Resistance grows against New Yorks 18 planned solar farms that locals say ruin land, kill animals and wont create much energy

New York is strong-arming 18 industrial-scale solar power plants into rural communities across the state despite strong opposition from locals. Schuylerville farmer Alexandra Fasulo had just settled into the idyllic acreage she purchased in 2023 when Gov.Kathy Hochul’s bulldozers came roaring in, poised to thrash 1,800 acres of protected grassland to build a 100-megawatt-capacity solar energy complex in nearby Fort Edward, NY.Worried that chemical runoff and contamination may affect her farm, Fasulo attended a town meeting last fall to voice concerns to developers and state authorities.“We were like serfs coming before a king.

It was so much worse than I ever imagined,” Fasulo, 33, told The Post.“There was nearly unanimous opposition to this project.So, I thought it wouldn’t go through.

That’s how representative democracy works, right? Wrong.”New York’s green energy mandate went into effect with 2019’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which requires 70 percent of statewide electricity to come from “renewable” sources; a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels; and at least 3,000 megawatts of energy storage capacity.All this is supposed to happen by the year 2030 — but the deadline keeps getting pushed back.To accomplish her Herculean green feat, Hochul set up the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) — an agency charged with getting the projects rammed through by cutting red tape, torching environmental impact reports and squashing local pushback.Each of the 18 sites ORES has selected will have a capacity over 25 megawatts.The agency also has an additional dozen wind projects in the works.Some of the largest projects are the 4,000-acre (6.25-square-mile), 500-megawatt Cider Solar Farm in Genesee County and the 2,000-acre (3.1-square-mile) Ridge View Solar Farm in Niagara County, as shown on The Post’s map.To add insult to injury, many of the multibillio...