Concord Board hosts special meeting on RIC Solar Project
SPRINGVILLE – The Town of Concord held a special meeting on May 19 to discuss the “Final Scoping Document” for the proposed RIC Solar Project on Springville-Boston Road. Town officials were present, as well as Brian Attea (Attorney for the Town), Caleb Henning (MDA Consulting Engineers), Peter Sorgi (Attorney for the Project Applicant) and James Taravella (Representative of RIC Energy). The Final Scoping Document is posted on the town’s website (www.townofconcordny.com) under the “Legal Notices” tab.
In January 2025, the town passed a “positive declaration” regarding the proposed solar project. A positive declaration is a finding that the project will likely have an adverse environmental impact and that these impacts need to be mitigated.
During the May 19 special meeting, Sorgi – representing RIC – expressed his displeasure. During a discussion about grading and significant amounts (about 2,000 cubic yards) of topsoil being cut from the site, the question arose about the plan for this topsoil. Officials noted that the topsoil needs to remain on-site and wanted to know if it would be stockpiled. Taravella said it would be used in the cut fill analysis, to which Henning responded that the cut fill analysis was incomplete. When Attea commented that there is ambiguity in the scoping plan, Sorgi stated that there was “zero ambiguity.”
Attea asked Sorgi why he always must be “so adversarial” when asked to provide more detail. To this, Sorgi replied that the adversity started when the town passed a positive declaration and accused the town of doing so for reasons that were “ludicrous.” Attea then interrupted Sorgi and stated the meeting would be moving forward on its original purpose and advised Henning to continue reviewing the scoping document.
Sorgi accused town officials of making up things as they go, stating that there is nothing in the town’s code or in state law that requires a developer to provide studies about soil compaction or require soil borings and that it would be “a big expense and a lot more time.” The same accusation was made again by Sorgi when discussion of decommissioning costs and the need to consider including the cost of decompaction of the soil came up. Sorgi asked, “What is the baseline? Soil that has never been walked upon? Soil that has been trafficked by farm equipment? The applicant can’t go from A to B without knowing A. Just making stuff up here, there’s a town code. Making up more fees to review this stuff so sure, doesn’t make any sense.”
At the conclusion of the review, the town passed a motion approving changes recommended by Attea to the Final Scoping Document.
The Town Board of Concord is considering passing Local Law 3-2025 which, if approved, would extend the existing moratorium on solar system energy facilities in the town for one year. A public hearing on Local Law 3-2025 is scheduled for Thursday, June 12 at 6:45 p.m. at the Concord Town Hall, 86 Franklin St., Springville. Another public hearing will be held on the same date at 6:30 p.m. to hear public comments on Local Law 2-2025 to extend a moratorium on battery energy storage systems for one year.