ACTION STEPS & KEY MESSAGES
Below are three important steps you can take to ensure Hecate Energy’s proposed Shepherd’s Run solar facility does not destroy Copake and its farmland, natural resources, viewsheds, property values and future.
Your participation in these action steps is of utmost importance and we ask that you kindly do all three steps.
To help you out we've included some key messaging points at the bottom of this page for you to leverage in your responses.
ACTION STEP ONE
Post a public comment to the New York State Department of Public Service’s website so your concerns are made part of the official considerations of Hecate Energy’s application by New York State. We kindly asked you to do this earlier this year and it was very successful in gaining ORES' attention to the matter.
1. Go to: https://tinyurl.com/mvtj2wjj
2. Post your comments at this site. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
3. Be sure to check both the “I’m not a robot” and the “I understand the purpose of public comments…” boxes, and then click the “Post Comment” button at the bottom of the page.
ACTION STEP TWO
Call or write to Governor Kathy Hochul and Lt. Governor Anthony Delgado and urge them to require Hecate Energy to incorporate the working group’s full and substantive recommendations into its application for Shepherd’s Run. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
Governor Kathy Hochul Lt.
Governor Anthony Delgado
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
518-474-8390
Alternatively, you can email Governor Hochul at https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form
ACTION STEP THREE
Call or write to Houtan Moaveni, Executive Director of the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) and urge ORES to require Hecate Energy to incorporate the working group’s full and substantive recommendations into its application for Shepherd’s Run. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
Houtan Moaveni, Executive Director
NYS Office of Renewable Energy Siting
c/o: OGS Mailroom 240 State Street
P-1 South, J Dock
Albany, NY 12242
518-473-4590
Alternatively, you can email ORES at https://ores.ny.gov/form/contact-form
Your participation in these action steps is of utmost importance and we ask that you kindly do all three steps.
To help you out we've included some key messaging points at the bottom of this page for you to leverage in your responses.
ACTION STEP ONE
Post a public comment to the New York State Department of Public Service’s website so your concerns are made part of the official considerations of Hecate Energy’s application by New York State. We kindly asked you to do this earlier this year and it was very successful in gaining ORES' attention to the matter.
1. Go to: https://tinyurl.com/mvtj2wjj
2. Post your comments at this site. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
3. Be sure to check both the “I’m not a robot” and the “I understand the purpose of public comments…” boxes, and then click the “Post Comment” button at the bottom of the page.
ACTION STEP TWO
Call or write to Governor Kathy Hochul and Lt. Governor Anthony Delgado and urge them to require Hecate Energy to incorporate the working group’s full and substantive recommendations into its application for Shepherd’s Run. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
Governor Kathy Hochul Lt.
Governor Anthony Delgado
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
518-474-8390
Alternatively, you can email Governor Hochul at https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form
ACTION STEP THREE
Call or write to Houtan Moaveni, Executive Director of the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) and urge ORES to require Hecate Energy to incorporate the working group’s full and substantive recommendations into its application for Shepherd’s Run. Key messaging points can be found at the bottom of this webpage to help you in your letter writing.
Houtan Moaveni, Executive Director
NYS Office of Renewable Energy Siting
c/o: OGS Mailroom 240 State Street
P-1 South, J Dock
Albany, NY 12242
518-473-4590
Alternatively, you can email ORES at https://ores.ny.gov/form/contact-form
KEY MESSAGE POINTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR LETTERS OR FOR YOUR PHONE CALLS
Below you will find key messaging points that you can use to help write your letters or to use during your phone calls. We highly recommend that you use these messaging points as guides in the creation of a letter or conversation that is truly your own. While we've provided templates in the past, we really want the community to be heard with heartfelt letters as to why our community is so important and why this solar facility needs to be better for Copake and NY State. We encourage you to be respectful in your outreach to these officials, they are vital in helping to protect our community.
- First, we recommend you start by providing details as to who you are, what town you live in, how long you've lived here and what this community and its environment means to you.
- Next, it is key that we express to these officials that they must intervene and require Hecate Energy to enter into a community benefit agreement that incorporates ALL of the Copake Solar Working Group recommendations in earnest and substance.
- And finally, we recommend you use some of the statements below in helping to express why the Working Group recommendations are so important to protect Copake's farmland, natural resources, scenic viewsheds and community values, while still honoring New York State's renewable energy goals. Also, feel free to include other statements in your outreach.
- We understand the need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. However, we cannot allow the promotion of renewable energy and the interest and profits of big business, to result in the destruction of rural communities and vital prime farmland across New York and the United States.
- Thousands of Copake, Hillsdale and Craryville residents, the Copake Town Board and Columbia County Board of Supervisors, are supportive of solar development but have opposed this project in its current form because of its negative impact on Copake’s natural resources and agriculture - and tourism-based local economy.
- The global food shortage and the destruction of farmland in the western United States presents a much greater need to leverage the prime farmland of Copake and New York State. Using prime farmland for solar facilities renders this farmland useless for 20-30 years or until the solar panels are removed. New York State needs to recognize that the removal of prime farmland from operation will be a massive detriment to our food supply in the coming years. Hecate Energy must leverage co-use of the land for agrivoltaics across the entirety of Shepherd's Run and not simply a test.
- Hecate needs to initiate and fully enter into a strong, enforceable Host Community Agreement with the Town of Copake, which incorporates ALL of the Working Group recommendations to protect Copake's prime farmland, natural resources, and homeowners from the adverse impacts of the Project, and to provide much-needed community economic benefits. Hecate Energy can and must do so much more for Copake and its residents!
- Hecate Energy needs to live up to their promise of trust and respect by fully adopting the Copake Solar Working Group’s recommendations into their Shepherd’s Run plan, including ALL of the following meaningful elements:
- Coordinated siting with the creation of 300+ acres of adjacent Community-Accessible Greenspace – including protection and restoration of adjacent wetlands and Taghkanic Creek watershed and creation of wildlife corridors and walking trails around project areas
- Eliminate clearcutting of trees near Cambridge Road and Birch Hill Road
- Advance a landscape design that includes scenic vegetative screenings and layered plantings which are appropriate to adjacent ecosystems, vary buffer widths and create natural tendrils of plantings, and avoid repetitive linear rows of trees
- Incorporate agrivoltaics throughout the entire project area – animal grazing and row crop farming adjacent to solar panels
- Compensate affected property homeowners who will experience reduced property values
- Fully fund the extension of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail across northern edge of project site, including spur to Rheinstrom Hill Audubon Sanctuary
- Lower electric bills for Copake residents through a Community Choice Aggregation Power Purchase Agreement with Most Favored Nations pricing
- Pay full property taxes to county, town and school district.
- Coordinated siting with the creation of 300+ acres of adjacent Community-Accessible Greenspace – including protection and restoration of adjacent wetlands and Taghkanic Creek watershed and creation of wildlife corridors and walking trails around project areas
