FORE invited anyone who stopped by the booth to fill out a survey regarding wind energy.  The survey consisted of 8 questions regarding wind energy, some of which were specific to the Jordanville Wind Farm.

This survey was created by members of FORE who were hoping to get a handle on what the farming industry and its constituents thought about wind energy and its place in New York.

In our basic research on creating effective and unbiased surveys, FORE found that providing a survey at any venue would obviously take away from a purely “random” selection. Therefore, this particular survey represents a “stratified sampling”, wherein the survey is made available at an event where a particular demographic or subpopulation would be sampled. In that sense, this survey is not necessarily representative of the local population of the area.  Nevertheless, it would be deemed as representative of the farming community throughout the state of New York, which happens to represent a large portion of the local population of this area where the wind farm is proposed to be built.  It may also be defined as an opinion poll, because FORE just made the survey available and event goers chose to visit our booth and fill out a survey. 

The survey was made available both days and the results show that 272 individuals filled out the survey, representing 17 counties in the state of New York.  The county break out is as follows:

When asked how they would describe their level of familiarity with the wind farm planned to be built in the Jordanville area in southern Herkimer County,
27 % of respondents said they were very familiar,
49% of respondents said they were somewhat familiar,
22% said they knew nothing about it, and
2% left the question blank

86% of the respondents said that seeing wind mills from their residence would not bother them while 5% said it would bother them. 
<10% were not sure.

82% of the respondents said that they SUPPORT the idea of large scale wind farms in the area while
4% said they did NOT and
14% were unsure

When asked to describe their opinion of the visual effect of large scale wind farms,
3% of respondents said that they find them visually offensive while
38% said they find them visually pleasing and
56% said that their appearance does not affect them

49% of respondents thought that wind mills will have a positive effect on tourism in the Herkimer/Otsego Region while
2% thought that they would have a negative effect on tourism and
46% said that the wind mills would have no effect.
3% did not answer this question.

Half of the respondents have visited a wind farm and the other half have not.

When asked to choose importance of farmland preservation versus historical view shed preservation,
3% of the respondents said that historical view shed preservation was more important while
90% of the respondents said that farmland preservation was more important
2% said both while
5% did not respond to this question

50% of the respondents were aware that the southernmost turbine of the Jordanville Wind farm is 14 miles to the north of Cooperstown.
46% were not aware of the distance while
4% did not answer the question.

As well, the two most represented counties, Herkimer and Otsego, showed overwhelming results regarding support farmland preservation:
86% of the respondents from Herkimer County thought farmland preservation was more important than view sheds and
96 % of the respondents from Otsego County agreed.

The results of this survey show overwhelming support for harvesting this new crop.  The numbers speak for themselves.