Bill Newcomb lives on an acre of land in Columbia County that’s been in his family since his childhood in the 1940s.

“I always say, when I was a kid, I used to run around here, but now I limp,” Newcomb joked. “I lived in other areas. I was in the service, but it’s nice to come back. This is home, this is where I grew up.”

The property in the Town of Copake is across the street from a plot of farmland that’s sat mostly unused in recent years.

“You’ve got four seasons of anything you want. You can see the birds,” Newcomb said. “In the springtime, on those trees, the first thing you see is the red-winged blackbird calling for its mate.”

Newcomb now fears his own slice of nature is at risk as the farmland is one portion of a proposed 250-acre solar project in the town.

“To say I don’t like it is an understatement,” Newcomb said.

On a recent morning in early April, Newcomb was visited by fellow Columbia County resident Darin Johnson at his home. Johnson is the co-founder of Sensible Solar for Rural New York. The two-men say they’re in agreement about the project.

While they support expanding solar and other forms of renewable energy, they believe the so-called Shepherd’s Run proposal is too large for Copake.

“There’s no reason for something to be here like that,” Newcomb said. “They’ve given no rhyme or reason for it.”

“I think that’s our concern, that this project is going to transform an area that’s agriculture and tourism-centric,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Sensible Solar’s supporters believe installing the solar panels will tarnish some of the region’s natural beauty and negatively impact wildlife, agriculture, tourism and neighbors' property values.

“Based on a University of Texas study that was done independently, we used their formula and put in the homes here, and folks stand to lose $18 million in property values,” Johnson said.

Not everyone in Copake shares those concerns.

Dan Haas and Juan-Pablo Velez are co-founders of Friends of Columbia Solar, which supports the proposal.

“Our feeling is we need to take action and we need to take it now, and this will be a real positive for the town,” said Haas, who moved to Copake more than 30 years ago.

Members of the newly formed group believe the 65-megawatt project, which developers say is enough to power two-thirds of the county, is essential to help reverse climate change.

“We agree with everyone that climate change is an existential crisis,” Haas said.

“We’ve got to think about future generations and our state and our country as a whole. We can’t just think about what is in our own backyard, even though what’s in our backyard is going to help our town a lot,” Velez said. “It will help us cut taxes and will be able to cut people‘s electric bills.”

In 2017, after an unrelated solar farm was built, the Copake Town Board passed a moratorium on projects larger than 10 acres.

Supervisor Jeanne Mettler, who was a board member at the time, believes that should have been enough to prevent the current proposal from moving forward as is, but she says the Chicago-based developer, Hecate Energy, is ignoring local constituents’ wishes by taking its application directly to the state.

“Hecate Energy is proposing a project that is way over our limitations,” Mettler said. “We would like Hecate to come to us proposing a solution that all of us can live with.”

Alex Campbell, Hecate’s project developer, says the company is simply following the state’s approval process.

“We are following all of the applicable rules, regulations and laws of New York State,” Campbell said during a visit to a local farm that is part of the proposal. “New York State looks at all of the local laws and determines how the project should adhere to them.”

Campbell says a 50 percent reduction from the original proposal is proof the company has been listening to the concerns of the residents he’s been meeting with.

“I look at it as more of a long-term perspective of, what will the scenery look like in the future if climate change has its way?” Campbell said.

An online petition opposing the project has received more than 35,000 signatures ahead of the next public meeting later this month. Supporters and opponents both believe public opinion will ultimately side with them.

“What will have a bigger impact on agriculture and tourism, et cetera, this solar farm on less than 1% of the town property, or climate change?” Haas said.

“This is a terrible thing to happen,” Newcomb said. “We cannot take this lying down. Get up, stand up and let’s fight and fight it hard.”

Ultimately, the decision to move forward with the project rests with the State of New York. Two virtual town halls to discuss the proposal are scheduled for April 28.

More information about the meetings can be found on Hecate’s website.