Thanks. . .but no thanks.
That was the response Cobleskill Mayor Becky Terk had to a solicitation for a solar array on village property.
Received earlier this month, the offer came from Borrego Solar Systems, the national firm proposing a solar project in Schoharie.
James Kondrat, a solar project developer with Borrego, sent a letter to Cobleskill explaining that land on Greenbush Hill Road “has the potential to host a solar array.”
“Your land is ideal for solar,” Mr. Kondrat wrote, because it’s at least 20 acres, close to NYSEG lines, near a National Grid substation, is free of wetlands and isn’t in a floodplain.
Borrego would lease the land for 25 years and pay the village $30,000 to $50,000 a year, depending on the size of the project, according to Mr. Kondrat’s letter.
“I’m not interested at all,” Mayor Terk said Saturday.
The land is presumably village property––Cobleskill’s watershed––on the hill above Smith Reservoir.
Trees would be clear-cut for a solar array, Mayor Terk believed. The village plans to have some of those trees logged, but loggers would “take some trees and leave the rest,” she said.
Although his letter was specific, “we haven’t planned anything there,” Mr. Kondrat said in a phone interview.
“It’s in the very earliest stage,” he added. “It’s not a final prospect.”
Borrego sent letters to 95 landowners in the area, Mr. Konradt said, and interest in the village property “was based on preliminary searches.”
“They’re just passing the line to see who takes the bait,” Mayor Terk responded.