Living in a solar industrial wasteland: one woman's account from Byron, New York

When the world comes to a town that's inhabited by only 2,000 people, the local, rural way of life is obliterated in ways you may not have considered. I spoke to a woman who described it in detail.

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.

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.

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