Their Claims, Exposed

The Reality

Only 215 acres will have solar panels (the fenced area). The rest is required setbacks, buffer zones, and undeveloped land.

These buffers exist for visual screening and environmental protection — the same protections opponents claim to want. Counting them as "sprawl" is dishonest math.

It's like saying a house with a big yard is a "5-acre residential facility" when the house is 2,000 square feet.

The Reality

Big numbers sound scary. But what does this actually mean?

A 42MW project needs roughly this many panels to generate clean electricity for ~9,500 homes. The number of panels isn't a measure of harm — it's a measure of clean energy capacity.

By this logic, we should oppose wind farms for having "too many blades" or hydroelectric dams for moving "too many gallons."

The Reality

The current project is 42MW. The petition uses old numbers from earlier project iterations.

The petition is also addressed to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August 2021. This tells you how current their information is.

The Reality

The word "industrial" is chosen to evoke smokestacks, pollution, and heavy machinery. Solar panels:

• Emit nothing — no smoke, no exhaust, no pollution
• Discharge nothing — no wastewater, no runoff
• Make no noise — silent operation
• Store nothing toxic — no fuel tanks, no chemicals

A solar farm sits quietly converting sunlight to electricity. Calling this "industrial" is rhetorical framing designed to trigger opposition, not an accurate description.

42MW is community-scale. A single natural gas peaker plant is 100-500MW. That's industrial.

The Reality

Copake has approximately 3,500 people across 40 square miles. That's 87 people per square mile.

For comparison:

• Manhattan: 70,000 people per square mile
• Brooklyn: 37,000 per square mile
• Albany: 4,500 per square mile

"Densely populated" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The Reality

Solar is one of the most watershed-friendly land uses possible. Compare actual contamination risks:

If protecting the watershed is the goal, solar with native ground cover is better than housing development or intensive agriculture.

The Reality

The DEC plan calls for protecting clean water "by local communities and landowners."

A farmer choosing to lease for solar is a landowner protecting the watershed — by preventing:

• Future residential development (septic systems, lawn chemicals, impervious surfaces)
• Agricultural intensification (more fertilizer/pesticide runoff)
• Abandonment and neglect

Solar with native vegetation is entirely consistent with watershed protection goals.

The Reality

Solar accounts for 0.5% of New York farmland loss (NY State Comptroller, November 2024).

The real threats to farmland:

• NY lost 14% of farms in a decade (2012-2022)
• Aging farmers with no successors
• Economic pressure making farming unviable
• Estate sales converting farms to residential

Solar actually protects farmland by:

• Keeping land in agricultural zoning
• Providing stable income so farmers can keep their land
• Being reversible — pull up the posts in 30 years, land is intact

Compare to housing development, which is permanent.

The Reality

This claim has no source, no methodology, no citation. It's a scary number invented for emotional impact.

Academic studies on solar and property values show mixed to neutral impacts:

• Some studies show no statistically significant effect
• Some show minor impacts only for immediately adjacent properties
• Buffer zones and screening (which this project includes) mitigate visual impact

Meanwhile, the economic cost of climate inaction is very real and very documented.

The Reality

ORES requires decommissioning plans and financial assurance (bonds) for all permitted projects. This isn't optional.

Solar is one of the most reversible land uses:

• Posts are driven into soil, not concrete foundations
• Panels remove easily
• Ground cover remains intact throughout operation
• No soil contamination to remediate

Compare to housing (permanent), commercial development (permanent), or even some agricultural practices that degrade soil over time.

Solar panels are also increasingly recyclable, with materials recovery improving every year.

The Reality

Dr. Richard Perez at SUNY Albany's Atmospheric Science Center has done the math:

"To meet the bulk of existing and new electric demand (transportation, heat) we need to build 210 gigawatts — approximately 350 square miles — of solar panels in the next three decades. There are 30 square miles of landfills and mining exclusion zones, and 25 square miles of parking lots in New York that could be tapped for this."

Translation: Even if you covered every landfill, parking lot, and brownfield in New York with solar panels, you'd have ~55 square miles. You need 350.

That means roughly 1,000 projects like Shepherd's Run across 932 townships in New York.

Rural solar isn't optional — it's required to meet state climate law.

The Reality

To meet New York's climate goals—even assuming panels are built on most rooftops and parking areas—the state needs to build renewables on about 70,000 acres of farmland.

The practical way to get this done is to use:

• Willing landowners — farmers who choose to participate
• Land close to substations — minimizing transmission infrastructure
• Parcels large enough to justify the investment

Shepherd's Run meets all these real-world criteria. It's not "too big"—it's the size required to make a meaningful contribution to clean energy.

At less than 1% of Copake's total land mass, the town will remain exactly what it is: a "Town of Rural Charm." With clean energy.

The Reality

The Shepherd's Run proposal is in accord with the laws of New York State.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) gives the state authority to site renewable energy projects. Before a local law can be set aside, the developer must demonstrate why that law is "unduly burdensome" to the state's climate goals.

This isn't a loophole—it's intentional policy. New York recognized that:

• Climate change is a statewide (and global) emergency
• If every town can veto projects, nothing gets built
• Renewable energy development had lagged dramatically
• State oversight ensures consistent environmental review

The project goes through extensive ORES review including environmental impact, public comment, and safety standards. It's not bypassing review—it's using the proper state process.

The Reality

New York created ORES (Office of Renewable Energy Siting) specifically to provide state-level permitting for projects over 25MW.

This is intentional. The state recognized that if every town could veto renewable energy, New York would never meet its climate mandates.

ORES still requires:

• Environmental review
• Public comment periods
• Compliance with safety standards
• Mitigation of local impacts

But it prevents a handful of neighbors from blocking projects essential to the state's — and the planet's — future.

The Reality

Solar farms with native plantings actually create habitat:

• Native grasses and wildflowers support pollinators
• Ground-nesting birds can use solar sites
• No pesticides or intensive mowing
• Minimal human disturbance during operation

Compare to active agriculture (tilling, pesticides, harvest disruption) or residential development (permanent habitat loss).

The National Audubon Society supports renewable energy as essential to protecting birds from climate change — the far greater threat to wildlife.

The Reality

Where a company is headquartered has nothing to do with the merits of a project. This is xenophobia dressed as localism.

Consider:

• The electricity stays in Hudson Valley
• The construction jobs are local
• The maintenance jobs are local
• The tax revenue goes to Copake and Columbia County
• The lease payments go to local landowners

By this logic, should Hudson Valley reject cars from Michigan, phones from California, and anything made outside the county?