Former councilwoman: Riverhead Town ‘failed miserably’ by not participating in state review of major solar project in Calverton

When the Town of Riverhead failed to participate in the state permitting process for the largest commercial solar facility proposed so far in Calverton, it “didn’t just drop the ball… it failed to even show up for the game,” Jamesport resident Barbara Blass told the town board during its meeting yesterday.

Riverhead Town government “relinquished its responsibilities and failed miserably to participate in a process designed to ensure that the interests and concerns of the town and its residents would be addressed,” said Blass, a former Riverhead councilwoman and longtime member and former chairperson of the Riverhead Planning Board.

The official record of the state agency that reviewed and recently approved the Riverhead Solar 2 application is “another embarrassment for the town and the dereliction of duty by some has, once again, shortchanged the people of Riverhead,” Blass said.

As reported by RiverheadLOCAL June 25, Riverhead Town did not participate in the public hearing or submit any written comments during the public comment period on the application of Riverhead Solar 2, a 36-megawatt commercial solar energy facility planned for 275 acres off Edwards Avenue in Calverton — the fifth solar energy facility clustered around the LIPA substation on Edwards Avenue near the Long Island Expressway.

The application was reviewed by the State Office of Renewable Energy Siting, which issued a major renewable energy facility siting permit to Riverhead Solar 2 on June 25, five months after it received the application. ORES issued a draft permit to Riverhead Solar 2 on March 9, which commenced a public comment period that ended May 14. A virtual public hearing was held May 11.

Under state law, the town itself has no jurisdiction over the application because its “nameplate capacity” is over 25 megawatts. Review and permit approval authority rests solely with the state. But the government of the host community can participate as an “intervenor” and can obtain funding to help with its costs of participation.

The Town of Riverhead requested and ORES administrative law judges on March 9 approved $36,000 — deposited with ORES by the applicant — “to defray the costs associated with review of the application” by the town.

The purpose of the funding is to “enable local agencies and potential community intervenors to participate in public comment periods or hearing procedures by allowing the parties to defray expenses for expert witnesses, studies, consultants, attorneys, and other related expenses,” the judges said in the ruling.

The judges determined that the town’s “use of the funds will contribute to a complete record leading to an informed decision as to the appropriateness of the site and the facility.” The town was to use the funds “to determine whether a proposed facility is designed to be sited, constructed, and operated in compliance with applicable local laws and regulations,” the judges wrote.

“The process administered by ORES is clearly designed to maximize host community involvement,” Blass said at the podium yesterday. “Unfortunately, Riverhead must have forgotten they were the host community.”

Blass said the town’s application for intervenor funds identified the town supervisor’s office, town attorney’s office and the planning and building departments as town offices that would participate in the review process —— reviewing all documents, participating in meetings, including meetings with community members to explain the potential impacts of the project, and participating in hearings.

In addition to not participating in the May 11 public hearing or submitting written comments to ORES, the town also didn’t file a statement required by state regulations indicating whether the proposed facility would be sited, constructed and operated in compliance with applicable local laws and regulations, Blass said.

“The Town had no comments on the loss of ag lands, visual impact, noise, potential health concerns from electromagnetic fields, setbacks, wetland issues, loss of grasslands habitat, cumulative impacts from the other approved 300 acres of solar panels, local emergency response and preparedness, stormwater management and drainage, construction impacts including pile-driving, decommissioning and disposal of more than 100,000 solar panels and their supporting infrastructure, construction truck routes, increase in equipment and capacity of the substation, easements issues, etc, etc., all taking place in our town,” Blass continued. “Nope, we had no comments, no concerns.”

Furthermore, Blass said, the town board has not even discussed the substance of the application publicly.

“To my knowledge there has been no public discussion of this massive project covering 290 acres, no work session, no meetings with community or civic groups to provide information about the project, including the potential impacts, negative or positive,” said Blass, who is active in the Riverhead Neighborhood Preservation Coalition and the EPCAL Watch Coalition and a volunteer on the town’s environment committee.

Blass also questioned the status of community benefits to be provided to the host community by the energy company pursuant to state regulations as well as the permit issued to Riverhead Solar 2 by the applicant.

“Again, to date, there has been no public discussion or mention of community benefits or any outreach to the Calverton community for input,” Blass said. “More importantly, there is no correspondence in the record between the permittee and the town that negotiations have even commenced. There’s not even an expression of intent.”

She drew attention to an application exhibit (Ex. 27, “Socioeconomic impacts”) which identifies and analyzes impacts on the local economy, including tax revenues and construction/development jobs. In this document, Riverhead Solar 2 estimated payments in-lieu-of-taxes, known as PILOTs, to the school district, the Town of Riverhead and the County of Suffolk, pursuant to an anticipated 15-year PILOT agreement. The company would pay a total PILOT of $720,267 per year, accumulating up to just over $10.8 million over 15 years, according to the document.

In the same document, the applicant proposes in the document an additional one-time payment of $1.05 million under a host community agreement, to be allocated among four specific initiatives:

• agriculture and open space protection ($300,000)
• environmental improvement ($300,000)
• enhancement of community health and welfare ($300,000)
• advancement of education and employment ($150,000)

“All the figures quoted were from 2018,” Blass said, asking whether Riverhead Solar 2 was “basically duplicating” the host community agreement signed by the town with Riverhead Solar 1, a project of the same energy company, the Utah-based sPower (which has since merged with AES, a larger international energy company.) Riverhead Solar 2, she noted, is “a much larger project than Solar 1.”

Riverhead Solar 1 is a 20 MW solar electric generating facility in Calverton that was approved by the town in 2018. A host community agreement between Riverhead Solar 1 and the town was signed in 2019, under which Riverhead Solar 1 paid the town $1.05 million, divided among the same four categories as proposed in Ex. 27 of the Riverhead Solar 2 application.

“Because there was no response or comment from the town on those numbers, can the applicant claim you lost your opportunity to negotiate now? Although the permit was issued, is there a window of opportunity to commence negotiations and finalize an agreement before construction?” she asked.

Deputy Town Attorney Ann Marie Prudenti said the siting permit issued by ORES on June 25 provides the town the ability to negotiate both a host community agreement and a PILOT agreement.

“So I spoke to the town attorney and he agreed that I should have a crack at drafting the community benefit agreement. He would do the PILOT and easement. So I did yesterday deliver a first draft to the town attorney and the supervisor,” Prudenti said yesterday. She said she sent a second draft to them yesterday.

Prudenti said she believes the numbers in the Riverhead Solar 2 exhibit 27 were erroneous. “I thought they were — quote —  not accurate or adequate,” she told the board. She said she used different numbers in her draft of the agreement and the proposed PILOT payments calculated by Riverhead Solar 2 contained “deficiencies and delinquencies,” which Prudenti said she shared with Town Attorney Bob Kozakiewicz.

Kozakiewicz acknowledged during the meeting that he did not submit the written statement Blass brought up and that he did not make any comment during the public hearing in May.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said the Riverhead Solar 2 plan and community benefit agreement would be on the agenda for discussion at the town board’s next work session, which is scheduled for July 15.

“This is an issue, is very critical. I hear you,” Aguiar told Blass. “We have to make sure we secure the tax money for our taxpayers and — but I have to leave the legal component of it to to our to two attorneys. And I guess Ann Marie, presented something last night, she’ll send it to the board. And, yes, the PILOT program is very critical.”

Councilwoman Catherine Kent said “it’s shameful and shocking that as the host community, we weren’t weighing in with a project of this magnitude coming into our town.” The town should have had a role in the review, and I want to hear how that is possible,” she said. “It is stunning.”

Kent said she wanted to hear from Planning and Building Administrator Jefferson Murphree, but he was unavailable yesterday, Kozakiewicz told her.

“This is exactly the kind of thing we should be discussing at work session,” said Kent, who in an earlier discussion during yesterday’s meeting complained that work sessions were being canceled and the agendas were often light, despite numerous issues the board needs to deal with. Kent said many discussions are taking place in emails that should be held during public meetings.

“You know, Bob and I probably wish there was more of a definitive record on behalf of the town,” Prudenti said. “We’re both going to be extremely diligent.”

Riverhead Solar 2 first filed its application to the Department of Public Service’s Electrical Generation Siting Board under Article 10 of the Public Service Law, which required a much more extensive review. Riverhead Solar 2 began a pre-application process in October 2018. The Town of Riverhead filed numerous comments on a scoping statement filed by the applicant in that proceeding.

But Riverhead Solar’s Article 10 proceeding was never finished. Last March, the state enacted legislation establishing a new office tasked with fast-tracking renewable energy projects and just before the scheduled hearings before the Electrical Generation Siting Board in November, the applicant notified the state it intended to transfer the application to the new entity, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting. The transfer was done in January and the entire application file was moved over to a new docket under the jurisdiction of the new entity.