FORESTBURGH – Nassau County Executive and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman stopped in Forestburgh on Thursday, July 30, to express his opposition to the proposed Townline Solar Project in a community rally organized by resident Bill Sipos.

Blakeman was joined by State Senator Peter Oberacker, New York State Assemblyman Chris Tague, Thompson Town Supervisor Scott Mace, Forestburgh Councilman Robert Sipos, Biologist Chris Titus, and Forestburgh Town Supervisor Dan Hogue, who all gave remarks aligned with Blakeman’s opposition to Town Line Solar.

As previously reported in the Democrat, the proposed solar facility would sit on 1,200 acres in both the Town of Forestburgh and the Town of Thompson.

Now on the campaign trail, Blakeman said, “I’m here with two great guys Pete [Oberacker] and Chris [Tague]. I need Chris in the senate. We need to fundamentally change the direction of this state. This state is in a death spiral right now, and I’m going to need leaders in both houses.”

Calling New York the “most overtaxed state in the United States of America,” Blakeman blamed the state’s unaffordability on Governor Kathy Hochul’s “green energy scam.” He said New York State electric bills are 70% higher than the national average and that a big portion of residents’ energy costs go to a fund that Hochul uses to invest in “science projects that produce very little energy and they’re very expensive.”

The State has laid out a goal as part of the Climate Leadership and Protection Act and State Energy Plan to have 70% of energy generation from renewable sources by 2030 and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the Town Line Solar website, the proposed facility would power 26,961 homes annually, resulting in a 170,870-pound reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Blakeman set his crosshairs on solar farms, which he blamed for taking farmland out of service and hurting the agricultural industry.

“Somebody’s making billions of dollars off of you every time you pay your electric bill,” said Blakeman. “They’re getting subsidized to put these [solar] farms on our rich farm land, destroying our farm land, and not producing very much energy, and energy that’s very costly.”

Instead of investing in the development of renewable energy, Blakeman laid out his plan to harvest the natural gas reserves embedded in the Southern Tier of New York using hydraulic fracturing (fracking). He said Hochul won’t allow the natural gas extraction, but promised that when he is governor, “I will cut your utility bills in half because I will extract that natural gas, and I will get rid of the green energy scam, and you won’t have to pay every month for a solar farm here in Forestburgh.”

New York State has banned fracking since 2014 under the Andrew Cuomo administration and the ban was codified into state law in 2020.

He closed his indictment on Hochul’s initiatives by highlighting the financial benefits that Pennsylvania residents enjoy due to that state’s decision to extract the gas reserves. “We’re losing that tax revenue, we’re losing that energy supply, we’re losing those jobs,” Blakeman said.

Documents from the Town Line Solar project say the facility will provide new employment opportunities (both temporary construction and full-time employment), increased revenues to the Towns of Thompson and Forestburgh, Sullivan County, and School Districts, and payments to participating landowners.

According to reporting from Radio Catskill, the landowners of the proposed sire include GAB Holding, LLC and GAB Land & Timber, which lists Walter Garigliano, who serves as Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA)’s legal counsel, as president, as well as IMBMG Realty, LLC in the Town of Thompson, and Justin and Justine Evans in the Town of Forestburgh.

Echoing Blakeman’s sentiments, Senator Oberacker said solar arrays “do nothing more than take the authority away from our local government and the decision making from those that are here. It’s an abomination. And when our next governor, Bruce Blakeman, said it was a green deal, the only people that are getting green on this one are the solar [companies] making the money.”

Assemblyman Tague began his remarks by endorsing Blakeman: “I need you folks to join me this November and let’s make New York affordable, let’s make New York safer, and let’s put somebody in the governor’s mansion who actually has common sense, and that’s Bruce Blakeman.”

Tague said he’s been opposing solar farms since 2019. “You can’t blame the landowner that wants to sell the property because a lot of them are mostly struggling farmers that have been struggling for years,” he said.

Tague said New York State is one of the top producers of agricultural products in the world, and lamented the trend of using productive farmland for “stupid projects like this that do nothing.”

He said solar projects hurt the environment, the agricultural system, and the economy, concluding, “Not one person in these communities is going to benefit from the taking of their land.”