I’ve always been a common-sense person. And I’ve always been someone who sees the big picture.

When I started learning about the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) and solar complexes in 2025, I figured that, surely, at some point in my research, I’d come across an attribute of these solar complexes that justified their widespread environmental destruction.

There had to be some kind of trade-off.

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Coming off 10 years in the business world as an entrepreneur who started working for myself at just 22 years old, I see the world as a series of transactions. There are good trade deals... and there are bad ones.

I thought I knew what a bad trade deal looked like before learning about ORES. I was wrong.

After speaking with energy experts, engineers, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) (before I was blacklisted), and town supervisors, I realized there is no inherent “good” in commercial solar complexes. In fact, these dystopian hellscapes generate, if they are lucky, about 15% of their annual potential in Upstate New York, according to data that anyone can access on the NYISO dashboard.

And when we need that power most, from mid-November through March, the panels fall below 7% of their potential daily generation, plunging to 0% during blizzards.

The part of me that sees the big picture paused and sat with this information for a while. Looking at it through the lens of business, I knew there had to be a monetary benefit flowing to the behind-the-scenes players.

Those players are obvious:

• ORES/a shadow bureaucratic class

• The governor’s office

• Foreign corporations

• NYSERDA

• Monopolistic law firms, like Young/Sommer

Since commercial solar is not a fix for our grid (they would have to build hundreds of thousands of battery storage facilities to even begin extending the relatively small amounts of energy generated intermittently), it is instead a fix for a business arrangement that is lucrative enough to incentivize breaking state law and invite lawsuits.

At first, the obvious monetary benefits are the subsidies and tax credits awarded to foreign solar and wind corporations through NYSERDA. But one whistleblower after another has shared with me that these companies, while physically constructing the complexes, have created what they describe as a “black market” for resource extraction that pays third-party solar installation companies lucratively.

The topsoil shell game

The imagery you are looking at in this article has been provided by Barbie Starowitz from Byron, New York. This imagery was captured over the last 14 months as Excelsior Solar was anchored onto prime farmland in Western New York.

As the photo above shows: the solar companies are stripping topsoil off the properties. Landowners have told me that when approached by these companies, the solar salesmen lied and said “they would not strip or extract topsoil from the property.” They were told the land would be farmed again.

One day, Barbie noticed the installation crew loading topsoil from surrounding parcels into a shipping waste container.

Locals captured a drone shot, also suspicious of the topsoil movement. Barbie followed the truck and discovered soil was being moved to a local waste management facility, where it sat until it was ultimately brought to the local dump.

From there, the truck brought the topsoil to the top of the hill. Calls uncovered that a deal, allegedly, had been struck between the solar installation company and the local dump to open a new section of the dump.

The participating landowners in Excelsior Solar, who are under strict gag orders, started tracking topsoil movement. As they call it: it’s a soil “shell game” whereby soil is moved from parcel to parcel, mixed, sorted, and the best soil is taken offsite and sold to hidden buyers.

Crushed clay and rock is hauled in to take the place of the topsoil, graded, and punctured with steel piles that anchor the solar panels.

Since these families have been farming the land for a century, they know a thing or two about soil. Soil is everything when it comes to growing crops like corn, cabbage, and potatoes, which is why watching that rich, USDA prime topsoil be taken offsite has traumatized those living in Byron, New York.

Co-mingling assets

This photo was taken after forest clearing at Excelsior Solar. It shows timber from multiple participating parcels that was immediately co-mingled. As a result, landowners were no longer able to identify which lumber originated from their individual properties. According to those familiar with the situation, the solar company valued the lumber at less than $100 for landowners who believed their timber was worth substantially more.

According to Starowitz, proper timber assessments were not conducted before the trees were cut. Once the timber is lying on the ground and mixed together like this, it can no longer be fairly assessed or accurately attributed to each landowner.

Starowitz says she has observed a pattern in which the most valuable resources, such as topsoil and high-value timber, are extracted quickly before they can be inventoried. Once they are co-mingled or moved to another parcel, she says it becomes nearly impossible for landowners to determine what resources were removed from their property.

Those resources can then become a significant source of revenue for the third-party installation companies hired to clear the land.

Complex materials abandoned in place

ORES documentation on the Department of Public Service website shows that solar companies are only required to decommission projects down to a depth of four feet (48 inches) below the surface. The steel piles, which are driven 10 to 15 feet into the ground to anchor the panels, are cut off and left in place.

As Starowitz documented just last week, four overseas trucks pulled onto prime farmland that local residents had been told would one day be farmed again. Today, that land has been stripped of its topsoil, covered with crushed clay and rock, seeded, and punctured by materials manufactured halfway around the world.

Along the way, drainage tiles are crushed, and water stagnates over fields that once produced the food we eat.

The companies lied, but because ORES does not monitor construction sites and has approved every solar and wind permit application it has acted on, it doesn’t matter. A media blackout surrounding the environmental impacts of “green energy” keeps images like these off our nightly news.

People like Starowitz are American heroes for having the courage to document this destruction in real time and share these images with the public. I hope you’ll share this with someone today.

In a way, the foreign corporations are behaving exactly as you would expect in the absence of meaningful oversight from New York State: it’s the Wild West. The real responsibility lies with New York’s bureaucratic leadership, ORES, officials at the Department of Environmental Conservation who have turned a blind eye, the governor’s office for facilitating these projects, the Albany media for failing to scrutinize them, and NYSERDA for its financial role in the system.

And that’s the truth.

More to come.

FURTHER READING

When I am not reporting on the green energy grift, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting, or the bureaucratic takeover of New York State, I am outside on my farm today. I spend between four and eight hours outside, every single day, rain or shine, on my land. Nothing makes me happier. Nature is the best teacher, and though I am still reading as many books on the great outdoors as possible, nothing teaches you how to steward for land quite like being outside, observing the ebbs and flows of the environment around us.

For those that are new here, I completed a financial series between 2024 and 2025 that breaks down how much everything cost, including the 6.74 acres of land (purchased with a Farm Credit East loan) that I proudly call my own.

In this post, I am going to show you what my farm looks like today, what I’ve done since I started learning how to farm last year, and what I hope to add in 2027 after some more (painful, but necessary) lessons experienced this summer.

This is coming from a person who is doing this solo with no tractor or fancy farming equipment.

Let’s get into it!

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If there’s one thing I appreciate about New York State agencies… it’s their predictability. They have been, totally and completely, predictable since I began my quest to understand what the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) was doing to our state’s nature under the guise of green energy.

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That predictability is a lack of transparency. It’s unanswered phone calls, emails, and voicemails at every level within ORES, including an inability to schedule in-person meetings with agency staff in Albany.

I tried... twice.

After I attempted to visit the ORES office in 2025, ORES announced that it had “moved locations” for the first time since its inception in 2020, relocating to the Agency 3 Building at Empire State Plaza. I then attempted to visit the new location and schedule a meeting there as well. Instead, I was met by a DPS “liaison” who escorted me out of the building and followed my mother and me through the Empire State Plaza concourse.

That same lack of transparency ultimately found its way onto the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Facebook page in March 2026. And that is exactly what we are suing over.

American Land Rescue Fund v. the Department of Environmental Conservation

I, in my capacity as the president of the American Land Rescue Fund, have filed a petition (in thanks to our brilliant attorney) against the DEC and Commissioner Amanda Lefton as of Monday, August 17, 2026.

The full petition can be read here.

This is a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) Article 78 lawsuit against the DEC for failing to adequately answer a FOIL we submitted this past spring over the censorship of comments I left on the DEC’s Facebook.

After comments were “hidden” from public view, later restored, I submitted a FOIL request seeking records including Facebook moderation logs, administrator actions, internal communications, public complaints, and DEC’s policies governing social media moderation.

The DEC did not even remotely attempt to satisfy the FOIL request.

Our petition is asking the court to:

• Declare that DEC violated FOIL;

• Vacate DEC’s administrative appeal determination;

• Order DEC to conduct and document a diligent search for all responsive records;

• Require production of all non-exempt records or a legally sufficient certification if records truly do not exist;

• Hold an evidentiary hearing regarding the adequacy of DEC’s search; and

• Preserve all Facebook moderation records while the litigation is pending

Our lawsuit argues that DEC's claim that no additional records existed is contradicted by DEC's own publicly available "Terms of Participation for Social Media," a moderation policy that the agency failed to produce despite it being directly responsive to the request. The petition further states that because DEC administers its own Facebook page through Meta Business Suite, records documenting moderation actions should exist and should have been searched.

After filing dozens of FOILs with multiple NYS agencies since October 2025, I have noticed a pattern: these agencies are comfortable with not directly answering FOIL requests. It’s a “norm” to them. It’s a norm because they count on everyday New Yorkers not 1) posting about the lack of transparency on social media and Substack and 2) having the funds and time to hire an attorney to sue.

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I am an unfortunate intersection of those two points in a human being, alongside American Land Rescue Fund.

Though this lawsuit is not a “direct attack” at ORES, like the agency would anticipate and expect from me, it’s another lawsuit that chips away at the foundation of the greater New York oligarchic machine from which ORES was created.

If New York State agencies know they can get away with circumventing FOIL requests, they can essentially cover up and conceal fraud, mismanagement, illegal activity, and regulatory capture.

If these same agencies were forced to, fully and honestly, answer the FOIL requests submitted to them, they would not be able to get away with signing off New York State designated habitat and endangered species to foreign solar and wind companies.

And lastly, if a New York State agency has to try and “hide” or remove social media comments that start important discussions for public interest and transparency, that should tell you, based on the universal principle of common sense, that they are up to “no good” behind the scenes.

Thank you immensely to everyone who has donated and supported American Land Rescue Fund since its founding in 2025. We could not do this without you. I maintain a page on the website called Lawsuits where you can review our three submitted lawsuits to date.

If a state agency and the bureaucrats within it will only do the right thing after they are sued, then it's long past time to shine a little sunlight on how those agencies operate.

Lots to come.

FURTHER READING

When I first learned about Fort Edward Solar, sited for one of the last grasslands of its kind throughout the entire Northeast, I began the process of filing my nonprofit, American Land Rescue Fund, as a party to the proceedings.

Though, predictably, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) never granted my nonprofit party status, considering they don’t grant party status to towns and counties throughout the state as well, I was added to the Fort Edward Solar email chain.

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I saw something play out over and over again in my inbox.

The Department of Public Service (DPS), which supposedly oversees ORES, would file in response to appeals, party status requests, etc. at nearly the same time as Young/Sommer, the multi-million-dollar law firm that has a near monopoly over ORES solar complexes. Even more coincidentally, the legal arguments from both the DPS and Young/Sommer were nearly identical, as if deliberation behind the scenes had gone on to coordinate a legal strategy.

It would be highly illegal for New York State to be accepting legal guidance and help from a private law firm. It would also be highly illegal for that law firm to be dictating how state regulations, laws, and legal precedents are set surrounding large-scale renewable energy development.

For legal purposes, all of this is speculation.

Young/Sommer, as we speak, represents well over 40 large-scale renewable projects in the ORES/Article VIII pipeline, and at least 18-20 permitted ORES solar projects.

Their ORES solar projects include:

• Fort Edward Solar (Boralex)

• Yellow Barn Solar

• Rich Road Solar

• York Run Solar

• White Creek Solar

• Flat Creek Solar

• Fort Covington Solar

• Two Rivers Solar

• Sugar Maple Solar

• Oxbow Hill Solar

• Alfred Oaks Solar

• Somerset Solar

• Morris Ridge Solar

• Horseshoe Solar

• Bear Ridge Solar

• South Ripley Solar

• Hemlock Ridge Solar

• Riverhead Solar 2

Mind you, this does not include wind complex facilities and battery energy storage facilities (BESS), which Young/Sommer also represent in the ORES process.

For one law firm to have that level of monopolistic representation in a system that is supposed to be overseen and regulated by the “state” should have everyone questioning the legality of what is going on here.

Dean Sommer becomes Zoning Board of Appeals chair for New Scotland, New York

While I faced off with Young/Sommer in real-time during the Fort Edward Solar oral arguments that went on this past winter, Young/Sommer has been busy embedding itself in government at the local level where early decisions on permits related to solar and BESS occur.

Last month, the Altamont Enterprise announced that Dean Sommer, managing partner at Young/Sommer, had been voted in as the new Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) chair in the Town of New Scotland.

I was born and raised in Altamont, New York and attended school at Voorheesville. New Scotland is my home.

Dean Sommer was not accidentally installed as the ZBA chair in July 2026. He was installed as the ZBA chair because the Town of New Scotland is reviewing two separate BESS proposals/developments.

The two proposals are as follows:

• RIC / New Scotland ESS: 1543 Indian Fields Road, Feura Bush: 5 MW / 20 MWh, proposed on a 7-acre subdivision of the 137-acre New Scotland Beagle Club property. It would use five Tesla Megapack 2XL units.

• New Leaf Energy, Wormer Road: Originally proposed as three 5-MW BESS systems at 37 and 128 Wormer Road, but it was subsequently reduced to two 5-MW / 20-MWh systems after National Grid identified interconnection constraints.

The New Leaf project needed a zoning variance processed through the ZBA.

At the same time, Young/Sommer has infiltrated the local newspaper that covers the BESS developments, the Altamont Enterprise. Jesse S. Sommer, who writes the recurring opinion column "So Swears the New Scot" for The Altamont Enterprise, is the son of Dean Sommer.

One family is managing the local news coverage, representing the renewable developers, and now voting on the very projects their law firm stands to profit off once the dust settles.

You won’t hear about this in our local news. You won’t hear about this on social media. Why? Young/Sommer has created a system where it, from the shadows, allegedly manipulates, influences, and lobbies state regulations, laws, customs, and news coverage.

As a multi-million-dollar law firm, sane people are afraid of bringing this information into the light.

To be a fair and honest reporter covering ORES, it is my duty to bring this information to you and the greater public.

Dean Sommer is incapable of impartially chairing a ZBA. This playbook will be copy-and-pasted into every town throughout New York State and beyond if we do not, right here and right now, call out this hypocrisy and corruption.

We are losing our country, our wildlife, our environment, our history, and our autonomy as a free and self-governing people. Law firms like Young/Sommer are critical players in the communistic destruction and takeover of private property rights, home rule, and democracy inside of the United States.

I am not afraid to say it. I encourage everyone reading this today to stand up for your towns wherever you may be. Take photos and videos, post them online, and write what’s on your heart. Share the corruption. This country can only be saved by the common man and woman doing exactly what you see me doing on here today.

It’s time to throw down the gauntlet.

FURTHER READING

To no one's surprise, New York's Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Canadian renewable energy company Boralex's request to transfer its Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) permits to Brookfield Asset Management without any further review.

This ruling was issued on July 23, 2026.

The docket where you can review the materials yourself can be found here.

On May 7, 2026, Boralex asked the PSC to allow it to transfer its solar permits to Brookfield Asset Management, the company acquiring Boralex, without triggering any additional filing requirements or municipal notice requirements. Brookfield is an even larger Canadian renewable energy conglomerate with ties to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

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The four solar complexes that are being traded like Pokémon cards amongst foreign corporations include:

• Fort Edward Solar

• Little Salmon Solar

• Two Rivers Solar

• Fort Covington Solar

This comes to over 13,100 acres of Upstate New York farmland, designated grassland habitat, state-endangered species, and water sources that are locked into ORES permits being shifted between foreign corporations.

Since ORES and the PSC are captured by the industries they are tasked with regulating, the corporations receive everything they ask for today.

Boralex specifically asked that its permits be transferred with no “time delays” and that the PSC issue a ruling “quickly” so they can get on with business (also known as cashing in on green energy subsidies and credits).

My attorney found this hidden Boralex docket last month. We filed in response.

On July 23, 2026, Rory Christian, PSC Chair, along with the six other PSC Commissioners, granted Boralex exactly what they requested.

They ruled that: “No further review under PSL §70 was required.”

The Commission concluded the transfer would not create horizontal market power, create vertical market power, or harm captive utility ratepayers. Therefore, under its longstanding Wallkill Presumption, the upstream ownership transfer did not need a full §70 approval proceeding.

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Our opposition filing

My attorney asked for the following inside of our opposition filing:

1. Require a supplemental verified petition before acting

2. Notify affected municipalities and ORES parties

3. Decline to issue an expedited declaratory ruling

We argued that a §70 review isn't limited solely to market power and captive ratepayer issues… that the Commission's public-interest authority also encompasses ongoing siting, mitigation, decommissioning, financial security, and compliance obligations.

Of course, the PSC responded by saying that was “out of scope” for the ruling.

Importantly, we argued the PSC had an independent obligation to document its consideration under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), rather than relying on the applicants' assertions.

In the case of regulatory capture, the PSC, the Department of Public Service, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and ORES defer to the foreign corporations over our state’s own regulations and laws.

This has left New Yorkers with no ability to defend themselves outside of suing the state directly. Since the average New Yorker can’t afford to enter into two-year litigation to defend their home rule, ORES and the PSC are running rampant over our communities while standing by as our history, agrarian heritage, farmland, water sources, and species are traded amongst foreign corporations like a game of Go Fish.

The seven PSC Commissioners complicit in these rulings include:

• Rory M. Christian – Chair and Chief Executive Officer

• James S. Alesi – Commissioner

• Uchenna S. Bright – Commissioner

• John B. Maggiore – Commissioner

• Denise M. Sheehan – Commissioner

• Dave J. Valesky – Commissioner

• Radina Valova – Commissioner

This is the same Public Service Commission that votes on and approves increases to New York State ratepayers' electric bills. The commissioners are appointed by our governor and serve six-year terms.

For those of us who have been tracking ORES projects in our communities, it is blatant to see: foreign countries, companies, and interests are running our state government.

That is why federal governmental intervention is necessary.

As this ruling above shows, they aren’t even interested in hiding or covering up the regulatory capture. The money must be that good.

More to come.

FURTHER READING

I think we all knew it back in 2023 when, by fate, I called up the number on a business card that was handed to me at a local prefab shed store for excavation services. I was greeted by a voice on the other line that came with an accent I couldn’t place. It sounded like Old English meets Dutch or German, and as I listened to this man on the phone, I realized I was speaking with an Amish gentleman.

They came to my 6.74 acres I had just purchased with a loan from Farm Credit East to give me an estimate for a gravel driveway. I immediately accepted. I knew from the moment I met them that I trusted them. And likewise in return.

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I went on to write an entire series on here about the different things the Amish built for me on my land. They blew my mind time-and-time again. I documented what I was witnessing on social media. The content went immediately viral. I didn’t know if they’d like being that viral on social media… until the day came when they asked me for marketing advice. I realized, as truly entrepreneurial beings, that they were appreciative and even grateful for my videos. I joked to people around me that I would, one day, “go into business with the Amish.” That is probably still true.

Years have gone by since they built my driveway for me. We’ve been through new builds, permitting problems, and now solar encroachment together.

There’s an invisible string keeping me connected to this group - and neither one of us attempts to deny it any longer.

From my barn build to residential barndominiums

When I received a text from the Amish about documenting some of their finished projects this week, I smiled. I have a deep appreciation for architecture and adding beauty to surrounding landscapes (you know, the opposite of destroying it for solar industrial complexes).

They lined up an itinerary for me that day. I went to one of their completed barndominium builds not far from my farm.

Back in 2023, they were a new excavation company on the scene, grateful for my business while they worked to get their operation off the ground. To see where they are today, building gorgeous homes in the countryside… made me incredibly happy.

When I asked them about how many residential builds they take on today, they told me, “We build homes in the winter because of the temperatures, and stick to excavation in the summer while it’s nice out.”

Since the Amish out-work any other professional I have known in the construction space, one of their drivers told me that many construction companies won’t take on new residential builds during our brutal winters. Don’t worry… the Amish will! It’s that kind of work ethic that made me instantly hire them back in 2023. It’s permanently embedded in their Amish culture.

The exterior of the structure was as beautiful as ever, with the traditional Amish embellishments, like roof points, hemlock wood, and mortise and tenon joinery accents.

The Amish sure know how to build an entryway!

Seeing the old crew in action

From there, I drove out to Canajoharie, New York, where I watched BluRail Excavating in action, effortlessly excavating and laying roadways, parking lots, and walking paths like experts. Their ease-of-use with skid steers and bulldozers needs to be studied.

And yes, they are Amish and not Mennonite. Every Amish order is run by a bishop. The bishop gets to decide how modern the order is allowed to be. By my land in Greenwich, New York, the Amish are very traditional and would never use modern equipment. But the Amish orders in Montgomery County are more open to technology for business purposes.

Most of them are transplants from the Lancaster, Pennsylvania region.

Standing there, watching them excavate with precision felt like no time has passed since 2023. Like I did back then, I stood there with their driver and talked with him about their Amish community, changes, goals, and English (non-Amish) interactions with their growing business. There’s nothing more fascinating to me.

After that, it was time to go see one final completed property that day in Sloansville, New York. We made a pit stop at Stewart’s, where they insisted on buying me a coffee and filling my gas tank before driving 30-minutes east, near one of the proposed monstrous ORES (Office of Renewable Energy Siting) solar complexes (Mill Point Solar).

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One of the Amish brothers requested he ride with me on that drive, behind their driver. We chatted about marketing, their business, having a video completed for their website (I would love nothing more than to shoot and edit a 20-second intro video for their website), and most importantly, the threat of ORES solar.

“Green progress” is destroying the Amish community in New York State

Normally, the Amish keep out of American politics. They don’t believe in suing. They don’t run candidates for office. They are a peaceful group that keeps to themselves - and they like it that way.

But the threat of industrial ORES solar complexes, like Flat Creek Solar, which measure thousands of acres in size, threaten their way of life. The Amish rely on the ability to get around by horse and foot. When thousands of acres are cut off by perimeter fencing in the middle of their communities, they can no longer do that. Their children can’t walk to school.

As a group of people who try to live without technology in their homes, they don’t want their kids staring at a dystopian hellscape on land that was once pasture for cattle. It’s common sense.

The Amish of New York are worried about what is going to happen to their homes. ORES doesn’t properly inform or engage them in the permitting process. Even if they did, it still doesn’t matter since ORES issues final permits 100% of the time. The Amish know this. They are incredibly smart.

And so they are worried, and rightfully so. They will have to leave our state if these complexes are built inside of their homes. I consider the Amish my family. The majority of every New York town should get a say in what happens to the town. But we don’t with ORES - we’ve lost our home rule.

We talked about home rule a lot in the car. We also talked about foreign intervention. He shared with me that their Amish community watches my posts and read them as a way to stay informed. Who would’ve thought when I met them years ago I’d end up a quasi-Amish reporter. I am honored to be that for them.

We finally pulled up to their final build they wanted to show me. It was stunning. Though, the owner does not want the interior shown online - understood.

The Amish thanked me for what I am doing on here. They know it takes a toll on me, feeling like a David many times versus a Goliath. The Albany press keeps calling - they are determined to misunderstand my reporting. I suppose it’s part of the journey calling out a system so corrupt that the money-laundering extends into other countries.

I will continue to be that person for myself, the wildlife, and the Amish.

P.S. BluRail Excavating is open for business! Call them. Their number is in the photo at the start of this article.

FURTHER READING

Our brains often “tune out” background noise and habitual sights and sounds that we have come to accept as safe. Instead, our minds scan for disruptions, danger, and exceptions in an effort to stay alive for another day. It’s how your ancestors before you survived long enough to pass on their genes.

Many of those background elements out in the country are things we accept as the “American way of life.” They are a given. It’s the songbirds singing in the morning before opening your window. It’s the sound of cows from a dairy farm over the hill while they’re roaming on pasture. It’s the soft rumble of thunder in the distance on a hot July afternoon. It’s the lightning bugs illuminating the prairie out your back window, adjacent to the Revolutionary War cemeteries that are discreetly littered around Upstate New York. It’s waving to your neighbor as they walk down your road, knowing their great-grandparents settled the same farmland you plan to pass on to your grandchildren.

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This is what has held our country together since its founding. Regardless of technological advancements, population growth, new cities, changing demographics, and a polarized electorate, America has always been a patchwork of farmers, landowners, and environmental stewards that look out for the acres-less-traveled between New York City and Los Angeles.

It’s a constant that is critical for the survival of our nation.

And I believe it’s very intentional that our “constant” is under coordinated attack under the guise of green energy.

I spoke to a woman this weekend who is out in Byron, New York, where thousands of acres of prime farmland are currently being converted into industrial solar complexes that will generate at 13% of their annual potential in our climate.

The residents of Byron and Genesee County don’t want these complexes. But, their opinions don’t matter to the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES), which was created in a way where it trumps our home rule and Department of Environmental Conservation. Our voices don’t matter. And that’s how the bureaucrats in Albany like it.

This woman has lived in Byron, New York her whole life. A town of only 2,000 people, the people of Byron know each other well. They know their neighbors and the lay of their land. They choose to live in the quiet countryside, away from the hustle-and-bustle of cities on purpose.

As she told me:

“Byron is a tiny town — around 2,000 people, one stoplight, and the kind of place where everybody knows each other. For years, that’s what made it special.”

A few years ago, there was talk of solar coming to town. It caused a huge stir. The people of Byron acted… an association was formed to fight it. This woman’s family was heavily involved in trying to oppose the incoming solar. Before ORES, towns had the ability to say no to industrial development on zoned agricultural land. That’s what our home rule afforded us.

The people of Byron heard that the company had possibly gone bankrupt. Everything went quiet. They thought the threat was over.

Suddenly last year, with no warning to local residents, the world came to Byron, with heavy machinery, topsoil stripped, perimeter fencing, and strangers with no familiarity of their sleepy farming village.

This woman told me:

“But last year, suddenly there was a new plan, and almost no warning before construction began. One day our quiet road had virtually no traffic. The next, it felt like a freeway. Heavy equipment, construction vehicles, workers everywhere. Roads and parking lots carved into the fields next door. Constant noise Monday through Saturday, often beginning at 5 or 6 in the morning.”

In just one day, the God-given peacefulness of the Upstate NY countryside was destroyed forever.

She also shared, and it’s important that you read this:

“I don’t even like opening my windows anymore because all I hear is machinery, engines, and people talking outside all day long. This used to be the kind of place where you recognized every face. Now there are strangers everywhere — at the gas station, in the store, even right outside my backyard.

My parents and I have always loved walking down our road. It used to be rare to see more than a car or two pass by. Now it’s truck after truck after truck. And as a woman walking alone, I’ve had encounters that made me uncomfortable enough that I no longer feel safe. It makes me nervous for my daughter to even play outside in her own yard.”

Solar companies hire out of state, and many times, out of country labor to install the complexes. The parent company forms individual LLCs per solar complex, outsourcing labor and installation requirements many times before the development is finally done.

Since ORES does not monitor the installation of the complexes, the solar companies can do anything they want. That’s why an aquifer was punctured installing Horseshoe Solar in Western New York earlier this year. The more quickly they install the complexes, the more quickly they earn their “green” energy subsidies and credits. The money comes from building the complexes… not actually generating energy.

She continued:

“What breaks my heart most is what Byron looks like now. Driving through town used to feel beautiful — endless fields, wildlife, nature, peace. Now it’s rows of industrial solar panels stretching for miles. It doesn’t belong here.”

As I always say, if these complexes were cutting our energy bills in half, even with the destruction, you wouldn’t hear these stories.

But we’re losing the land that feeds us, our rural heritage and history, our culture, and our wildlife for pathetic amounts of energy that are diverted to cities hundreds of miles away from our towns. Our bills haven’t gone down - in fact, they have doubled and tripled. The delivery charge on our electric bills is used to socialize solar and wind development against the will of our towns.

She continued:

“Meanwhile, the landscape, wildlife, and character of this community are being permanently changed. You can already see the impact. One evening while eating dinner at my parents’ house, we watched groups of confused turkeys wandering through areas they’ve never been before. In 38 years, I had never seen that happen.

I mean this with total seriousness: ORES is committing eco-terrorism against Upstate New York.

She ended with this:

“At this point, we’re all just desperate for construction to end so we can stop living with constant noise and strangers outside our windows every day. It’s been going on for over a year.

It’s heartbreaking. Byron was once a beautiful, quiet place, and now it feels like it’s been sacrificed by people who don’t care what this town means to the families who live here.”

Genesee County, where Byron, New York resides, is home to the most amount of productive farmland in all of New York State. Do you think the siting of these complexes is accidental?

I believe it is very, very intentional, and it’s time we start discussing the strategic erasure of our history as a farming nation.

No American should be subject to these renewable energy experiments without town-wide approval.

We need our home rule, granted to the citizens of this state in Article 9 of our New York State Constitution, back.

There are only two ways to get it back: litigation and the federal government.

To be continued.

FURTHER READING

I never imagined I’d have to travel to our nation’s capital to be heard in a way that not a single media outlet, reporter, agency, or bureaucrat is willing to hear me in New York State.

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I had no idea just how extensive the rot in New York was, with green energy merely the Trojan horse for a much more nefarious land grab.

I didn’t know any of it. And you can see the proof of that if you watch my Reels I posted September through December of 2025. As I joke to those around me when I watch these old videos… “Oh you sweet, summer child.” I had so much to learn.

Early on I identified a major gap in the reporting world as it relates to environmental destruction in the name of “green energy progress.” If no one else was going to engage in boots-on-the-ground journalism as it relates to real-time habitat loss and species takes, then I’d be happy to fill that role.

I have spent, at minimum, two hours every single day, weekends included, since September 2025 learning, reading, and writing about what’s happening as a result of the 2019 Climate Act in New York State. I suppose that amount of time and effort, including testifying before the NYS Senate Energy Committee, engaging in oral arguments against six New York State attorneys (mind you, I am not an attorney), and filing two lawsuits through my nonprofit against the Office of Renewable Energy Siting, made it an inevitably that I would end up in Washington D.C. at a table of powerful people ready and willing to hear what I had to say.

I was joined by ranching families from Arizona, Utah, and Washington State that day in D.C., as the USDA had prepared a day surrounding “Lawfare” and the importance of defending our land as a nation.

Spending the day getting to know these ranchers, their homes, and their faith, I can honestly say, changed me as a person. I think I was the first person from New York, and the greater Northeast, that they had exchanged agricultural experiences with. That kind of cross-country communication is more than powerful - it’s essential. I have many stories from these conversations to share on here in the coming weeks.

I walked into the USDA that morning and was greeted by the fanciest conference room I have ever stepped foot in. Three chandeliers hung over a table that was prepared to seat close to 30 people. I would be lying if I said I was not incredibly nervous. Though I knew I was to be seated with likeminded people, I also knew this is probably the only chance New York State is going to get to secure help from the federal government with ORES.

I was not going to squander that opportunity.

Here is the event schedule if you are curious about the ranching families in attendance, as well as the attorneys, cabinet members, and congressional representatives.

We were asked to take our seats before Secretary Rollins, Administrator Loeffler, and John Rich entered the room. A few minutes later the three of them arrived, bringing an optimism and hope into the air that all of us trying to save our communities felt at ease with.

This was the first time I met my friend, Mr. Rich, in person. We had been texting and calling ever since we connected on X. John relayed the ORES information to the federal government, resulting in this letter that was sent to our governor last week. You all know how grateful I am to him.

They took their seats and the round table began. Secretary Rollins was superhuman. She hosted, sustained the meeting, knew every person’s name and backstory, and effortlessly took our information and shared it with the press. It was a masterclass of government communication in action. Those who sit in Albany, New York could only dream of the intellect, energy, and charisma that came with Secretary Rollins.

When it was my time to speak, for the first time in this solar battle, I had printed out a small speech I read from paper. There was so much I wanted to fit in to less than two-minutes that it was time to write it all down.

The USDA thanked me for what I have been doing and my tireless reporting from New York State. I am not going to lie… hearing an appreciation for the effort I have put in over here, finally, from media personnel and the national government felt damn good. It’s been a thankless journey from the communists running my state.

We were then ushered into the press room inside of the USDA where more than 40 people awaited our updates.

It felt surreal. At this point, I was trying to stay calm, cool, and collected, knowing Secretary Rollins was going to invite me to podium to read my speech again for the press. I was thinking to myself this entire time, “Alex, do not fall stepping down from this stage. Go slowly, Alex. Don’t rush over there.”

I went slowly and did not fall.

After we spoke, Secretary Rollins and Administrator Loeffler sat down at the table in front of us to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU will allow the USDA to forward land grab submissions to the Small Business Administration that they can then relay to the appropriate federal agencies.

I was beyond proud to have been part of the USDA rollout of the Lawfare Portal, which anyone can now use at this time. John Rich tweeted the portal last month. I immediately filled out the form for Upstate NY - that was how I got into contact with John so quickly.

They have people reviewing the submissions through this portal daily. I cannot stress enough how critical and unusual a link like this is to the federal government. Use it! If you are experiencing solar, wind, corporate etc. sprawl onto your land, prime agricultural soils, and protected habitats, fill out the form.

After their signing, I recorded a few videos with John before a small group of us were invited to eat lunch at the Navy Mess in the White House.

As I always say: for the last year, I would have gone anywhere I was invited to share this message. I met with a Democratic Assemblywoman. I spoke to a bipartisan Senate Energy Committee. I spoke at press conferences alongside Bruce Blakeman. And I became friends with a country music legend.

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The USDA, Secretary Rollins, and Washington D.C. law firms have been the first form of government to truly give me a seat at the table. If you don’t understand by now that I will do anything to save our Upstate NY land, rural culture and history, endangered species, and grasslands, then you haven’t been paying attention.

I could not have predicted, in a million years, that this is the form the help would be arriving in. I take people and groups as I find them. Though it’s a popular talking point to say “don’t trust the feds,” I am living in a reality where the “feds” are the ones willing to help me here. I ask that you keep an open mind to that. Perhaps everything that’s shared through Reddit channels and purchased media reporting doesn’t capture the whole picture.

To have that many people in genuine support of what I have been doing and the time, financial loss, and energy I have put into this… felt nice. More importantly, it felt hopeful. I made life-long friends that day. I now have many phone numbers to call if I ever need help up here. Feeling like I have been at this alone for so long… my nervous system is calmly at peace today. I am smiling as I write this.

There is much more to come. I am open to help in any form that it will arrive in.

We are all aware that the beast that is New York State is not an easy foe. But these people are fighters, and I suppose, I am, too.

FURTHER READING

There’s been a significant mad dash for green energy money in New York State since the 2019 Climate Act was passed on nothing but virtue-signaling, tossing science to the wayside.

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That mad dash worked for a while. Local media in New York State is terrified to openly report on our governor. With a one-party-rule holding the state hostage, there are no checks and balances on our executive branch of government.

That’s how the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) has been able to wage war on rural Upstate New York. There are no New York governmental bodies that are willing to stand up to a bureaucratic shadow agency that takes its orders from the governor’s office.

Knowing that to my core by the end of 2025, I knew the only chance we had here to save our farmland and grassland habitats from foreign solar and wind complexes was twofold:

• sue these people into oblivion

• engage the federal government

We (American Land Rescue Fund) have sued twice to fulfill my commitment to the first point. Montgomery County has sued seven times in three months over Mill Point Solar and Flat Creek Solar. Everyday Upstaters are using what funds they have, desperately pooling them together to fund litigation that they hope and pray can make its way through a court system that’s been stacked in favor of our one-party-rule.

Next up: engage the federal government.

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Bring in the feds

As fate would have it, only 8-weeks ago, I decided to start posting my written content from Facebook and Substack to X. It didn’t take long before John Rich and I connected. I knew he was active online helping farmers and landowners… but I had no idea he was about to be appointed as the Special Envoy for American Landowners by this current administration.

I could call that good luck… but it wasn’t luck at all. I have posted to social media, reporting on ORES and green energy destruction in Upstate NY, every single day since September 2025. I knew, eventually, something would slip through the cracks and get to people more powerful than my pages.

And that’s exactly what happened.

John and I spoke on the phone a few times. We texted and I began to share my research with him. Many meetings later… and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and John Rich put their heads together to create a four-page letter that was delivered to Governor Hochul this weekend.

I will attach the letter, which Secretary Brooke Rollins posted to her X, here:

As you can see, the letter is signed by Secretary Rollins, Administrator Zeldin, and John Rich.

I strongly encourage everyone reading along with me here to take some time to read the letter in full. It says so much more than I can summarize for you on here.

The federal government is taking a two-part approach into what ORES has done to New York State. First, they want answers as it relates to NY’s own Mineral Soil Groups (MSGs) that it uses to site solar and wind complexes as opposed to the USDA’s system.

I wrote about MSGs extensively here last month.

Second, they want to know what the plan is when millions of solar panels reach their end-of-life service. Along the way, the letter notes that New York’s system “let’s foreign developers and manufacturers free-ride.”

I have been reporting on that through this Substack weekly since I found out about Fort Edward Solar sited for one of the last grasslands of its kind in the Northeast.

There is more than meets the eye with this letter

If you read the letter slowly, you’ll get the gist of what the feds are trying to do here. For legal purposes, I am not going to explain that in writing. Read between the lines.

As I anticipate some naysayers below telling me to “not trust the feds” and “to not get too optimistic,” I will end with this: I will, forever, be a stubbornly optimistic person who believes anything is possible. It is that very belief that I have held in my mind, alone, for almost a year that has resulted in this level of exposure. Please consider, for a moment, that there is much, much more at play here than just “a letter.”

It’s one hell of a letter is what it is. I am very grateful to Secretary Rollins, Administrator Zeldin, and John Rich for caring about what’s happening to Upstate New York. They very well could have moved on to a “red” state and left us to bleed out up here. But they didn’t.

And I am grateful.

This lays the foundation for battling destruction at the hands of solar and wind complexes, battery storage, and so much more. Have a little faith and patience. There is A LOT to come.

And happy 250th birthday to America. Our land is worth fighting for.

FURTHER READING

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Conveniently for New York State, what it classifies as “prime farmland” differs greatly from the USDA prime farmland soil classification system that it spent decades researching and updating. New York uses a Mineral Soil Group (MSG) system that it changes annually with the help of Cornell University to move soils around a scale that ranks them from 1 (best soil) to 10 (worst soil).

Since solar and wind corporations have to pay to mitigate prime farmland loss if the soils are ranked MSG1 through MSG3, many soils moved into MSG4 to MSG6 starting in 2021 when ORES began rolling out commercial solar and wind.

That brings us to the present moment in which ORES has a particular love of using Montgomery County as its ecological experimental “ground zero,” right alongside Genesee County, New York that has already been destroyed beyond repair with miles upon miles of solar panels.

Montgomery County and the town supervisors, as well as the county attorney, Meghan Manion, are putting up the fight of a lifetime, telling Albany, New York and the faceless bureaucrats that hide behind the ORES label: no means no.

Since ORES was created in a way where we don’t get to vote on who works there, call them, email them, or meet with them, we have been left with no other option but to sue.

That is why I formed the American Land Rescue Fund 501(c)(3) this past October to start raising money for our own lawsuits to defend the Fort Edward Grasslands from Fort Edward Solar.

To date, we have filed two separate lawsuits against ORES and the Department of Public Service for what they are doing to our state’s farmland and environment.

Montgomery County is the first county in New York State to formidably stand up to ORES and its unlawful environmental redactions, forcible siting, and “take” in the form of destroyed property values if every solar complex is allowed to be built.

In layman’s terms: the people of Montgomery County have balls.

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A few months ago, three lawsuits were filed in Montgomery County against ORES for Mill Point Solar. The three lawsuits came from the county, the Town of Glen, and GlenFARMLand (a nonprofit). You can read more about that here.

On Thursday, June 18, 2026, four lawsuits were filed for Flat Creek Solar (the same complex I documented active eagle nesting sites at this past spring) in Montgomery County. They were as follows:

Montgomery County v. ORES

Town of Root v. ORES

Town of Canajoharie v. ORES

Residents for the Preservation of the Mohawk Valley (RPMV) v. ORES

The Montgomery County lawsuit states ORES failed to conduct required review of Montgomery County laws, ORES improperly denied the County full party status, ORES improperly found no substantive and significant issues requiring a hearing, and the permit should be vacated because the review process was legally defective.

The Towns of Root and Canajoharie argue ORES misapplied its own regulations regarding hearings.

RPMV argues that ORES misapplied its own regulations, improperly denied hearings, ignored expert testimony, failed to provide meaningful public participation, improperly handled local-law issues, and approved the permit through a fundamentally defective process.

The RPMV petition brings the case of the Amish community into the fold. This is the SAME Amish community that built out my entire farm for me.

Expert testimony from a nationally-regarded Anabaptist researcher was submitted into the ORES docket. The findings were entirely ignored by ORES.

If Flat Creek Solar is to be built, not only would it displace our national bird, but it would also fragment the Amish community in a way that is insurmountable for a group of people that live on foot or by horse-and-buggy. The community would pull out and move elsewhere.

Since so much of the Montgomery County economy is reliant on Amish businesses, this would undercut all local commerce and “bottom out” the market.

These four lawsuits are designed to point out the cumulative loss that Montgomery County is being unfairly forced to shoulder for impossible green energy goals that send the power far away from the towns playing host to these ecological detention centers.

I applaud those in the county that have put in the time, research, and money to bring forth these lawsuits. The county attorney, Meghan Manion, continues to stand up for her residents in a way no other county attorney has in New York State to date. I hope this inspires others to “grow a pair.”

It’s certainly an uphill legal battle to take on the ORES machine. The deck is stacked. But, in this case, perhaps the quantity of lawsuits being hurled at this shadow agency can chip away at its foundation, piece by piece.

More to come.

FURTHER READING

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: June 15, 2026.

Location: Fort Edward, New York.

It’s hard to do one of the last grasslands of its kind throughout the entire Northeast justice, even in high-resolution photos. I certainly don’t have to edit the pictures or augment colors. The landscape speaks for itself.

It speaks for itself because in our increasingly developed world, littered with high-rise apartments, shopping strips, Costcos, parking lots, commercial solar and wind complexes, and glyphosate-covered ethanol corn fields, it’s rare to come across an ecosystem that is this extensive, stretching to the horizon.

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We’ve fragmented just about every habitat that isn’t inside of a National Park. But the Fort Edward Grasslands is one of the last of its kind with thousands of acres of grassland that include small family farms that make up a patchwork of America’s rural character as far as the eye can see.

As some would call this: it’s God’s country.

It’s easy to focus on the powerful and mystical raptors that call these grasslands home, like the short-eared owl and northern harrier. But what gets lost in the discussion is the role this grassland plays during the summer months in our climate as a refuge for the declining pollinators that need our help in North America.

One of those pollinators is the monarch butterfly, which makes its way from Mexico to the northern parts of the US and into Canada, only to turn around and do it all over again the next year. The fourth and “super” generation of monarchs will be hatched in Upstate NY and beyond during the months of August and September, going on a 2,500+ mile journey back to the mountains of Mexico where they will enter a state of diapause and rest throughout the winter to begin the first generation of monarchs the following year.

As you all know, I traveled to Piedra Herrada outside of Mexico City this past January to see the super monarchs in their winter sanctuary. It was the closest I believe one can come to experiencing heaven.

When I talked to the Mexican guides about the survival of the monarch butterfly, considering we’ve lost 80% of the species since the 1990s, they said to me: “It depends on the habitat availability for these butterflies up north in your country.”

They were resoundingly correct.

When Fort Edward Solar was sited for the Fort Edward Grasslands, the botched and redacted science purchased by Boralex left out pollinators altogether. So we invested in an unbiased scientific assessment by Hudsonia Ltd. that can be read here.

The Fort Edward Grasslands are a major monarch butterfly hub, littered with thousands of stems of milkweed during a critical time when nearly 800 million stems of this plant have been cleared for massive glyphosate-ready corporate farming across the country.

Around this grassland are family farms, a Wildlife Management Area, a designated DEC-conservation center, and walking trails that all lend themselves to contiguous grassland acreage filled with the host plants our nearly endangered pollinators need to survive.

As the Hudsonia scientists also concluded, the proximity of the grassland to a Karner blue habitat in Wilton, New York ensures there is the probable presence of perennial lupine - though, we wouldn’t know since Boralex and New York State failed to survey for this endangered butterfly.

While I sat there this week at the Fort Edward Grasslands, completing my 34th consecutive week I have visited this imperiled habitat to document what I see and learn more about its critical role in the greater Northeast, I was pleased to behold monarch butterflies back once more, searching for the perfect milkweed plant to lay their eggs on before passing into the great beyond.

Monarch caterpillars will feed exclusively on the leaves of the milkweed plant before becoming butterflies. It’s a brilliant way to evolve since wild animals don’t have a taste for milkweed. In fact, it’s poisonous to them. Therefore, the monarch butterfly isn’t appetizing to predators, either.

The only predator this butterfly has to fear is man.

And man is drunk on greed in the form of “green” energy credits intent on wiping out protected habitats and endangered species today.

Developers, politicians, bureaucrats, and legacy media reporters all have a lot to say about this grassland and Fort Edward Solar today. I can say, after 34 weeks in a row, I have never seen a single one of them at this grassland, taking in all it has to offer from the viewing decks.

Nothing will take my love of this habitat away from me. And it has them mad as hell.

On Friday, June 12th, 2026, I, in my capacity as the president of the American Land Rescue Fund with the Town of Glen, New York, filed a lawsuit against the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) over the legality of the RAPID Act implementing regulations.

You can read the petition in full here.

I promised at the start of this that I would work to help every single rural town in New York State that has, against its will, been forced to host an ORES solar or wind complex.

And this lawsuit does exactly that. This is a sweeping, bold, and statewide lawsuit that is as aggressive as we can possibly be in the face of authoritarian New York State agency overreach. Allow me to explain our objectives here.

What is the RAPID Act?

In 2024, New York passed the Renewable Action Through Project Interconnection and Deployment Act, commonly known as the RAPID Act.

The law dramatically changed how large energy projects are approved in New York. Historically, local governments, residents, nonprofit organizations, and affected communities had opportunities to participate in the review of major energy infrastructure projects.

As we all know, this local participation has been completely destroyed in the ORES process.

Under the RAPID framework, much of that authority was purposely consolidated into ORES, which is unreachable by phone, email, and voicemail.

ORES already oversees utility-scale solar and wind projects. The RAPID Act expanded that authority to major electric transmission projects as well.

This would give a single state agency enormous authority over the approval of industrial renewable energy facilities and transmission infrastructure across New York.

So, we decided to sue. Since the Town of Glen, New York has already sued over the treatment of their community for Mill Point Solar, including ORES’ failure to schedule an in-person community hearing as part of the “siting process,” they agreed to be a main petitioner in this lawsuit alongside our nonprofit.

Before I dive into why we are challenging the RAPID Act regulations, first, a word from Ground News.

Ground News

While we endure the irresponsible rollout of mass solar and wind installations countrywide at the hands of foreign developers today…

It’s important to get your news from a balanced and independent place. I strive to provide that for you all on here, but I encourage you to read other articles and perspectives on what’s happening in the “green” energy space as well.

One great place to do this is through the Ground News. Ground News processes thousands of articles daily, merging them into single stories that reveal multiple perspectives from multiple media sources in our place. Their goal is to cut through polarizing algorithms, highlight information blindspots, and make media bias clear so readers can think critically about the content they consume.

I think we can all agree that our world needs more independence in the media space!

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Why are we challenging the RAPID Act regulations?

Our lawsuit argues that state agencies failed to follow important procedural and environmental review requirements before adopting these regulations.

Environmental laws exist for a reason. As I keep saying… if New York State is allowed to depart, publicly, from the environmental rule of law of our land, then what is the point of our parks, endangered species, and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which is now nowhere to be found with any of the solar and wind offenses?

Typically and historically in New York, before government agencies create sweeping regulations that affect farmland, wildlife habitat, wetlands, local communities, emergency services, and private property rights, they are required to conduct environmental review and follow specific public rulemaking procedures.

Our lawsuit alleges that those requirements were not properly followed.

The case raises questions about:

• Whether the public was given access to the final regulations when required by law.

• Whether state agencies completed required impact analyses.

• Whether proper environmental review occurred before the regulations were adopted.

• Whether alternatives were adequately considered.

• Whether agencies made the findings required under New York environmental law before approving the regulations.

As our lawsuit states, these procedures exist to ensure transparency, accountability, and public participation before government agencies make decisions that affect millions of New Yorkers.

We’re coming to help everyone

We have a runaway train here in the form of ORES, with complete and total shielding by the Department of Public Service and NY governor’s office.

While I learned about what would happen to the wildlife of Fort Edward, New York for Fort Edward Solar, people from around the state began to message me. I learned about towns, families, history, culture, and eagles’ nests that stood in ORES’ way. I realized my experience was similar to the 36+ communities that are fighting with everything they have against ORES solar and wind complexes.

That’s why this lawsuit is bigger than one singular project. It’s an aggressive legal angle that has not yet been tried, to this extent, since ORES’ inception in 2020.

The regulations being challenged now govern the approval process for major renewable energy and transmission projects throughout New York State. Whether someone supports renewable energy or opposes renewable energy, government agencies should still be required to follow the law.

Next steps

The lawsuit has now been filed in Albany County Supreme Court. The State will have an opportunity to respond. The court will review the legal arguments, the administrative record, and the actions taken by the agencies involved. This will likely take months.

We are aware we are working against a deck that was already stacked against renewable pushback, purposely and politically, many years ago.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I could either sit back and do nothing and accept the inevitable. That would be easy to do, especially in a state like New York. Or I could try. I found a genius attorney who has taken my goals and elevated them beyond my wildest imagination. And I have found other brave New Yorkers, like those in Glen, who will stop at nothing to defend their towns, prime farmland, and rural character as well.

Together, we’re going to give this one hell of a shot.

I have more updates to come as it relates to this lawsuit as well. I cannot share the full picture quite yet. But stay tuned here as I release updates every Monday on our battle to preserve New York’s environment.

Pretty soon, I can feel, we will be taking this fight into the national space. So hang in there!

FURTHER READING

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: June 10, 2026.

Location: Fort Edward, New York.

At first, I couldn’t tell if I was looking at a female meadowlark. But upon closer examination, I realized I was watching female red-winged blackbirds (who yes, possess zero red in their feathers) make quite the ruckus at the Fort Edward Grasslands this week.

Like their male counterparts, the females love to perch above the grassland, just barely, using milkweed stalks, fences, and small shrubs.

This very vocal female was particularly keen on dead common milkweed stalks that she would land on and gently bounce up and down with the breeze as it blew over the grassland.

One of the males sat nearby, also on a dead milkweed stalk, to call back to the female who had an agitated and angry tone to her song.

I’d like to think these were two best friends or sisters, perched nearby, gossiping about the “boys” as they put on more of an aerial show to impress and entertain the females.

I have quite a few red-winged blackbirds at my homestead. I find them to be a very personable and entertaining breed of bird. They definitely have full personalities and can make me laugh from time-to-time.

The grasslands are fully growing in by this time of year, nearly a foot taller every week, swallowing dead stalks to make way for new growth. The amount of bird activity is astounding, with grassland birds popping up and down out of the grasses in every direction.

10 of the 11 top species of concern at grasslands throughout the entirety of New York State live at this grassland, as cited by our state’s own Department of Environmental Conservation.

A 100MW solar industrial complex cannot be allowed here. The Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) awarded Boralex its final permit last month to build anyway. But we have other plans for stopping what would be an ecological catastrophe.

And I will continue to document this imperiled habitat, weekly, until then.

For more of my wildlife photography and field notes, I upload the imagery to this publication Instagram as well. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/houseofgreenmagazine.

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: May 27, 2026.

Location: Fort Edward, New York.

I’ve always loved osprey. They felt like creatures from home to me when I briefly lived in Florida for 3-years and so desperately knew, one day, that I wanted to move back home to Upstate New York. These raptors nest in the North throughout the summer, and fly back to warmer climates come September.

Now, they are welcome sights of spring for me here in New York’s North Country. Osprey return back to their same platforms, year-after-year, early April along the Hudson River. Though they migrate south for the winter, they do so as individuals (without their mates).

But when they come home to raise their young back north, a mated pair (they mate for life) will return to the same established nest and meet up once more.

Many of those established nests line the Hudson River. My farm sits close to this river in Schuylerville, New York. This same river also borders the Fort Edward Solar project map, and is (yes, unbelievably) the location of the PCB Superfund Site that occurred at the hands of General Electric.

The Hudson River is one of the largest migratory corridors for bird species throughout the entire Northeast.

As raptors, osprey rely almost entirely on fish for their diet.

As a bird that dives into water frequently, their safety will be jeopardized by hundreds of acres of solar panels nestled next to the Hudson River. The panels give off a polarized light that is perceived by birds to be water. This is known as the “lake effect” that has been documented at solar facilities. Birds mistake the panels for water and dive, from great heights, into the panels, colliding and causing severe injuries, or commonly, death.

If you’ve ever seen a solar complex from an airplane above, you will, at first, mistake it for a body of water as well. I noticed many over Virginia/North Carolina that looked exactly like a lake to me from a Delta flight.

Though these raptors can’t speak for themselves, I certainly will do everything in my power to get the word out about their right to live and hunt safely, without light reflected off Chinese-made solar panels.

For a bird that returns to its established nest, awaiting the arrival of its mate that it has chosen for life, every spring, it deserves, at the very least, our reverence and respect for the treacherous journey it makes to keep the species alive.

Welcome to your summer home, ospreys.

For more of my wildlife photography and field notes, I upload the imagery to this publication Instagram as well. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/houseofgreenmagazine.

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: June 5, 2026.

Location: Schuylerville, New York.

You all know this entire journey began in 2023 when I found nearly 7 acres of land that I had a vision to turn into a pollinator oasis.

After seeding hundreds of thousands of seeds around my property last year that I knew would support pollinators, seeing bees and butterflies flock to my land this year is deeply fulfilling.

For every seed that didn’t take, another seed did. And all it takes is one seed to produce a huge chive bush that flaunts gorgeous pastel-lilac flowers beloved by butterflies.

I was out in the garden this past Friday, June 5th when I looked up to notice this mature, healthy, and vibrant black swallowtail butterfly enjoying a chive flower buffet. I ran inside to get my camera.

Based on the wings being predominantly yellow with little blue, this was a male black swallowtail that helped himself to these flowers for over 30-minutes.

It always brings me joy when I realize a little winged creature feels safe enough at my farm, as well as around me, to relax and enjoy the flowery buffet I have laid out before them.

I also have a pollinator waterer (filled with pebbles so they don’t drown) nearby, allowing them to drink if they are thirsty.

I find that butterflies still prefer to engage in “puddling” when I get the soil wet from watering my plants. This allows them to absorb minerals from the soil while they get their hydration.

As always, I couldn’t help but talk out loud to this little fella, and tell him he’s welcome in my garden anytime. I think they get the gist.

For more of my wildlife photography and field notes, I upload the imagery to this publication Instagram as well. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/houseofgreenmagazine.

Note: all of these photos are owned and captured by me, Alexandra Fasulo.

Date captured: March 31, 2026.

Location: Fort Edward Grasslands, New York.

I started falling in love with northern harriers when I first visited the Fort Edward Grasslands September 2025. I was not familiar with a bird species that manages to encapsulate elements of falcons, hawks, and owls, all rolled into one feathered masterpiece. I was fascinated.

When I learned that they are state-endangered and will be pushed even closer to extinction with the eradication of the Fort Edward Grasslands, I knew I needed to act.

As someone who has always loved photography and videography, the best way I knew how to help these powerfully beautiful animals was to start documenting them.

And so I did.

It’s hard to describe how much contiguous acreage is needed for these hauntingly striking giants of the sky to hunt and breed. They need hundreds upon hundreds of acres. That’s why their habitat is disappearing to development so quickly.

Studies out of Cornell have found that they won’t nest anywhere within or even near solar complexes. These animals are much smarter than we give them credit for. I’d argue they’re smarter than most people I know today.

The moment I made eye contact with a northern harrier earlier this year, I felt a wise, all-knowing calmness communicated back to me. As if they are land and air guardians of the Northern part of our continent, tapping into an ancient wisdom that perhaps only the Native Americans before us knew.

I tell the northern harriers out loud, as I stand on the viewing decks, that I will do whatever it takes to preserve their home here in Upstate New York. It’s the least I could do.

I have witnessed harriers regularly at the grasslands from October until April of this year. Though many will migrate north into Canada for the summer, some couples stay behind. I have been fortunate enough to open up my own land, right at my homestead, to a northern harrier couple that has chosen the location to be its year-round home.

If you’ve never witnessed this raptor in action, I highly recommend adding them to your birding list.

Though, after witnessing aggressive, and frankly, disgusting behavior from bird photographers at these locations, please treat the birds respectfully and do not “rush at them” or disturb them for a perfect shot.

I believe the birds will reward you in due time if you pay your respects and honor their home. That’s what this harrier did one day, nearly 6-months after I spent many hours, outside in the cold, coming to understand their ways.

For more of my wildlife photography and field notes, I upload the imagery to this publication Instagram as well. Check it out: https://www.instagram.com/houseofgreenmagazine.

There are some days I sit here and think to myself: I couldn’t come up with this stuff if I tried. I am referencing the aggressive, haphazard, and dystopian push to blanket every inch of Upstate New York in solar panels.

First, it was the prime farmland using an altered soil classification system that only a state like New York could conjure. Then it was our imperiled grassland habitats and endangered species. Along the way, they threw our wetlands and rivers into the mix.

And this week, now it’s our drinking water. Yes, the water we drink… straight out of our reservoirs.

Senate/Assembly bill S4571B/A6577B would create a NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) "floating solar incentive and education program" that would provide access to financing resources for floating solar development.

As we have seen with other pieces of solar legislation, S4571 is intentionally drafted to be very broad. This gives the portion of our legislature that is completely co-opted by foreign influence through the renewable energy sector the ability to change, pivot, and introduce new elements as the foreign solar and wind corporations demand it.

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For example, inside the bill, the definition of floating solar is broad and explicitly includes "canals, lakes, reservoirs, and ponds."

Other broad elements of the legislation include:

• The bill does not contain Adirondack-specific exclusions.

• The bill itself does not establish a size cap for projects.

• It envisions financing assistance through NYSERDA or other public/private sources.

NYSERDA receives its funding from our taxes and the delivery charges on our electric bills. These funds are also collected via hidden surcharges on utility bills (like the Clean Energy Fund). Therefore, any “grant” program for renewable energy being run out of NYSERDA is funded by us, the tax-paying residents of New York State.

In fact, NYSERDA currently holds $2 to $2.4 billion dollars in unspent ratepayer funds. It needs this amount of money to be able to court foreign renewable developers - or, in the case of establishing a financing system for floating solar, NYSERDA has the money to issue credits and subsidies to corporations as they demand them.

Key questions that remain unanswered in this broad piece of legislation include:

• How much surface coverage should be allowed?

• Should natural lakes be treated differently from man-made reservoirs?

• What about recreation and wildlife?

• Who pays?

Like the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) solar complexes rural Upstate New York towns are battling, this piece of legislation does not require comprehensive statewide standards for microplastic monitoring, panel breakage response, end-of-life removal bonding, water-quality testing, and wildlife monitoring.

It’s a piece of legislation built on something that “sounds good” with no concrete plan for managing floating panels filled with microplastics, heavy metals, sometimes PFAS, and glass shards sitting above the water we drink.

Potato growing associations nationwide will not farm a single inch of farmland that sat below solar panels. This is because there is documented evidence of the panels depositing plastics, heavy metals, glass shards, and pieces of concrete. As we have seen in solar installations across the Midwest, one wind storm, hail storm, or tornado leaves a superfund site that the solar developer will try to get out of cleaning up claiming a “natural disaster” absolves them of their obligation.

Kelly Turner with the Potato Growers of Michigan reported this to Brownfield Ag News:

“When solar systems are removed, it leaves behind little, tiny pieces of metal, plastic, and chunks of cement and that kind of stuff that potatoes will grow around,” she shares. “What happens if something gets through and someone gets hurt? The risk just isn’t worth it.”

Now imagine putting these panels over the water we drink? Over our recreational lakes and ponds? How could this even be up for discussion?

Regulatory capture on steroids

The wind and solar industries have so obviously and blatantly captured our NYS government and governor’s office that I continue to be shocked by their unapologetic pursuit to absolutely destroy our Upstate New York environment. So much money is being exchanged between our state government and foreign renewable corporations in the form of subsidies, credits, and grant programs that at this point, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they are willing to chance lawsuits, arrests, and bad media coverage for the hundreds of millions that’s being laundered.

Floating solar is no different.

As I have uncovered with ORES, this shadow agency allows the foreign developers themselves to hire their own engineers and environmental assessments for the very projects they intend to build out. If that sounds like a conflict of interest: it’s because it is. And it’s intentional.

In the case of Horseshoe Solar where Invenergy was given the green light to drill under the Genesee River 7 times, since ORES doesn’t monitor the corporations, Invenergy outsourced the job to a company that punctured their aquifer and reported water filling in around the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) sites in 3 different places.

Additionally, ORES has issued a final siting permit nearly 100% of the time to every single solar and wind application in its pipeline. They don’t even try to hide it.

And with one-party-rule holding Albany hostage, there is no political balance inserted in these conversations at any level.

What about the wildlife?

I have been asking myself this question since September. The green energy movement is full of people who, fundamentally, hate our nature and wildlife. They are working as diligently as possible to destroy endangered species nesting sites, our national bird, and imperiled habitats that previously carried DEC-granted environmental distinctions.

I find myself constantly explaining 7th grade-level science that the green energy lobbyists seem to have forgotten. Let’s talk about what massive arrays of panels placed over lake ecosystems will do to the life that inhabits them.

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Lakes and reservoirs evolved to receive sunlight. If you cover part of the surface with solar panels, less sunlight reaches the water. This then reduces the growth of aquatic plants beneath the array, as well as reduces algae production. Over time, this alters the food web that supports insects, zooplankton, and eventually fish.

Additionally, the shaded area stays cooler. Temperature differences alters fish distribution and feeding patterns.

Lastly, aquatic plants produce oxygen through photosynthesis. If enough light is blocked, plant growth will decrease and oxygen production will decrease.

This is science 101, folks.

Since this legislation has no information on the maximum amount of space the panels will be allowed to occupy over our bodies of water, there is no way to measure the true environmental impact, yet again, that will occur to the wildlife of New York State.

Destroying the environment to “save the environment”

These people will destroy our physical environment, drinking water, and wildlife long before we’re “carbon neutral.” Unless the money-laundering machine between our state government and foreign governments/corporations is broken, these politicians know no limits in what is one of the biggest scams ever peddled on the American public.

I try to avoid using spiritual terms in my writing, but at this point, there is only one word to sum up what we are witnessing here, and that word is “demonic.” These people have such a deeply engrained hatred of our physical world that it is unsettling for me to cover these topics on here.

But since our mainstream media has tried, in every way possible, to shield the public from the real impacts of the green energy movement, I believe it is incredibly important that I continue to share this information with you all.

Is your state trying to install solar panels over the water that you drink? Let me know below. Lots to come in the battle against foreign solar destruction in New York and beyond. We have another lawsuit on the way as well. Stick around!

Where the bill is right now

As of today (June 8, 2026), the bill has passed the New York Senate and has an Assembly companion bill (A6577B). The Senate version (S4571B) is advancing through the Senate and reaching third reading.

FURTHER READING

They marketed commercial solar and wind to us as a “fix” for our ailing climate. It worked. People believed that if we started harvesting energy from the weather, then we’d lower our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, save the planet, fix the environment, and inch towards a utopian world in which oil and coal were “dirty” energy forms of the past.

The marketing around commercial solar and wind was so genius that it tricked people around the world into believing the “clean” and “green” approach to energy was that of a civilized, progressive future. It sounded good in pamphlets, college lectures, text book blurbs, and campaign slogans.

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What started as virtue-signaling and pretentious rhetoric had to, at some point, become a physical reality. When they passed the 2019 CLCPA (Climate Act) in New York State, there was no consideration for what going “carbon neutral” would physically look like in real-time. But boy… watching Governor Cuomo sign the Climate Act made for a good photo op, though.

By 2020, the New York State legislature knew it needed to find a way around local zoning laws, moratoriums, and public sentiment to force commercial solar and wind into communities they knew wouldn’t want to host these industrial complexes. They came up with the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) that they snuck into the 2020 budget bill, in the dead of the night, without alerting anyone to their plan. It worked again.

By 2021, they knew they’d have to start building some of these ecological detention centers to justify the lofty promises made with the CLCPA. Since the state wasn’t prepared to oversee that kind of industrial rollout, they created ORES in a way where it defers all engineering, environmental assessments, and construction to the foreign renewable developers, absolving New York State, the Department of Public Serve, and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) from having the “hard conversations” about what their virtual-signaling was about to do to our farmland, forests, grasslands, wetlands, and water.

Figuring the plebeians of New York State would go about their 9-to-5s, never questioning the details within these ORES complexes, the bureaucrats thought they had done it again. And in a way, they succeeded for a few years. They were able to site ecologically devastating projects and award final permits, as they do 100% of the time, to developers intent on grabbing their green energy subsidies and credits.

But greed makes people do sloppy things. When money and power are so accessible and unchecked, people, groups, and governments get lazy. They start flaunting their monetary gluttony a little too publicly. They start siting projects so devastatingly, like they did with Fort Edward Solar, that along the way, someone gets otherworldly angry. They start spreading themselves so thinly that the math catches up with the green energy grift.

In this article, we’re going to look at the math behind the trees and forests that stand in the way of transferring generational American land over to foreign renewable corporations.

Where are the tree huggers?

As it seems to me that those sitting at ORES missed fundamental science classes from middle school, let me start with the obvious here.

Trees and forests are among our planet’s most important natural air filtration systems. They do more than help clean the air; they sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their leaves, trunks, branches, and roots. Through photosynthesis, they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They also help lower localized temperatures (ever notice the temperature drop when you walk into a forest?) through shade and by releasing water vapor from their leaves, a process known as transpiration. Forests help filter and store water in the soil, reduce erosion, and support countless plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms, forming the foundation of the ecosystems that sustain us.

That’s why the environmentalists of the past used to chain themselves to trees and camp out in their canopies. People used to stand in the way of bulldozers to save a singular tree. Knowing that it takes decades for trees to reach full maturity, and even longer to contribute to the development of mature forests, “tree huggers” used to risk their lives for trees around the world.

I consider myself to be a tree hugger. I would do the same. Trees and forests are the answer to every single climate problem scientists (who have been bought-and-paid for) claim we need to fix within our world today.

So how can it be… that a form of energy that’s supposedly green and “for the environment” results in the felling of millions of trees? Doesn’t that go against the science to which these people cling so religiously? It does. I’ve watched this phenomenon since I arrived on the scene this past September. I’ve watched people abandon their environmental beliefs to fall on their knees at the altar of solar panels and wind turbines.

I realized along the way there was not one person in the void here shouting out the obvious common sense that everyone else had abandoned: we are destroying our physical environment to save the environment.

South Ripley Solar

Let’s start with South Ripley Solar, which received its final permit from ORES in 2023.

South Ripley Solar is a 270MW solar facility with a 20MW BESS (battery energy storage system). The total project footprint is 2,000+ acres.

As you can see from the aerial maps (I included 3 of the 6 in total), significant forest resides at South Ripley Solar. It was reported that, at minimum, 220 acres of forest will be cleared for the solar panels.

In mature, dense forests, there can be anywhere from 600 to 1,000 trees per acre.

For 220 acres of mature forest to be cleared, using an average of 800 trees per acre, that's a loss of roughly 176,000 trees for a form of energy that's supposed to "save the climate."

And for those not familiar with Upstate NY, Ripley is located in the heavy Lake Effect Snow region of Western New York where it's common for the towns to receive 200+ inches of snow every winter. Ripley, New York only gets 159 days of partial sun throughout the year, or 50 days of fully sunny skies.

Oxbow Solar

Oxbow Solar is a 140MW ORES facility that was permitted in 2025. This complex will reside in the Town of Fenner in Madison County, New York.

In order to install the panels, developers will need to remove 150 acres of forest. That's around 110,000 to 120,000 mature trees, cut down, removed, and topsoil stripped to install something, again, we're told is going to "save the climate."

The NYISO (New York Independent System Operator) data out of Madison County shows Oxbow Solar will generate between 5% and 16% of nameplate capacity (7-23 MW monthly), not 140 MW. This is the same story for all ORES complexes, sited for one of the cloudiest/snowiest regions of the entire United States.

Moraine Solar

Moraine Solar, sadly, began its tree felling and forest clearing operations on February 23, 2026. It’s a 94MW solar complex that resides in Allegany County, New York. Approximately 154 acres of mature forest is being cleared, as we speak, to install this solar facility.

That’s 123,000 trees gone.

The total for all three of these ORES projects comes to 419,000 mature trees, cleared, for a form of energy that’s supposed to help our environment.

ORES has issued final permits to 36 projects to date.

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Based off these three solar complexes, that comes to around 139,000 trees cleared per project. If that’s an average that holds true at all of the complexes (the wind complexes are 10x the size and include even more tree clearing - will be looking into this in future articles), that comes to 5,028,000 trees felled, at minimum, to sustain ORES’ rapid steamrolling of our New York State home rule.

I will say it again: where are the tree huggers? Where are the environmentalists? Where are the people who have an issue with cows grazing on open fields?

We are living through dark, dystopian times. But with knowledge there is power. And here is the cold, hard math that ORES doesn’t want you to know about its forest mutilation.

On a positive note, I have been working with musician John Rich to get this messaging to groups that have the power to do something about it. So stay tuned.

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

- Nelson Henderson

FURTHER READING

You know, I can’t say that I imagined this is where the solar journey would take me when I attended my first Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) hearing in Fort Edward, New York at the end of September 2025. I knew I was witnessing bureaucratic evil of the purest sense. But I figured that, surely, news outlets and other environmental advocates were already on the scene calling out the ecological hypocrisy that would transpire at the Washington County Grasslands if Fort Edward Solar was to be awarded a final permit.

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Along the way, I learned there was no one else. There was no one covering what was happening with ORES. There was no one poised to sue the state over one of the last grasslands of its kind throughout the Northeast. Neither the National Audubon Society nor the Grassland Bird Trust was, in the end, prepared to take a stand against industrial renewable energy in the face of ecological fallout.

“We believe in renewable energy,” they’ve all pathetically uttered to the measly press coverage that the largest issue facing rural Upstate New York has received.

I watched one after another get in line, afraid to upset the state from which their Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) money flows. I watched them look the other way on their own science, concluded from field research and data, that a grassland cannot function in the same way if its fenced off, fragmented, or fractured. I watched them all slowly pull back as we inch towards the final permit, which will be awarded to Boralex (soon to be Brookfield) this week as part of the unilateral ORES approach that does not factor in public sentiment, commentary, expert testimony, studies, or letters from legislators.

We had it all at Fort Edward Solar. We purchased an independent environmental assessment completed by PhDs and Professional Wetland Scientists. Hundreds of residents of Fort Edward stated their opposition to the project online and in person. I stood my ground against the developer’s law firm, Young/Sommer, who also works with New York State during an oral hearing earlier this spring. The Assembly representative in this district uploaded a letter opposing the siting of this project right to the ORES docket.

We did everything we were supposed to do. And it still wasn’t enough.

So the other advocacy groups quietly scurry into the shadows, wincing as they pretend this isn’t the end for the very grassland they have proudly proclaimed is ecologically significant in their newsletters where they ask for donations from people around the world.

The Grassland Bird Trust, in fact, settled with Boralex last week, accepting a “substantial donation” to mitigate “habitat” elsewhere. They made a deal over the annihilation of a grassland that is so significant that its destruction will cause landscape-level ecological loss hundreds of miles from this area. After finalizing their deal with Boralex, they withdrew their Appeal from the ORES record, leaving no one else but myself and my nonprofit that I formed to fight these injustices, the American Land Rescue Fund.

And fight I shall.

This is the first of many lawsuits to come against New York State, ORES, the DPS, and Jason Zehr, the Interim Executive Director of ORES while they feverishly search for a replacement for Zeryai Hagos, who unexpectedly resigned at the end of April.

This is a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) lawsuit against the DPS for failing to satisfy a simple FOIL I submitted November 2025 asking for the un-redacted environmental documents at Fort Edward Solar. Citing the Environmental Conservation Law (ECL), the DPS argued they did not have to show me these files. The ECL ONLY allows redactions over GPS coordinates of endangered species nesting sites.

Boralex has gone ahead and redacted everything from species descriptions to plants, wetland attributes, and Net Conservation Benefit Plan (NCBP) summaries.

The redactions are so extensive, unlawful, and lazily applied that it is impossible for the public and scientific community to understand the true environmental damage that will ensue at Fort Edward Solar.

So I sued. I formed a nonprofit to raise money to fund attorneys, and that’s exactly what I have done.

This is not a lawsuit that is intended to stop the entire permit process for Fort Edward Solar; but it’s a start, and part of a much bigger plan that I cannot share quite yet with you all.

Did I expect to be the “last man standing” with Fort Edward Solar when I began this fight in 2025? Not at all.

Do I welcome this kind of legal solitude with open arms while I do what’s right? Absolutely. The other parties who are watching me charge ahead on the open battlefield alone, shielding their mitigation money can watch on from the sidelines.

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When there is a resolution with Fort Edward Solar, not one of them will be able to say they assisted in any way, murmuring in the background “we believe in renewables” while the “green energy” they promised us is resulting in irreversible ecological loss.

You can view our full petition here.

That being said, from the ORES ashes I have forged relationships with some of the most awe-inspiring, brave, intelligent, and courageous people I have ever met, one of them being my attorney. It has brought together those of us willing to take a stand for our communities statewide. I have made life-long friends and look up to many role models that have taught me a great deal in a short amount of time.

Though I may be the last man standing at Fort Edward Solar, I am not alone at all.

I will stop at nothing until every last corrupt, fraudulent, and money-grubbing person behind the biggest scam of our lifetimes in New York State is held accountable.

To those who have donated to my nonprofit since its founding this past fall, thank you immensely. I would not be able to do this without you. To date, I can proudly say we have not accepted a single cent from New York State or “big oil.” We’re running on nothing but donations from everyday people countrywide and a desire to see the “little guy win for once” as you all let me know in your handwritten notes.

So thank you.

The show is just beginning.

In honor of Memorial Day Weekend, thank you to those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. I will not squander the freedom I have been given, and will work tirelessly to extend that freedom to the animals, soils, and waters of this nation that deserve to exist outside of industrial complexes.

FURTHER READING

If you can’t play by the rules of the game and win, then you change the game entirely. That’s how New York State has been playing for decades. Perhaps the state took a page out of Machievelli’s book when he proclaimed, “never play fair in a game where others cheat.”

In this case, cheating still wouldn’t have awarded foreign solar and wind corporations the money breaks they seek when forcing commercial renewable complexes on Upstate New York.

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So New York State changed the game entirely.

To get around USDA prime farmland soil designations, New York State is using its own soil classification system, Mineral Soil Groups (MSGs), when siting commercial solar and wind complexes.

New York created the Agricultural Land Classification/MSG system in the 1970s as part of the state’s agricultural assessment tax program.

The statute, New York Agriculture & Markets Law §304-a, was originally enacted in 1971 as part of the broader agricultural districts and farmland assessment framework created to reduce property taxes on farmland and discourage development pressure on farms.

As the NYS Department of Tax and Finance admits for the MSG system: “The sole purpose of the agricultural assessment values per acre is to compute agricultural assessments.”

MSGs stayed in the realm of tax assessment for decades. That is… until the 2019 CLCPA (Climate Act) created a mad-dash for “clean energy.”

Suddenly, a system that was created for tax assessments was being used for utility-scale renewable energy siting. Since the MSG system already existed within the bloated layers of New York State bureaucracy, it was instantly at the disposal of those trying to find a way to claim solar and wind complexes were not devouring prime and productive farmland acreage.

MSGs explained

Instead of using the USDA’s national “Prime Farmland” framework, New York assigns soils into 10 Mineral Soil Groups (MSG 1 through MSG 10) based on a state-calculated “soil productivity index.”

The lower the MSG number, the more agriculturally productive the soil is considered. MSG 1-4 soils are, therefore, classified as “Highly Productive Agricultural Soils.”

Here’s where this matters for siting solar.

Those classifications (MSG 1-4) can trigger agricultural mitigation payments, drainage protections, and restoration requirements. If solar is sited on MSG 1-4 soils, the foreign solar developer has to pay to “mitigate” the loss of the soil. The money is often given to farmland funds and easement nonprofits. If the soil falls in MSG 5-10, the developer, typically, does not need to financially offset the farmland loss.

Even more nefariously… the MSG system is updated annually by New York’s Department of Agriculture & Markets. So, soils that were ranked at MSG 3 one year can suddenly become MSG 5 the following year.

This is exactly what happened between the years of 2020 and 2022. Soils that were ranked at MSG 3 and 4 became MSG 5 and 6 at the same time as the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) siting solar projects on what would be considered prime farmland by USDA standards.

Since New York can annually decide which soils it ranks as MSG 1-4, it can also decide that specific soils have “potentially” multiple different MSG designations. For example, as NYSERDA’s own 2025 soils dataset states: “the Albany County soil Hamlin can potentially be designated with a MSG value of 1, 3 or 5.”

In contrast, the USDA puts a very significant amount of scientific and institutional effort into identifying prime farmland soils. The system has been built over nearly a century and is primarily managed through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

The USDA system is based on field soil surveys, not just satellite mapping. Soil scientists physically sample and analyze drainage, slope, texture, depth, organic matter, permeability, erosion risk, water table, and climate capability.

Counties across the U.S. were systematically mapped over decades. This was not a fast, “annual” process.

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A side-by-side comparison

Mill Point Solar, sited for the Town of Glen in Montgomery County, New York, is home to a significant amount of prime farmland soils. ORES steamrolled the town to issue the final permit against the wishes of the Town Supervisor, County Attorney, and Amish communities. ORES refused to provide a formal adjudicatory hearing during the Mill Point Solar permitting process.

That is why the Town of Glen and Montgomery County have both filed lawsuits against ORES.

The below chart shows a side-by-side comparison of the USDA soil classification system when compared to MSGs.

Note: this chart is from the beginning of the project. There has been minor changes since.

As you can see, the difference is shocking. The USDA would consider the area to contain 1,900.98 acres of USDA prime farmland while NYS is claiming only 264.66 acres contain prime farmland.

The state is doing this for two reasons:

1. Lower the financial burden on the solar developer for mitigation costs

2. Minimize public outrage at the loss of land that was feeding us

A looming food autonomy crisis

If ORES allows these developers to continue destroying thousands of acres of USDA prime farmland at every complex, what will New York State do years from now when we have an inevitable food autonomy crisis?

I want to thank the people of Montgomery County, the Town of Glen, and those behind GlenFARMLand for teaching me about MSGs and flagging this to my attention. I also want to thank them for making that outstanding chart I have included above.

This is not information that the state has released for public viewing. Private citizens had to research, compile data, and create charts to share the reality of the MSG system.

Should a state be allowed to opt out of the USDA soil classification system to grant foreign corporations access to our best soils while they circumvent paying into mitigation funds for agricultural destruction?

I think you all know my answer to that question.

There is power in reporting what communistic state governments don’t want the people to know. I will keep reporting what I learn on here for you all. There is much to come. I thank you for being here.

Have you noticed this kind of cheating in your state to court solar and wind developers? Let me know below.

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