A proposed solar farm is causing controversy in one northern Michigan town. Droves of people filled out a packed hotel convention room in Cheboygan to oppose a large-scale renewable energy project known as the Northern Waters Solar Park at a tense public meeting Wednesday evening.
The project from company EDP Renewables North America is proposing a 110-megawatt solar energy installation in nearby Grant Township. The company says it will create construction jobs, and power over 30,000 homes. The installation would be 810 acres and last for 35 years.
“The project will generate more than $24 million in revenue to local communities and departments in support of vital community services,” a representative for EDP said prior to the meeting.
Many people in the area oppose the project, which is set to be built on an old private farm. Earlier this year, a circuit court judge revoked a local permit for the solar park after a local coalition filed a lawsuit. EDP is appealing that ruling.
Residents say the solar farm will hurt the local ecology, with dozens of people raising concerns about local waterways.
Sherry Long lives on a farm near the proposed site. She was a part of the lawsuit against the park.
"I'm really worried about you contaminating the water and killing the animals in our wells and everything else,” she said in an impassioned comment. “I just think this is out of context it should not be in an ag [agriculture] area at all."
Similarly, Jim Coleman said he was worried about waterways in the county being impacted by runoff from the panels, as well as impact to local wildlife.
"I'm not against solar energy,” he began his public comment. “Industrial level solar belongs in an industrial zone district, not on farmland, and not in a lake and streams protected district.”
Nearly all of the public comments were followed by cheers and applause from the crowd.
But the meeting got testy between members of the public and EDP officials. At times, EDP’s representatives were jeered by the crowd.
“If I hear any more swearing, middle fingers, shut ups, anything like that, it'll just end and that'll be the end of the record that the MPSC [Michigan Public Service Commission] has from the community tonight,” Michael Vogt of the law firm Dickinson Wright, who represent EDP, said after a back-and-forth with audience members after Coleman spoke.
“I appreciate you giving me the finger, it’s very productive,” Vogt said.
The meeting was a part of a process to seek approval for the project through the MPSC, the state agency that regulates utilities. All of the public comments will be sent to the MPSC as part of a state regulating process.
Michigan law gives state regulators the power to issue permits for large-scale renewable power projects even if local governments deny permits. A public meeting is a requirement.
At the meeting, representatives from EDP took notes, and responded to concerns.
“There are no materials in the solar panels that EDP uses that present hazardous impacts to human health,” said Ali Stano, one of the company’s representatives.
She referred to research done by the panel’s manufacturers on how they would handle adverse weather.
“What they found is that under these extremely, extremely harsh conditions, there have been no harmful or toxic levels confirmed that would be released by the panels.”
According to Vogt, the company also indicated it would return the land back to “similar condition” after the project was decommissioned and that they would post a bond that would be binding even if the company went under.
“The security that's there both financially and for the county so that the taxpayers… the leaders of your community are never left holding a bag in a project that they have to decommission,” Vogt said.
