Hudson Falls (South Glens Falls)

I spend a lot of time going back and forth to Rutland, Vermont, and Glens Falls, New York, for services (especially medical), culture, etc. Like all rural Americans, I'm dependent on my car. At least I drive a Prius, so I feel slightly better about it. (The vast majority of rural Americans drive pickup trucks, according to my unscientific poll.)


On my way home from Glens Falls this morning, I passed the eponymous falls -- although depending on your source, they are called Hudson Falls, South Glens Falls, or just Glens Falls.

According to the website of the owner of the falls, they generate a little over 74 Gigowatt hours annually, enough to power about 6,000 "inhabitants." (I wonder if that means fewer homes?)


The owner of the facility is Boralex, a multinational corporation based in Canada. Unfortunately, Boralex is the company behind a planned solar array that would destroy one of the last and largest contiguous grassland habitats in the U.S., right here in my home county, known as the Fort Edward or Washington County Grasslands. I expect I'll post more about this with some photos soon. It is a stronghold of two declining bird species, Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) and Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius). 

I spent 20 years of my life working for the National Audubon Society, a leading bird protection nonprofit organization in America. One of my roles was to assist in designating "Important Bird Areas," or IBAs, an idea that originated in Europe. The Fort Edward Grasslands is one such IBA. The purpose of identifying these areas was to ensure their conservation in perpetuity. It would be terrible to lose a landscape as special as this, however important renewable energy is.



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