And then they came for the Amish: Flat Creek Solar final permit granted

At the close of business on Good Friday, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) granted a 300MW commercial solar permit for a facility right inside of the Canajoharie Amish community.

Just last week, I greeted an old friend of mine at my farm as we walked around the gravel pathway they so meticulously installed on my 6.74 acres of rural land just last year.

I walked and talked with Sam, the head honcho at BluRail Excavating, which is the Amish company that built-out my entire farm for me. When I met them in 2023 and requested they install a gravel driveway to start, I had no idea (and I am sure they didn’t either) that these people would go on to change my life for the better in so many ways.

I filmed their construction process, and the virality of the posts launched their company into the stratosphere, landing them clients for months in advance. Based out of Canajoharie, New York, the BluRail Excavating drivers brought them on a 1 hour 20 minute car ride, every single day, to develop my property. They did it happily.

This Amish community went on to become like a family to me of sorts. I go to their Christmas parties and we exchange ornaments or wood-burned crafts as gifts. I keep in touch with them and hire them once per year for new things to add to my property. I give out their Amish business directories at my farm stand to help all of the businesses in their community.

At their most recent Christmas party, which yes, was equipped with pickleball and a mechanical bull, plus many sweets and whoopie pies for the adorable Amish kids in their suspenders and bonnets, I spoke with Sam about the looming commercial solar threat in New York State.

The Canajoharie Amish community sits inside of Montgomery County, New York, which the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) wants to develop into oblivion. If ORES is successful with their destructive mission, over 22,000 acres of land in Montgomery County will be turned into commercial solar. The local towns and the county government itself has opposed this. Yet, ORES is able to crush home rule with backing from the governor’s office and no obligation to follow Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) requirements.

It’s unchecked industrial oblivion that must be brought to a screeching halt.

I talked with Sam about what was to come with ORES this past week. He listened to my every word intently, with a look of focus and also worry in his eyes. The Amish and other Anabaptist communities rely on horse-and-buggy, as well as walking, to get around their villages. They do not drive or own cars. Their children walk to school. They rely on walkability to get to the neighbors and exchange food and goods.

Like the grassland birds here at Fort Edward Solar that require contiguous acreage to hunt, breed, and migrate, the Amish require contiguous acreage to continue living their peaceful, non-violent, and agriculturally productive lives. They don’t ask for anything in return.

They exercised their right to protest the proposed solar facility, Flat Creek Solar, that would be developed in the middle of their community. It’s a 300MW commercial solar complex (3,800 acres in size) that would abut the BluRail Excavating business location (and the owner’s homes), a place that I have come to call a second home.

The Amish filed comments, spoke in person, and organized to oppose this complex.

At the close of business on Good Friday, the ORES Executive Director, Zeryai Hagos, who is neither a judge, nor an attorney, nor an individual with an environmental background, rubber stamped the Flat Creek Solar permit against the wishes of the town, the county, the Amish community, and environmental nonprofits.

His final permit emphasized that no town, county, or local board can stop this permit. New York State has fully centralized control.

The permit goes on to acknowledge the local laws and zoning regulations in place that it confirms they will be overriding, including:

Setbacks (distance from homes)

• Local law: 500 feet

• ORES: waived

Noise protections

• Local law: stricter limits

• ORES: replaced with their own

Tree cutting restrictions

• Local protections

• ORES: overridden

Agricultural protections

• Limits on farmland use

• ORES: waived

ORES explicitly granted itself relief from limits on prime farmland usage, which will impact all surrounding Amish farms and businesses.

Additionally, on Good Friday, a woman messaged me who lives near Flat Creek Solar to tell me an eagle pair that nested within the facility site, and had since 2013, disappeared by 2026 from their nest. The DEC quickly updated the nest as “abandoned,” though she told me local residents know that ORES either moved the pair, or, allegedly, killed them.

For a nesting eagle pair that had used the same site for nearly 13 years to disappear right before a final permit was issued for a solar commercial project… I don’t believe in coincidences.

Expert Anabaptist submissions

The absolute fragmentation of the Amish way of life at Flat Creek Solar wasn’t just speculation or included in a comment here-and-there on the ORES docket. Steven M. Nolt, a well-known expert on Amish/Anabaptist communities, completed an investigation for both Mill Point Solar and Flat Creek Solar that outlined what these complexes would do to the Amish communities in these areas. Nolt explored cultural impacts, communication barriers, and how Amish communities engage (or don’t) with government processes.

Nolt also noted that ORES made no meaningful attempt to contact or alert the Amish community, ignoring their lack of access to the Internet. As stated, “outreach to Amish residents was ineffective and inappropriate.”

In both Mill Point Solar and now Flat Creek Solar, ORES ignored this expert testimony and submission. Nolt’s work has been used in legal cases in the past.

The survival of the Amish community in these facility areas did not meet any “legal threshold” to matter.

And all of this was predictable. Why? ORES and Hagos rubber stamp nearly 99% of all ORES permits. The DEC does not weigh in on the decisions and “ORES Staff” is who writes/signs all of the documents, never divulging who is truly behind this statewide renewable mutilation.

Every time a final permit is granted, the developers earn millions of dollars from stakeholders who pay for milestones unlocked along the green energy pipeline. The kickbacks surge and renewable lobbyists earn even more money they can dump back into the pockets of the very bureaucrats tasked with approving these complexes. It’s a completely insulated loop that will not be stopped without one of two things:

• the federal government

• lawsuits

Towns have attempted to sue in the past to no avail. ORES was sneakily created and shielded from typical legal angles, pushed through in a budget bill on April 1, 2020 while the world sheltered in place at home during the pandemic.

ORES operates under a specialized regulatory framework (Executive Law § 94-c) designed to accelerate renewable energy projects, which specifically exempts it from the traditional State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) process for project permitting.

Therein lies the legal challenge for attorneys who have attempted to sue ORES in the past. Knowing that this state has an aggressive and extremist attorney general, Letitia James, who will defend and protect foreign renewable corporations at the request of Governor Hochul, doesn’t help anything either.

The real reason ORES is targeting Montgomery County and Amish towns

Nearly across the board on the ORES Matter Master, it’s plain to see that renewable energy experiments are targeted for poorer towns and counties where the state banks on citizens and villages being unable to organize or fund a formidable legal challenge. The Amish are particularly vulnerable to this exploitation since they do not use the internet or email.

When you combine a lack of technological access with lower socioeconomic levels, you get the perfect sitting ducks for the climate communists running ORES.

I have said it before and I will say it again until I am blue in the face: the Canajoharie Amish community is full of the best, kindest, most honest, and most skilled human beings I have ever met. They are walking beacons of God, radiating happiness, generosity, and integrity into everything they do. Our state is better for having them here.

Many Amish are packing up their things and planning to move out of the state in the coming year if these complexes are built. They cannot exist inside of commercial solar complexes, nor do they want their children raised next to such dystopian industrialism. They are an agrarian people that honor the land, and when all is said and done, may be the last group of people in this country feeding us 30-years from now.

New York State, our governor, the attorney general, and the powers-that-be don’t like the Amish. They see it as a win-win if they get them to leave the state and take their right-leaning votes with them.

Mark my words: I am only just beginning the fight I am orchestrating from the background to defend the Canajoharie Amish community from the totalitarian takeover of ORES. You haven’t seen anything yet.

I sometimes wondered years ago why I crossed paths with the Amish. I figured it was a mutual blessing - they built my future for me, and in return, I helped them build their business.

But today, I don’t wonder at all why we crossed paths. They need my help, and I will do anything to help the most deserving people on planet earth.

None of this will be cheap. I am currently speaking with legal counsel. Here is my nonprofit if you feel inclined to donate.

There is much to come. I refuse to allow this Amish exploitation.

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