Citizens will have a chance to air their views on whether or not Milam County commissioners should grant tax abatements to another two projected solar farms in the county at a public hearing in the courthouse Monday.
At previous abatement hearings, speakers addressed concerns about perceived dangers to water sources that damaged panels might do.
At a hearing earlier this summer, a resident said he was concerned about cadmium leaching into the water system, while others were concerned that solar farms would negatively impact property values of those living near them. Still others disagreed with the term “solar farm” saying they were actually industrial complexes.
At the most recent county commissioners’ meeting, a host of speakers all with some kind of tie either to the solar industry or one of the two projects in question, addressed the concerns being bandied about over solar energy collection.
“When I watched the last meeting, I thought, you know I need to come and speak as someone who is educated on renewable energy and what it will bring to our community,” said Rebecca Johnson-Vasquez, who works in the renewable energy field. “It really frustrated me to see some of the misinformation that is out there.”
She mentioned leaching as a point of misinformation.
“One of them is these solar panels are going to leach stuff into our water, ground water, streams, wells. That is absolutely false,” she said. “There are two types of panels currently being made that are put into utility-scale projects. One is comprised of silicone which is an abundant element.
She said the other type has something in it that is contained in fertilizer that farmers use every day.
“There is nothing in these panels that is going to destroy our water,” she said. “There are currently many projects around the country and none are contaminating our water.”
She attributed the misinformation to politicizing the solar issue.
“It is unfortunate that the industry has become so political that we have sides based on politics where it shouldn’t be,” she said, adding that a good deal of the information on the internet is political propaganda.
“The reality of these projects is they are going to bring millions of dollars into our community,” she said.
Darron Kunkel, a Milam County property owner who plans to lease land to one of the solar projects, told commissioners why they should grant the abatements.
He explained a simple economic principal he learned when he was starting out as a veterinarian years ago.
“I know what it takes to make a living,” he said. “You gotta make more than you spend. So you either spend less or make more. This county can’t spend any less, it is going to keep spending more so we gotta make more.”
Solar power is the way to make more for the county and abatements are the way to attract investment, he said.
“When you get somebody in the door, you don’t take all their money. You don’t want to scare them off by taking all their money,” he said. “You need to kind of give them a little break. Let them get their feet on the ground so they will come back next year and give a little more and eventually, after a few years, they will give you the full amount of the money in taxes.”
The public hearing concerning abatements for Ben Milam Solar 5 and Two Rivers Solar will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
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