Town of Otsego Holds Meeting To Discuss Renewables, Law

By CASPAR EWIG
FLY CREEK

On Wednesday, February 7, the Town of Otsego held an informational meeting to air the many issues surrounding possible installation of solar energy systems within the town boundaries. The meeting was held, in the words of Town Supervisor Ben Bauer, “to get input into drafting amendments to the land-use law” to allow installation of solar energy systems and to address concerns raised by citizens.

In holding such a meeting, the Town of Otsego joined a growing chorus of upstate communities raising serious questions about, and pushing back on, New York State’s renewable energy policies.
“My goal is to make sure our local interests are well represented, and that anything that happens here is to our own local benefit,” Bauer said in an e-mail after the meeting.

A similar informational meeting was held recently in the Town of Springfield and, in another instance, a coalition of community-based environmental groups filed comments calling for reconsideration of the Public Service Commission’s plan for replacing power plant emissions with large-scale renewables.

The Town of Otsego’s informational meeting was structured in two parts. Initially, attendees heard presentations by Steve Helmin and Keith Schue, two persons familiar with current green energy issues. Thereafter, written questions directed to the Town Board or the speakers were presented and gave rise to some spirited, though not contentious, discussion.

Helmin, a resident of Glen, New York and co-chair of an organization known as GlenFARMland (Families Allied for Responsible Management of Land), accented that towns and communities such as Otsego should push New York government and regulatory bodies to address the issue of climate change without destroying the environment of the community. “The danger,” he said, is that failing to oversee the development of green energy “could result in an undesirable energy spawl.” He cautioned that the town should remain vigilant because often developers will negotiate with the landowners, making unsupportable promises and only advising the town after their plan has already been created.

Helmin further pointed out that local communities are faced with an additional problem—municipalities really only have a say in projects below 20 megawatts. For larger projects, Albany has the right to override Home Rule and disregard local laws if those laws are deemed to place an “unreasonable burden” on the development of solar farms and other aspects of renewable energy. Finally, property can be taken by eminent domain for transmission powerlines, a capability that may even be extended to transmission for individual renewable projects if legislation proposed by the Governor is enacted.

Helmin emphasized that, in addition to having the town carefully craft local land-use or zoning laws, residents should continually organize and petition the state to only adopt renewable energy policies that are consistent with local agricultural and other natural uses.

Keith Schue, a native of Cherry Valley and an active environmentalist, presented a compelling argument for the expansion of nuclear power as the best alternative to the use of fossil fuels. He reminded everyone that the good record of Upstate New York in reducing carbon emissions was due in large part to the functioning of the nuclear facilities located in Wayne and Oswego counties. Absent an increase of nuclear power capacity to serve the Downstate area, Schue demonstrated how the state’s present underlying policies and targets on renewable energy actually perpetuate rather than eliminate, the use of fossil fuels.

Schue argued that this continued reliance on fossil fuels would be required even when the renewable energy sources were operating at 100 percent efficiency. And the need for fossil fuels becomes even more acute when one considers the inherent unreliability of solar panels and wind turbines, in that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, he said.

After the presentation, Town Board members and the speakers considered issues raised by the written questions, including concerns of possible ground water contamination due to use of pesticides to limit grass growth under solar panels. The issue of monitoring these facilities and securing the expense of dismantling and decommissioning the solar panel units after their useful life engendered a lively and extended discussion. Finally, in response to one question, it was pointed out that installation of a battery facility to store energy could be hazardous in the event the lithium batteries ever caught fire, which is not unheard of, as such fires are difficult to extinguish.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Supervisor Bauer said he and the board would review the present draft of the proposed amendment to the town’s land-use law and submit the proposed revisions for public consideration in the near future.