JORDANVILLE — If nothing stalls the 130- to 150- megawatt Jordanville Wind Project — 75 wind turbines planned for the rural towns of Warren and Stark — they'll start going up next spring. But winds of opinion have already started blowing in both directions in the two towns. Some residents support the project for the financial gain on personal and town-wide levels. Others fear health problems or bad influences on scenery, history and culture.

The debate also turns on issues like the viability of farms and weaning Americans off foreign oil.

Public hearings this summer have ratcheted up discussions. A third will come next week.

Advocates for Springfield President Harry Levine attended the previous hearings to recommend changes to a draft environmental impact statement.

The meetings have stayed polite and under control despite wind energy being a topic of controversy, Levine said.

"There are a lot of emotional issues here," he said.

Herkimer County, along with other Central New York and Adirondack regions with plenty of open space, has become attractive to wind developers. In the Fairfield and Norway areas north of Herkimer, 46 turbines are proposed, engendering the same disputes as the Jordanville-area plan.

Some farmers are among those seeing benefits for an industry sorely in need of them.

Jordanville farmer Ed Mower said he has had to sell parts of his farm in order to pay taxes in recent years.

He's spent four years backing the project, which would include a number of wind turbines on his property and could allow him to save his farm.

Mower said he stands to greatly gain financially from the project but pushed to spread the placement of the turbines out to more property owners.

About 35 owners are now involved, he said.

Taxes on the project will help the town, Herkimer County and the school district, Mower said.

And the landowners who have windmills built on their property will keep the money local, he said.

"We're going to stay here and divide it among our families and spend it here," Mower said.

In response to complaints such as Otsego 2000's concerns about scenic views, Mower said he hasn't ever seen people from the nearby areas help him pay his taxes.

Otsego 2000 Executive Director Martha Frey said the group isn't against wind power, but she believes a statewide moratorium on windmill projects should be put into place until guidelines can be established and studies can be done on how windmills affect scenic, historic and cultural resources.

There also should be a cumulative investigation on how windmill projects will affect the region, Frey said.

The draft environmental impact statement for the project doesn't cover everything and needs to address more concerns, Frey said.

She said she is encouraging the public to get more involved.

Sue Brander of Advocates for Stark said she also is concerned with possible health problems that could result from the windmills.

At the forefront of her complaints is the possibility of damages from the decibel levels of the windmills.

The windmills are scheduled to operate at 50 decibels or lower, but that doesn't count damaging low-frequency sounds that actually increase the decibel level to about 60, Brander said.

The World Health Organization standard for the upper limit of sound is 30 decibels, she said.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation rule is five decibels above ambient sound, Brander said.

An engineer measured ambient sound as 20 to 25 decibels on her property, she said.

The noise levels can be particularly problematic at night, Brander said.

Possible effects of noise-induced sleep disturbance include fatigue, depression, decreased performance, increased use of sedatives or sleeping pills, increased blood pressure and heart rate, changes in breathing patterns and cardiac arrhythmias, she said.

The environmental statement is currently in its public comment period.

Public hearings took place June 29 and July 12.

In response to requests from Otsego 2000 and Advocates for Stark, a third public hearing has been added because the first hearing took place while much of the county was dealing with flood problems, Brander said.

The hearing takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27, at the Owen D. Young Central School.

The Jordanville windmills would be up and turning in the fall of 2007, said Eric Blank, executive vice president of Community Energy, the company behind the project.

Blank said he believes a vast majority of the residents in the towns very much want wind energy facilities. The company wants to work with groups such as Otsego 2000 to make sure there are no complaints about visual obstructions from Cooperstown or other areas, he said.

"We think it's a great project and should be built," Blank said.