The Culpeper County planning commission has again rejected the proposed utility-scale Maroon Solar project, first denied in 2021. The project developers had reduced its size from 1,792 acres (970 acres of panels) to 1,879 acres (671 acres of panels).
In their discussions, planning commissioners raised significant concerns over the 149-MW project’s size and negative impacts to the community, as well as its impact on the environment, on stormwater management, and on erosion and sedimentation issues.
The project falls in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area, which continues to suffer from excess sedimentation from poor stormwater and erosion controls, according to the 2022 State of the Bay report. The proposal documentation filed by project developer Strata Solar acknowledges that the project area includes potential suitable habitat for several threatened and endangered species (see p 12) but noted that project employees had not observed threatened species such as the northern long-eared bat during their site visits. Strata Solar also estimates decommissioning costs at $9M, though their consultant notes that there is little hard data available to back this figure up. (See Culpeper County government website for the 11 Jan 2023 planning commission minutes and documents.)
Read more here:
Planning commission denies solar project recommendation (Culpeper Times, 12 Jan 2023)
In a double unanimous vote on Jan. 11, the Culpeper County Planning Commission denied a new conditional use permit application submitted by a previously denied solar project set for Stevensburg. (…) (Click here to read the full article.)