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BUFFALO, N.Y. — A Niagara County community is now coming to terms with a State Court decision allowing a large solar energy panel project to move forward despite a town’s legal effort to stop it.
Over 400 acres of currently quiet farm fields in the town of Cambria and partially in the town of Pendleton will eventually be transformed into a solar panel project.
It is the plan from the nationwide developer Cypress Creek Renewables to build the Bear Ridge installation to power up to 20,000 single family homes.
RELATED: Some state lawmakers ask Governor Hochul to “pause” Climate Action Law policies on costs and power grid reliability issues
2 On Your Side learned about a similar much larger group of projects in Genesee County from our sister NBC station WHEC in Rochester. Their video shows a similar installation now under construction there with posts driven into the ground and the attached panels then connected with cables in the ground.
Similar work could begin in June in Cambria and Pendleton in Niagara County with a two year schedule for completion.
The Cambria Town Supervisor declined a recorded interview saying he wanted to carefully negotiate a host community agreement with Cypress Creek Renewables and referred us to the town attorney who also said they did not want to comment further at this point because it might affect those discussions.
But Supervisor Matthew Foe did confirm an article in the Lockport Union and Sun Journal of a lengthy court battle against the project and developer. The attorney commented in that published report that the state’s interest in having this project actually causes the state Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electricity transmission or ORES to overrule any restrictions from a local community.
ORES was set up to streamline permitting and approvals for such projects under the stale’s climate action law.
It was a similar story to what Rochester reporter Brett Davidson heard from the Genesee County Manager about the solar projects in that county.
Genesee County Manager L. Matthew Landers said: “They can set aside any local laws, local moratoriums, local zoning. They can set it it aside and put it at a site where they wanna put it and that’s what happened here.”
As Channel 2’s Nate Benson reported last year Town of Somerset officials in Niagara County sought changes in the partial farmland location of a solar project in that community. But the state ORES office, as a part of the State Department of Public Service covering utilities, also required the original development plan under state climate action policies.
An official with that ORES office responded to WHEC about the role of ORES and the Genesee County solar project concerns. Department of Public Service Chief of Staff Jessica Waldorf said: “We look at at all the comments, all the feedback, all the impacts that may be associated with the generating resource. And it’s our job again by statute and the laws that we’re carrying out to make sure that we strike the best balance.”
