In one of the final steps before an approval of the Panoche
Valley Solar Farm, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors will
review and hold a public hearing Tuesday on the project’s
”
Final Environmental Impact Report
”
and its proposed Williamson Act contract cancellations.
In one of the final steps before an approval of the Panoche Valley Solar Farm, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors will review and hold a public hearing Tuesday on the project’s “Final Environmental Impact Report” and its proposed Williamson Act contract cancellations.
An approval of both the EIR and the Williamson Act cancellations would send the project on a fast track to be approved by the county before the end of the year. The county’s planning commission did not recommend the cancellation of the Williamson Act contracts earlier this year.
If the contracts are not cancelled the project can’t move forward.
Solargen’s proposed project is a 420-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant that would be installed over 4,885 acres in the Panoche Valley, according to the final EIR. As currently planned the proposed project, estimated to cost $1.2 billion, would have three to four million solar arrays and would be built in five stages.
Concepts from the draft EIR in late June remain largely intact but the final EIR focuses on a few major changes from the earlier document.
A major element to the final EIR is Solargen’s proposal to revise the current project layout to “further reduce the significant impacts of the project,” according to the EIR. The “Alternative A” revised document would avoid the habitats for the largest populations of the giant kangaroo rat and the blunt-nosed leopard lizard.
The changes would reduce the impacts on the giant kangaroo rat, blunt-nosed leopard lizard and San Joaquin kit fox to less than significant, according to the EIR.
The revised plan would remove panels from the southern and southeastern site layout, according to the document. The revised plan would also put a biological easement on 1,683 acres of the project. Panel height would also be cut in half to 12.5 feet and the total megawatts would be reduced to 399.
The changes are a 34 percent reduction of the original plan.
Another change from the previous document was an additional 10.899 acres north of the site that would be set aside for conservation lands within the valley. The land would help mitigate some of the biological issues that the original document presented.
Despite the new conservation lands, the project, as presented, would still present impacts that cannot be mitigated and would be considered significant, according to the EIR.
But if the new conservation lands were a part of the “Revised Alternative A,” the project’s impact would be “considered to be less than significant for all direct and indirect impacts to biological resources,” according to the document.
The public hearing will start at 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to the board of supervisor’s agenda.
Look for more, including Solargen’s perspective on the EIR, in the Pinnacle on Friday.
