ALBANY —The New York State Department of Public Service announced the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) will hold an in-person public comment hearing on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, to receive comments on the application and draft permit for Hoffman Falls Wind Project, LLC, a proposed 100-megawatt (MW) wind energy facility in the towns of Fenner, Nelson, Eaton, and Smithfield, Madison County.

All persons, organizations, corporations, or government agencies who may be affected by the facility are invited to attend the hearing and comment on the application and the draft permit conditions.  Lengthy comments will not be accepted and instead should be submitted in writing.  Equal weight will be given to both oral and written comments.  To ensure that all interested persons have an opportunity to speak, the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) may limit the time available for oral comments to three (3) minutes per person.  The public comment hearing will be transcribed for inclusion in the administrative record.

The hearing location is reasonably accessible to persons with a mobility impairment.  Persons with disabilities requiring special accommodations should call the Department of Public Service’s Human Resource Management Office at (518) 473-9463 as soon as possible.  TDD users may request a sign language interpreter by placing a call through the New York Relay Service at 711.  Individuals with difficulty understanding or reading English are encouraged to call the Department at (800) 342-3377 for free language assistance services.

In the event that the in-person public comment hearing needs to be canceled, rescheduled, postponed, or conducted virtually, notification of any change will be available at the ORES website at https://dps.ny.gov/ores.

Written Public Comments:  Written comments concerning the application and the draft permit conditions must be filed with ORES by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 25, 2025.  Persons filing written comments are strongly encouraged to post their comments on the Department’s Document and Matter Management (DMM) system.  To post a comment, go to https://dps.ny.gov/ores, click on “Permit Applications,” click on Project Permit Application Number 23-02976, and click on “Post Comments” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Written comments may also be emailed to ORES at ores.hearings@dps.ny.gov or mailed to the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission, Empire State Plaza, P-1 South, J Dock, Albany, NY 12242.  Written comments will be considered equally with oral statements delivered at the public comment hearing, provided they are postmarked by Friday, April 25, 2025, or e-mailed or posted on DMM by 5:00 p.m. on that date. 

Please take notice that written public comments will be publicly posted on DMM.  ORES reserves the right not to post duplicate or repeat comments.  In addition, ORES reserves the right to remove, without notice, comments containing any defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory, confidential, or unlawful material or information of any kind.

Document Availability: Copies of all application materials and draft permit conditions are available for inspection at the Office’s Albany office during normal business hours.  Contact the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission, W.A. Harriman Campus, Building 9, 4th Floor, 1220 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12227, (518) 473-4590, ores.hearings@dps.ny.gov.  Electronic copies are available at https://dps.ny.gov/ores-permit-applications, click on Project Permit Application Number 23-02976.

Copies of all application materials are also available at:

Sullivan Free Library
Attn: Karen Fauls-Traynor, Library Director
101 Falls Boulevard
Chittenango, NY 13037

Morrisville Public Library
Attn: Michelle Rounds, Library Manager
83 E. Main Street
Morrisville, NY 13408