A proposed subdivision off Route 145 Lawyersville has neighbors angry because they know what’s coming next:
A solar project.
The Town of Cobleskill Planning Board has set a public hearing for Monday, November 22, 7pm at the Town Office on Mineral Springs Road on what’s identified as the Warner Slate LLC subdivision.
Though no application has been filed yet for a solar project, neighbors point to a paper trail.
According to documents filed with the Schoharie County Clerk on June 4, 2020 and dated June 19, 2019, SWEB Development USA LLC has a 60-month option on the 30-acre property, which is owned by Ernest Schemitsch of Brooklyn.
According to its website, SWEB Development USA is an Austrian company which “operates a total of 249 wind energy, 30 photovoltaic, and 3 small hydroelectric power plants throughout Europe and North America…[with] over 200-MW in development throughout North America.”
Since June 15, 2019, Lori Davis has rented what she calls Empty Pockets Farm at the old Bryon Johnson farm in Lawyersville with an option to buy.
Ms. Davis said she didn’t find out about the WEB option until last December—when she was approached by Mr. Schemitsch about buying the farm for $400,000.
But with solar panels hanging—literally—over her head, the land and her business won’t be worth anything, she said.
Ms. Davis raises vegetables and flowers and milks sheep. She also runs a small rescue, and before COVID she’d planned to add opportunities for disabled veterans to spend time with her animals.
And though they aren’t something she’d planned, Ms. Davis said Empty Pockets’ vendors’ events—September’s Sunflower Festival drew 2,000 people—have become the perfect way to marry agriculture and tourism.
“But now…I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I don’t know how we’ll survive as a business with solar in our backyard. People don’t want to look at that. We’ll be losing our hayfields too.
“Everything we have is tied up in this farm. We can’t afford to leave.”
Neighbor Anne Donnelly shares Ms. Davis’s concerns.
A retired SUNY Cobleskill professor, Ms. Donnelly said she supports green energy.
But she’s worried about erosion and the runoff from the solar panels when 15 acres of woods is cleared to make room for them.
She also pointed out that the land is karst; the field across Route 145 from the Donnellys’ home turns into a lake each spring because there’s no drainage.
“What really worries me though is food and farming,” Ms. Donnelly said. “Especially with what we see happening in the West we can’t keep taking agriculture for granted.
Jade Weiss is part of a group fighting the 2,000-acre 250-megawatt ConnectGen Mill Pond solar project in the Montgomery County Town of Glen.
In August, the town imposed a six-month moratorium on solar applications so the Planning Board could review its solar law, Ms. Weiss said.
However, because of its size, the Mill Pond project is subject to state and not local review and approval—the same situation the Town of Sharon found itself in with NextEra.
Like Ms. Davis and Ms. Donnelly, Ms. Weiss said her biggest concern is seeing farmland turned into solar.
“It’s going to drive our Amish neighbors out,” she said.
While any Lawyersville project is still just in the “paper” stage, now is the time, she said, to get involved.
“Start the conversation. See what other towns are doing. Get involved. Make noise. Go to the meetings. That’s the only way to change things.”