![]() ![]() Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesĪBC had previously voiced concerns over the state’s draft siting guidelines and is also opposing Heritage Wind, a renewable energy farm proposed for a rural town just north of Buffalo. “We strongly support the deployment of renewable energy projects as long as they are sited responsibly and avoid intense consequences to birds and vulnerable wildlife,” she said.Ī red–tailed hawk soars through a foggy morning near a row of windmills used for power generation in the Altamont Pass area outside Tracy, California. ![]() But she expressed faith in the state’s ability to maintain the right balance. As this new office takes shape, state officials have sought input from environmental interests, including the New York Audubon Society, which secured regulatory language meant to minimize threats to birds and other wildlife by ensuring that turbines are properly sited and monitored.Įrin McGrath, Audubon’s policy manager in Albany, told Grist that the birding group was negotiating a “tug and pull” between the need to build renewables while preserving avian habitats. In response to these failures, last year the state legislature established a new Office of Renewable Energy Siting. The office aims to streamline wind and solar development while retaining important safeguards like environmental assessments and community feedback. A wind farm slated for a small island on Lake Ontario was also scrapped after a hunter spotted a pair of eagles, which spurred a contentious environmental assessment. In one case, a proposed solar development in the Buffalo-area town of Cambria was rejected after violating local zoning laws. ![]() ![]() But while the Empire State hopes to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, its most promising green energy source - wind - has remained stagnant for years, accounting for just 3 percent of the state’s power supply.Ī complex regulatory process has frequently denied applications from renewable energy developers or driven them to such frustration that they’ve withdrawn their plans altogether. Over the last two decades, New York state has repeatedly set some of the country’s most ambitious green energy benchmarks. ![]()
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