New York State Regulations Fall Short for Grassland Birds

Co-authored with the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, this opinion piece appeared in print in the Times Union on March 15, 2026.

As New York advances its transition to clean energy, we face another environmental emergency — the dramatic loss of grassland birds.

The 2025 “State of the Birds” report, produced by a coalition of scientific and conservation organizations, revealed that these birds are the fastest-declining species, with populations down more than 40% since 1970.

Habitat loss is at the center of this crisis, and now the crisis is hitting home in the 13,000-acre Washington County Grasslands.

Here, sweeping fields anchor a rare ecosystem that is one of the state’s last lifelines for vulnerable grassland birds, including the state-endangered short-eared owl and threatened northern harrier.

These species use the core of the Washington County Grasslands for winter and breeding habitat and are exceptionally sensitive to habitat fragmentation — even the addition of tall structures can render the surrounding habitat unusable. The scientific literature is clear on this point: Area-sensitive birds abandon or avoid fields when visual or structural disturbances break up the landscape.

Solar arrays, if poorly sited, have the potential to do exactly that.

Yet the proposed Fort Edward Solar Project places solar panel arrays around this sensitive habitat, threatening to directly eliminate more than 500 acres of occupied habitat and potentially displace vulnerable birds in the core of the grasslands. The proposed solar arrays would encircle the Washington County Grasslands Wildlife Management Area to the south, east and west, potentially displacing short-eared owls and northern harriers and forcing birds to cross over or near the arrays to reach the higher-quality habitat in the management area.

The project area is not simply good habitat; it is priority habitat repeatedly identified in conservation plans. It lies within the National Audubon Society’s Fort Edward Grasslands Important Bird Area and the state Department of Conservation’s Washington County Grasslands Grassland Bird Conservation Center. It is included in the New York State Open Space Plan, and it is a state-designated Wintering Raptor Concentration Area, among others. Few landscapes in New York carry this level of ecological significance.

Despite these designations, the Fort Edward Solar Project is required to follow only the state’s minimum mitigation requirements. The Office of Renewable Energy Siting’s formula requires that only 0.4 acres be conserved per acre of breeding habitat destroyed and 0.2 acres be conserved per acre of wintering habitat destroyed – meaning that their plan would preserve only 20% to 40% percent of the affected habitat for 30 years.

To put it mildly, that falls short for a site as important as the Washington County Grasslands.

In addition, a recent ruling on the proposed solar project denied party status to the Grassland Bird Trust, a conservation organization with extensive experience in managing grassland bird habitat in the Washington County Grasslands. Now Grassland Bird Trust has no standing to directly advocate for habitat protection and must ask for voluntary concessions from Boralex, the Quebec-based energy company slated to construct the facility.

The ruling directly discounts hundreds of public comments from community members, experts and Northeast-based conservation organizations, such as the National Audubon Society, the New York State Ornithological Association and multiple Audubon chapters.

Audubon strongly supports renewable energy development — but it must avoid, minimize and meaningfully mitigate impacts to birds and the environment. The Washington County Grasslands are irreplaceable, and if New York is to lead on climate and biodiversity, the state must ensure that renewable energy and wildlife conservation advance together — not in conflict. Protecting these grasslands protects the birds that define them and preserves a living legacy we cannot afford to lose.