Milam County commissioners voted to create reinvestment zones and to adopt tax abatements for four proposed solar energy projects around the county Monday after a public hearing on the matter in the county courthouse.
The votes came after the hearing where three people expressed views in opposition to the solar energy producing plants and Commissioner Henry Hubnik moved to have the issue tabled, but the motion died for lack of a second.
Matt Goodson who said he works in the engineering field but also farms and ranches in the county said he wants more discussion on the negative impact of solar farms.
“I am very concerned about the quality of water coming through the solar farms,” he said.
He showed a slide of hail damage to a solar farm and mentioned he was worried about cadmium leeching. Cadmium is a toxic chemical used in solar panels.
“That is definitely something to take into consideration as far as what is going to be in our water,” Goodson said.
He also said the solar-producing plants are an eyesore.
“I’m not really excited about an industrial complex across the road,” he said.
He wonder what solar farms would do to property values noting that he and his wife have their lives invested in the property they own in the northeast section of the county.
Sherry Brantly, a property owner near where one of the solar plants would be built in the Milano area, also was worried about water quality.
She said the solar farms were not farms at all, but industrial solar plants.
“The runoff is toxic from the panels, which are made in China by the way. The runoff will go straight to my tanks from the property that is next to us. It all goes straight into our tanks and that is where we fish and we eat those fish,” she said.
“I just challenge y’all to look into the cons on the decision and not just the dollar signs that will come with it,” she said.
The third speaker also said he was concerned about the solar farms’ impact on the environment and that he was opposed to granting the abatements.
Representatives of two of the solar projects addressed the concerns mentioned by the speakers against granting the abatements.
Natacha Kiler with the Thunderbird group agreed that the panels could be damaged but the results were not as severe as the previous speakers feared.
“In severe hailstorms there can be some breakage,” she said. “I have seen breakage, but it is not like an oil spill. I don’t know of any toxic leakage.”
Toxic leakage is not a thing, she said.
She also said that native grasses are planted around the solar panels to absorb the rainfall so that the water flow is not really changed.
William Coats of the Milano project also addressed the earlier leakage comments.
“I can say there is no evidence of leeching or toxic chemicals,” Coats said. “You can research anything and find an answer if you are looking for that answer, but there is no evidence of that happening.”
He also addressed the eyesore comments saying that the entire county is not going to be covered in solar panels or greatly diminish the rural character of the county.
“It is not going to industrialize the property,” he said.
He noted that the closing of the Alcoa plant and the Sandow coal operation hit the county hard economically, but left strong power transmission substations which the solar industry can utilize.
This in my mind is a very good opportunity for Milam County,” Coats said.
“I am very much aware of your concerns,” Milam County Judge Steve Young said. “What we are left with is whether or not to give these folks an abatement. Our decision is for the good of the whole of the county.”
That is when Hubnik spoke saying he had received calls in opposition to granting the abatements and wanted to table the issue to hear more about the impact of the proposed solar farms.
But the two other commissioners present, Donald Shuffield and Jeff Muegge, both mentioned they had been learning about the solar industry in past presentations and it was time to settle the abatement matter. They noted that granting the abatements would give the county more say in the development of the projects should they become a reality
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.