Solar growth tale of two communities
Projects a lesson in how development may proceed, raise environmental concerns
With a 500 megawattt capacity covering 2,800 acres, Hecate Energy’s planned Cider solar project in western New York’s Genesee County will be one of the state’s largest to date. The local community seems to be on board, with little local known opposition.
Yet the far smaller 60 megawatt, 255-acre Sheperd’s Run proposal from the same company for Columbia County has prompted a pitched battle, with what appears to be a highly organized and well-funded campaign to stop it.
Why the difference? It’s because different communities across upstate New York, each with their own social and economic stories, have vastly different outlooks when it comes to such developments.
The two projects offer a lesson in how solar development may proceed, and they raise questions about how the concept of environmental justice will play out.
The Genesee County towns of Elba and Oakfield are the kind of rural communities that have in recent years struggled with low farm prices and the kind of population loss that has afflicted much of upstate. The prospect of a solar farm bringing hundreds of construction jobs, even if temporary, and tax revenue, has been welcomed with scant opposition.
“The commitments and financial resources Hecate brings to our community are welcomed additions,” Oakfield Supervisor Matt Martin recently said about the project.
But there’s been no warm welcome in Columbia County where opponents say a solar farm would mar the area’s viewshed, which is a major tourist draw.
“People come up here to see the cornfields and the rolling hills,” said Darin Johnson, the organizer of Sensible Solar for Rural New York, a group started to oppose the Sheperd’s Run project as currently planned.
Like Genesee, Columbia County is agricultural. But it’s also become a tourist destination and second-home draw for New York City residents. Johnson and others say a solar farm that would disrupt that runs counter to that niche.
“Our whole area has spent the last two decades building a tourism economy,” said Johnson, noting the wineries, farm-totable restaurants, boutique-style specialty farms and other attractions in the area.
“If the Hudson Valley becomes a patchwork of industrialscale solar facilities that’s going to have an impact,” he said. “We know that people come for the viewsheds.”
Columbia County has also seen an influx of outside money.
The area has long been a favored second home spot for wealthy New York City residents. But the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a national housing boom, has brought even greater wealth to the area. Vacation homeowners
are becoming permanent residents. Thanks to telecommuting, land and home prices are continuing to rise.
“You’ve got a different group of people who have money or access to money,” said Eric Ooms, a Valatie dairy famer whose family has been in the county since 1950.
In some cases, affluent newcomers are buying not just houses but surrounding woodlands and acreage simply to maintain their views and privacy, he said.
This influx of wealth is also fueling the fight against Sheperd’s Run. Opponents have hired a public relations firm and are considering litigation possibly to contest the regulations that puts most of the decision-making in state rather than local hands. A legal battle like that could cost run tens of thousands of dollars or more.
Hecate officials say they are aware of local concerns in Columbia County and have downsized and adjusted their plans for Sheperd’s Run.
It was originally envisioned as a 480acre project but it’s now 360 acres. They are looking at creating pollinator habitats to help keep the area green and may help farmers grow Christmas trees which would act as visual screens to the solar panels.
But the debate about Sheperd’s Run remains heated, said Hecate Project Manager Alex Campbell.
“It’s become a drowned-out conversation,” he said, especially in contrast with the reception in Genesee County, where several large solar projects are planned. “I think Genesee County sees an opportunity to create an electro-county,” Campbell said.
All of this isn’t to say that Sheperd’s Run has no supporters in Columbia County. There’s a pro-solar farm group as well. Nor is it the only place where there have been clashes over green development.
A group of business tycoons with beach houses on Long Island’s East Hampton have been battling a cable that is planned to connect offshore wind towers to the mainland, even though the cable would be buried underground.
“It’s the poster child for NIMBYISM,” Anne Reynolds, executive director at the Alliance for Clean Energy, said of the
Long Island fight, using the acronym for “not in my backyard.” Her group promotes solar, wind and other renewables.
Still, Reynolds understands the concerns of second homeowners in areas that may be impacted by green energy or any other kind of project.
“The farmers and the people who live there full time often recognize the benefits of the tax revenue and the leasing revenue,” from wind or solar farms. “The second homeowner who might be a more recent resident to the community is there for vacation and relaxation,” she said.
Tom Shepstone puts it more bluntly. “It’s the gentry class to some extent,” he said of solar or wind opponents.
Shepstone is a land use consultant who has worked with natural gas developers.
He’s typically on the other side of the debate with renewable proponents like Reynolds. But he agreed that NIMBYISM can apply to solar as well as fossil fuel development and it often emerges in locations with a lot of affluent second homeowners.
“They resent anybody doing anything near them. They want solar but they don’t want it near them,” he said.
Ultimately the green or red lights for these projects will fall to the newly created state Office for Renewable Siting, meaning that local town zoning boards have limited say.
Oakfield’s Martin admitted that recently when he told The Batavian newspaper that “I had one resident ask about if the town wanted it or didn’t want it and I said, basically, that we have no choice.”
“The state dictates what they do with the solar panels. The state is running the show, not us.”
That doesn’t mean the battle in Columbia County ends, especially given the ongoing real estate boom, and the push for renewable energy.
“Columbia,” Ooms said, “Is conflicted.”