NIAGARA FALLS — The county Legislature on Tuesday OK’d creation of an ad hoc committee to look into questions about the benefits and costs to Niagara County of offshore windpower generation.

Formation of the committee staves off, for now, the question whether the Legislature should take back its previously stated support for the concept of siting wind turbines in Lake Ontario.

New York Power Authority is in the midst of vetting proposals for construction of a wind farm in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. While it hasn’t said where the bidders are interested in building, it has listed the area of Lake Ontario from Youngstown to Wilson as one “feasible” site.

Suddenly, within the past couple of weeks, stiff opposition to a Lake Ontario windfarm has surfaced among local boating and fishing interests, and a couple of state legislators.

County legislators Clyde Burmaster, R-Ransomville, David Godfrey, R-Wilson, and John Syracuse, R-Newfane, put their names on a resolution calling on the Legislature to rescind two earlier resolutions, in mid-2009 and earlier this year, that threw support to NYPA’s windfarm project.

Those earlier resolutions were approved by unanimous votes of the county legislators.

Legislative opinion of the project appears uncertain now. Eight Lake Ontario project opponents took to the microphone at the beginning of the Tuesday meeting to hammer away at it, predicting few or no manufacturing/maintenance jobs would result, while the consequences for local tourism would be catastrophic. Boating, fishing and lake visitation would be ruined, they said.

“One of the very few things Western New York has to compete with other sites is the water we have. We cannot do anything to jeopardize access to it,” said Don Finkle of Youngstown, whose business is recreational boating. “Please don’t mortgage our future by allowing windmills to come into Lake Ontario. Once they come, we won’t get rid of them.”

Paul Cannon of Youngstown echoed the recent warning by state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, that, contrary to belief a windfarm would spark good-job creation in and near its host community, the good jobs — in manufacturing — would all be overseas. A few maintenance jobs are all that’d be in the offing for Niagara County residents, Cannon predicted.

Only one resident, Terry Yonker, addressed the topic without condemning a Lake Ontario project out-of-hand. The co-chairman of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative, which is studying how best to harness Great Lakes windpower without harming the environment or economy, simply asked the county Legislature to put off a decision about supporting or not supporting a local project now. It would be better, he said, if the Legislature had the county’s resident-led Environmental Management Council look into it first.

Burmaster actually asked for creation of the ad hoc committee to look at windfarm impacts — after he ticked off a list of various municipal and private/tourism-related groups who don’t want a windfarm here, and asked his fellow legislators whether they really “trust” NYPA, given the agency’s history of mistreating Niagara.

Only Chairman William Ross, C-Wheatfield, publicly defended the prior supporting resolutions. He turned to the windfarm opponents in the audience and said the county’s support has always been about the promise of jobs for a job-starved area.

So little is known about the effects of a Lake Ontario windfarm, good or bad. Before Burmaster asked for a study committee, Legislator Keith McNall, R-Lockport, admitted he was conflicted about the no-more-support resolution.

“I hate to slam the door shut on the possibility of jobs — but there are so many things unanswered that could have serious impacts” on the county, he said.