier this month (June) with strong cheese, butter and nonfat dry milk market prices. When tariffs were announced, prices collapsed overnight,” he said in the release.

The price floors requested are lower than the prices reached in June. However, they are above the prices Agri-Marks projects for the coming months.

Robert Wellington, an economist for the co-op, said the U.S. dairy industry has been exporting about 18 percent of all production and that Canada and Mexico are among the top five buyers of U.S. dairy products.

DiMento says Canada’s rules discourage the import of milk and cheese from New York or anywhere in the U.S., leaving Canadian consumers paying more. Sometimes, he says, they cross the border to buy dairy goods at lower prices.

“There would be more free trade if Canada’s dairy system was more open,” he says.

Agri-Mark is inviting leaders of dairy co-ops around the nation to a summit in Albany, in August, says DiMento. 

“Various milk supply influencing programs have been attempted in the past but none has had a sustained impact on farm milk prices.” Agri-Mark explains on its website. “Are there additional programs that could work or have circumstances changed sufficiently that previous programs may show more positive results?”

The website continues: “We need to gather all segments of the dairy industry together to discuss this problem and seek a solution that will work for dairy farmers and the marketplace.”

DiMento says the idea is to create “some sort of supply incentive or disincentive — although not as drastic as the Canadian system.”