Resident warns county leaders about large-scale solar projects targeting Lyme and northern Jefferson County

Bill Kleftis, a Lyme resident and member of Concerned Citizens for Responsible Solar, told the Jefferson County Board of Legislators that two proposed utility-scale solar projects planned for the town of Lyme would take large amounts of prime agricultural land and could presage additional development across northern Jefferson County. "Riverside is a 100 megawatt project that consumes over thousand acres of prime agricultural land," he said during the public-comment portion of the Sept. meeting.

Kleftis said Riverside (described in his remarks as a roughly 100-megawatt project) was delayed by insufficient transmission capacity but has returned to active development after a commitment to a new substation on Coffeen Street. He said Limestone Solar (described in his remarks as a roughly 150-megawatt project) has been conducting surveys and due diligence for about a year and plans to begin a town application process in October.

Kleftis said the two projects together would total about 250 megawatts and "represent almost 2 times the amount of installed solar in the rest of Jefferson County, all 32 other towns combined," and he urged the board to press state siting authorities to curb large-scale projects in the county. He also said the state Office of Renewable Energy Siting — described in the meeting as having expanded authority under recent state law to include transmission-line siting — can now consider generation and transmission together in one proceeding, a change he said makes large projects easier to approve.

The remarks were delivered during the meeting's privilege-of-the-floor period; board members did not take a formal vote or issue a policy response during the session. Kleftis gave a website for his group, responsiblelimesolar.com, as a place for more information.

Why it matters: If projects of the size described proceed, they would convert significant areas of agricultural land to utility-scale energy infrastructure and could affect land use, farms and local planning processes. The speaker linked the projects to broader changes in New York State siting procedures that allow joint review of generation and transmission.

What happened next: No resolutions, reviews, or staff directives related to the Lyme projects were recorded during the meeting. The county legislature did not take formal action on solar siting during this session.