Trent Clark 🧢

A third generation farmer from Herkimer County, New York reached out to me last week to walk me through the experience of a wind corporation poaching their land for an incoming industrial complex. The corporation approached him a few years ago to get them to sign on to an ORES (Office of Renewable Energy Siting) wind monstrosity. The contract he was given was over 27-pages. He told me, from a first glance, it was easy to see it was an incredibly one-sided contract that enraged him with each new page he read. He said the salesman offered them (roughly) $46,000/per windmill they hosted on their farmland. At his doorstep, the salesman told him his land could easily hold 3 of these windmills, bringing their earnings to over $138,000. This farmer told me they have some of richest farmable soil in the county. The farmer told me he can see why people signed. The salesmen were convincing and aggressive. Right there at his doorstep, the contract showed a $1,000 sign-on bonus if he signed right then and there. The wind salesman took his pen and added an extra 0, bringing the sign-on bonus to $10,000. He tried to convince the farmer it was a "one-time special deal." This farmer wasn't falling for it. If he had taken the bonus and signed, the contract never specified how many turbines he'd be getting. Sure, the salesman promised 3, but the contract told a different story. The salesman said to him, "After you sign, our engineers will decide how many windmills you will get." Well guess what? Many who signed didn't get windmills at all. They got transmission lines and roadways for a fraction of the money promised. They got destroyed land, poisoned soils, and viewsheds that will never be the same again. And for those who did sign and regret it, you won't hear from them. They are under a gag order. For those who didn't sign, like this courageous third generation farmer, he has been approached to sign a "Good Neighbor Agreement." The companies try to pay neighboring properties to stay silent on the incoming environmental, agricultural, and health defects that are documented at every single complex. This man said NO to all of it. I commend him and every American farmer out there who is standing their ground while foreign renewable corporations, under the orders of @GovKathyHochul, try to lock up every last inch of prime farmland soil into 40+ year contracts, never to be farmed again. New York's current government despises farmers, third-generation farming families, agricultural communities, and rural New Yorkers.