The farm shouldn’t be used for photo voltaic tasks
The New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting’s not too long ago accredited software for the 125 megawatt Somerset Solar mission is woefully insufficient. No consideration has been given to putting in photo voltaic panels on a number of acres of the closed landfill north of state Route 18, on the location of the now-shuttered, coal-fired Somerset Generation Station. New York State coverage encourages using closed landfills and brownfields for the aim of solar energy era. There isn’t any cause that Somerset Solar needs to be excluded from this coverage. Many closed landfills in New York state are used for solar energy era; Somerset Solar shouldn’t be an exception.
Additionally, all photo voltaic improvement should happen north of Route 18 and stay inside the footprint of the now shuttered energy station. This will scale back using farmland for the mission and protect the prevailing buffer zone across the website. The Somerset Comprehensive Plan that dates again to 1972 has the objective of “Preserving the Rural Character of our Community.†Preventing Somerset Solar on this method is in step with this objective.
Two hundred and forty-seven acres of prime farmland can be taken from agricultural use for the Somerset Solar Project. It expands the thoughts to imagine that these hectares can be returned to agricultural manufacturing, with a whole lot of help piles, the 5 miles of crushed stone paths and cable channels proposed for the mission. In sensible phrases, farmland polluted by solar energy era can’t be returned to agricultural use. Claims on the contrary are baseless and ignore the info.
The 2022 Agricultural Census of Niagara County exhibits that the common annual worth of all agricultural merchandise offered within the county can be $1,291 per acre. The proposed mission in Somerset will take away from lively agriculture 247 hectares. This ends in a lack of $318,891 per yr in agricultural manufacturing in Somerset. Over an anticipated lifetime of 35 years the estimated complete lack of agricultural manufacturing in Somerset will exceed $11 million.
The farm shouldn’t be used for photo voltaic tasks. Safe landfills, rooftops, deserted procuring heart parking tons and brownfields are extra environmentally acceptable locations. ORES has been notified of those issues and a response is overdue.
JAMES C. HOFFMAN, Somerset
Immigration assaults are assaults on small farms
Congresswoman Claudia Tenney’s assaults on immigration needs to be seen as an assault on small farms and our farming communities.
Cornell University studies that over 50% of farm employees are undocumented immigrants. The lack of farm employees is a serious cause for farm chapter. When the earlier administration attacked immigration, farm bankruptcies skyrocketed — a 20% enhance in 2019. That was not an unintended results of Mr. Trump’s immigration coverage. Trump. In truth, Mark Kirkorian, govt director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a suppose tank that advises the Trump administration, informed the New York Times (March 18, 2019) that their objective is to power small farms to consolidate.
A examine by the Union of Concerned Scientists (revealed on April 14, 2021) studies that farm consolidation means “jobs can be misplaced, inhabitants will lower, bodily and social infrastructure will weaken.†Small farms in households help our native faculties and church buildings and supply financial vitality to our communities.
The assaults of Ms. Tenney on immigration is designed to assault our native communities.
WILLIAM FINE, Brockport