By DIANE VALDEN
HILLSDALE—Hecate Energy has scheduled two community meetings April 3 to tell the public what its revised industrial-sized Shepherd’s Run Solar Project will look like.
A Chicago-based developer of solar and wind facilities and energy storage projects, Hecate Energy announced in a public notice that ran in the March 14 Columbia Paper, that it will file a revised application with the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) “on or about June 3.”
Back on February 6, ORES Executive Director Houtan Moaveni granted the Town of Copake’s legal motion to dismiss and denied Hecate Energy’s application for the controversial Shepherd’s Run Solar Project in Craryville.
Mr. Moaveni denied Hecate’s application to construct a 60-megawatt (MW) solar facility without prejudice to the applicant’s submission of a new application for a modified facility in accordance with regulations.
The application was denied because about 60 acres of farmland, formerly owned by Main Farm LLC, a parcel that was supposed to be an integral part of the Shepherd’s Run project, was sold to Craryville Farms LLC. The new property owner wants nothing to do with Hecate or its solar facility. The attorney for the town argued that the Shepherd’s Run solar project as proposed in Hecate’s initial application is no longer feasible. The loss of the property requires Hecate to redesign the project.
The town broke the news of the land sale in its January 2 motion to dismiss the Shepherd’s Run application. Hecate Energy did not notify ORES or anyone else about losing the lease option on the land or the land sale.
Hecate proposes to locate its solar facility east of the Taconic Hills School District and north of Copake Lake in and around the Copake hamlet of Craryville. Much of the acreage is prime agricultural land. A school district campus and residential areas border the property.
The industrial-scale project is not permitted under Copake Zoning Law, yet it is in the midst of the application process because Hecate has bypassed local law and is seeking site approval from ORES under the state’s streamlined siting process for renewable energy projects, known as 94-c.
In a comment about the upcoming meetings by email to The Columbia Paper, Hecate Development Director Matt Levine wrote, “Hecate shares New York State’s commitment to meeting its clean energy goals in a way that incorporates feedback from local communities, which is why we remain committed to the Shepherd’s Run Solar Farm and are beginning the process of submitting a new permit application. In addition to reflecting a good faith effort to incorporate almost all of the items recommended by the working group in recent years, this new proposal will reduce the fenced area of the project to approximately 175 acres and cut the output of the project to 42 MW. We look forward to continuing to engage with the local community to hear their feedback.”
The two community meetings will take place at the Hillsdale Firehouse, 9387 State Route 22, in “two open house style sessions.” The first session is from 1 to 3 p.m. and the second from 5 to 7 p.m. No pre-registration is required.
Asked why Hecate will not conduct its meetings somewhere in Copake, such as the Copake or Craryville firehouses, Copake Town Hall or the Taconic Hills School? Mr. Levine wrote, “…we chose the Hillsdale Fire House for the November 2021 open house. It is familiar to us and with constituents who attended previously and this setting created great open dialogue that contributed to the project development plan. If we are to use the intersection of Route 7 & 23 or Route 7 & Birch Hill Road as the center of the project, the Hillsdale Fire Department is closer than Copake Town Hall and the Copake Fire Department. The Town Hall is set up better for presentations with elevated chairs for the board while the Hillsdale Fire Department is more open for us to set up tables to discuss details of the project in a smaller setting with various subject matter experts from Hecate. The school would be challenging due to students who would still be in school during our first session and the security issues that presents. Though the Craryville Fire House is closest it would not be big enough to host these sessions based on the numbers in 2021. We also see this as an opportunity to contribute to the fire department as a part of this event.”
Mr. Levine also sent a “summary of changes” Hecate has made to the project in an effort to “reflect the views of the community in the development of this project.”
Changes are:
•The footprint of the project will be reduced from approximately 267 to 215 acres since our previous application, and the output of the project will drop from 60 MW to 42 MW.
•The new proposal will include an Agrivoltaics Integration Plan that provides for sheep grazing in 2 of the array areas covering 73 acres.
As with previous versions of the application, this proposal incorporates dozens of changes to address local concerns. Those include:
•Exclusion of battery storage from the project scope
•Extensive native tree and shrub planting to minimize sightlines for neighbors
•Support to extend/connect to local hiking trails or other passive recreational/educational opportunities.
•Conducting local fire departments and first responder training
•Including pollinator species seed mix within the landscaping plan
•Implementing a Net Conservation Benefit Plan for grassland birds to preserve more than 25 acres of additional habitat.
•Incorporating wildlife-friendly rural style fencing instead of chain-link fencing
•Avoiding direct impacts to all state regulated Class I wetlands and developing a project with no net loss of wetlands
•Committing to not source panels from suppliers who utilize forced labor or that contain the environmental contaminant PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances)
•Providing bidding opportunities to local suppliers and using local labor and purchasing when practicable.
In his update report on Shepherd’s Run delivered at the March 14 Town Board meeting, Copake Supervisor Richard Wolf said, “We hope that this time Hecate will work with Copake to address our well-documented concerns about its proposal. This should begin with Hecate’s willingness to incorporate the proposals of the ad hoc Working Group, including creation of a 300-acre public greenspace to effectively shield the facility components, thereby creating nature walks and bicycle paths which would turn Shepherd’s Run, as I’ve said too many times already, ‘from an eyesore into a tourist attraction.’ Hecate also needs to compensate the homeowners who will be most adversely impacted by the presence of tens of thousands of solar panels directly across the road. Their property values will surely plummet, and they should be compensated.”
While the supervisor initially expressed hope “that this time Hecate would work with us, that together we could develop a project more consistent with our local laws. Instead,” he said, “the developer seems hell-bent on steamrolling its way to an application filing. It is treating what ORES has ruled must be a new application process as a mere amendment to the old application process.”
To contact Diane Valden email dvalden@columbiapaper.com
