OBSERVER Photo Nearly 70 people attended this week’s Portland Town Board meeting.

PORTLAND — For 29 years, Anita Calcaterra lived in Jamestown due to her husband’s job with the school district there. Once he retired, she made a plea to him to return to her hometown.

He agreed.

In 2010, the couple found a home on Munson Road. Calcaterra was living her dream of “going home to grow old.”

Recent developments, however, have jolted her comfort zone as well as the community she loves. During this week’s Town Board meeting, she pleaded with all of those in attendance — many of those she considers as friends — to attempt to work for a peaceful and amicable solution.

“I hate to see all the arguing and fighting that’s been going on in a community that has been so close for so many years,” she said. “It hurts. It hurts really bad.”

Those sentiments are just be the beginning. No matter what happens from here, there will be segments of the community that part ways. It has happened during the controversial project in Arkwright and it continues in the early stages of the developments in Villenova and Cassadaga.

EWT has proposed at least 10 wind turbines of about 325 feet high on properties that will generate up to 10 MW of power. Much of that generation, according to proponents and the company, will stay local unlike the Arkwright project that exports the power to Connecticut.

But the bigger issue, from those who attended, is what impact will the turbines have on the future of the town, its property values and residents. Lynn Bedford, an Arkwright resident, says she is living with the consequences of her town’s decision to allow the turbines.

“We celebrate when there’s no wind,” she said. “They are monsters.”

Bedford was in Williamsville on Tuesday for a health impact of industrial wind public health presentation. “Infrasound” was a major topic of discussion. Bedford said before the turbines went into motion, she was fairly healthy.

Since the towers have gone online, she has headaches, trouble resting and has lost vision in one eye. “There’s three people living in our home, we all have sleep deprivation,” she said.

Eric Holton, an EWT representative, said small commercial and residential customers in the region will be benefiting from the power generated by the proposed turbines. “We are not allowed to export it over state lines, into Canada or elsewhere,” Holton said. “It’s a completely different program than the utility scale wind farms you see in Arkwright and pending in the area.”

Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s leadership, the state is aiming for a zero-carbon electric sector by 2040. Currently, however, almost half of the state’s electric grid continues to rely on fossil fuels for the power that is being generated. Wind and solar made up 6% or less of the power, according to readings on the New York Independent System Operator web site on Friday morning.

Portland, which is in the midst of a moratorium on permits and applications for windmills, is a much smaller proposed project compared to an effort announced this week in Steuben County, which is east of Allegany County. The 242-megawatt Baron Winds project will consist of up to 68 high-capacity, 492-foot tall wind turbines, with associated electrical collection lines, access roads, meteorological towers, an operation and maintenance building, and a collection substation.

Eleven of the turbines will be 2.625 MW and the remaining 57 will be 3.675 MW. The project will be located in the towns of Cohocton, Dansville, Fremont and Wayland, in Steuben County and would interconnect to the state’s electrical grid along the New York State Electric and Gas 230-kilovolt transmission line in the town of Cohocton.

In addition to speakers, six letters were submitted to board members and passed on to the OBSERVER. Only one in the packet favored the Portland project.

Calcaterra, in making her plea to residents and the board, said if turbines are allowed she may be forced to leave the community she loves. “I just want people to get along, but we will put our house up for sale,” she said becoming emotional. “I don’t want to do that. I wanted to come home for a reason.

“I love little Brocton and Portland. They mean the world to me.”