“Representatives of Cypress Creek Renewables say they do not expect the drainage problem at a solar array site in the town of Kingston to happen at the site of the Landau Solar project, planned for the slopes above Eddyville, overlooking the Rondout Creek.
At an Ulster Town Board public hearing on Monday, company representatives said they are confident in their 400-page stormwater plan, which includes incorporating retention ponds already on the site.
“We’re maintaining the same drainage patterns as [the site] had previously,” project engineer Richard Dos Santos said. “Any sort of discharge that used to go through that site is going to continue to go through that site.”
The Landau Solar proposal calls for a 6-megawatt system comprising two installations on 64 acres. The site is on sections of three parcels owned by Eddyville Corp. that total 330 acres between state Route 32 and state Route 213/Mountain Road, according to Ulster County records.
Cypress Creek Renewables and Bluestone Solar last year constructed a 2-megawatt system on 13 acres of a 49-acre property off Hallihan Hill Road in the town of Kingston. Neighbors of the project have complained the site plan did not properly address stormwater drainage problems that they attribute to changes in runoff flows due to the clearing of trees.
Project consultant Michael Fishman said tree-clearing on the the Landau site would include about 30 acres of “mature forest” and 20 acres of “young growth” trees.
Immediately below the Landau site is an area of state Route 213 where runoff from the overlook ordinarily goes into a swamp immediately adjacent to the former Buck’s Junkyard, where the state Department of Environmental Conservation previously found vehicles were leaking fluids. The Landau Solar developers said they do not have a contingency plan for dealing with runoff that would go onto the Buck’s property but voiced confidence in their existing proposal.
Fishman said the difference between the town of Kingston and town of Ulster sites is there is runoff from higher elevations at the Kingston site, while the Ulster site is at the highest level and does not receive water from any above properties.”
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Kemble, William. Daily Freeman 20 November 2018.