People in Hudson are worried about the solar installation proposed for Craryville primarily because of concerns about the City of Hudson's water supply. The site is in the Taghkanic Creek Watershed, the source of Hudson's drinking water. In October 2024, the Common Council passed a resolution asking that the Hecate application be deemed incomplete "unless and until Hecate can provide evidence that the construction of Shepherd's Run and, once constructed, the presence of Shepherd's Run will not negatively impact the Taghkanic Creek Watershed or the water quality in the City of Hudson."
Last night, Troy Weldy, executive director of the Columbia Land Conservancy, appeared at the Conservation Advisory Council (CAC) to address concerns about the proposed solar project and water quality. He noted that the Common Council resolution references the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC), yet before the resolution was passed no one from the Council or the CAC contacted the CLC for guidance or an opinion. He said that maintaining water quality was a core mission of the CLC.
Weldy told that CAC that the Columbia Land Conservancy has looked closely at the possible impact of the solar project on water quality and has no concerns. He explained that currently monoculture, nonorganic corn is being grown on two-thirds of the site, which gets sprayed with liquid manure every spring and fall and is treated with pesticides and herbicides. He noted that on the opposite side of the road, there are cows actually standing in the stream. Weldy said he welcomed the debate, as regards water quality, between what's happening there now versus what would happen were the solar project to be built on the property. He said with solar projects there were often concerns about lead and cadmium but reported that the solar panels proposed for this project do not contain those elements.
Weldy acknowledged there were reasons to oppose the project and said the big one for him was loss of agricultural land. He said he has been pushing to change the project so that active agriculture is not lost. This would require the solar panels to be higher off the ground than is typical.
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| Photo: Joe DelNero | National Renewable Energy Laboratory |
Weldy's entire presentation to the CAC can be heard here, beginning at 36:08.
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As I said at the time, the Common Council’s resolution was a joke. Completely unsupported by science.
ReplyDeleteYet it caved into the global-warming deniers in Copake, and lobbied DEC to block a much-needed project. And never even asked its supposed source for an opinion, apparently.
Moreover, Federal ag numbers during the period of 2017-2023 when many solar projects were being built showed Columbia County actually *gaining* agricultural land.
Opponents of the Copake solar project also try to claim that it needs to be stopped to prevent loss of forest. But as Will Yandik recently noted in a presentation, Columbia County’s levels of forested land and habitat are now higher than they have been at any time since the mid-18th century.
But perhaps solar opponents would prefer that pesticides continue to flow into the Taghkanic Creek... Or that the farmer sell the land to a vinyl townhome developer who will create tons of traffic and drain the water table instead.