BY JEFF CHUDZINSKI
North Country This Week

MASSENA — A proposed solar project in the towns of Brasher, Massena and Norfolk may have hit a snag after a New York State Article 10 approval hearing scheduled for June 30 was postponed.

State officials say the request came from North Side Energy Center, the subsidiary of NextEra Energy. No reason was given for the postponement.

“The meeting of the New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, scheduled for Thursday, June 30, 2022, regarding the application of NorthSide Energy Center, LLC for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need pursuant to Article 10 of the Public Service Law for construction and operation of a solar electric generating facility located in the towns of Brasher, Massena, and Norfolk, St. Lawrence County, is postponed. A notice rescheduling the meeting will be issued in due course,” state officials said in a release.

The proposed project would encompass 961 acres in total, which includes land purchased by NextEra and leased from private individuals.

Previous reports suggested that the project would be 100% within the Massena Central School district and would be distributed amongst the towns, with 70% in Brasher, 20% in Massena and 10% in Norfolk.

New information from NextEra now suggests 90% of the project will be in Brasher, though clarification of the distribution among school districts was not listed.

The project, which was proposed back in 2020, was expected to begin construction later this year and continuing into early 2023.

State officials, including the DEC, have been critical of the project at times, including what impact it would really have on the local economy and environment.

NextEra officials previously said the project would place limited demands on local infrastructure, with roads being repaired or even upgraded during a Massena School Board of Education meeting in Sept. 2021.

NextEra representative Kris Scornavacca also told the board, “These jobs would be 200 full-time equivalent jobs, not part-time jobs that are equivalent to 200 full-time jobs,” when asked about the jobs being created.

Public relations officials with NextEra sought to correct the comment, saying the 200 jobs created during the construction phase would in fact be full-time jobs. The construction phase is expected to last 12-14 months at most.

Local officials also raised concerns over a proposal for an extended payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, for the project through the county IDA.

NextEra has sought a 15 year PILOT, which according to Patrick Kelly, director of the IDA, is outside the scope of most proposals but is not entirely irregular.

After the PILOT finishes, the project would be taxed based on a new assessment, Kelly said at the time.

DEC officials also testified in November that the project scope and potential environmental impact assessment from NextEra undersold the amount of impacted wetlands.

According to the DEC, 607 acres of the 961 designated for the project would be impacted wetlands or contiguous wetlands. NextEra identified 151 acres in their assessment.

In the testimony, DEC officials were asked, “Has the applicant demonstrated that impacts to all protected wetlands and adjacent areas cannot be avoided or minimized?”

“No, they have not done that,” DEC officials said.

“In the event that the impact to the protected wetlands are satisfactory and it’s shown to be unavoidable and appropriately minimized, has the applicant demonstrated that these impact will be fully mitigated,” state officials asked.

“No, they have not done that either,” DEC officials replied again.

Officials from NextEra had the opportunity to correct the issues pointed out by the DEC in November, to rebut the claims or to simply take no action and wait for the siting board to make a decision on the DEC’s recommendations during the Article 10 hearing, according to DEC officials.

Concerns that arose during the course of the application process were also targeted by NextEra as being “unreasonably burdensome”, including regulations surrounding the width of access roads for the project, setbacks from property lines, the decommissioning bond required by the county, as well as abandonment and removal requirements set forth by county and municipal officials.

Many of the regulations in question were local land use and code regulations that had been long established, according to county officials.

The Article 10 hearing for NextEra will be rescheduled for a later date, though state officials did not say when specifically in their press release.