Nottoway County is scrapping its solar energy ordinance and starting from scratch after residents voiced opposition to industrial-scale solar projects.
Here are a few excerpts from the article in the Courier-Record:
“First and foremost, the citizens don’t want it, and I work for them,” declared District Two Supervisor John Roark, whose motion to proceed with repealing passed, 5-0. “We must protect our prime wildlife areas and save our prime industrial sites for ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT — not solar.”
Officials have been increasingly concerned by stories of erosion and solar [project] fires in other Virginia counties.
Board Chair Lynn Shekleton cited troubling accounts in other counties of erosion, DEQ fines, heavy truck traffic damaging roads, and the fact that DEQ only recently amended its stormwater regulations to include water runoff from solar panels.
[Local resident Dicky] Ingram said the County needs to target and attract long-term, high-paying jobs, such as FASTC at Fort Pickett. “They’re good jobs, good-paying jobs, and they’re CLEAN jobs.”
Mrs. Scott said solar farms “will have a terrible impact on our land. Who owns these companies? Are they Chinese subsidiaries? Are they high political donors? When it comes to renewable companies, you must follow the money… What is in these panels? I think we’re all being extremely naive to think that it will not impact our soil, our rivers…
One of the newest voices publicly opposing industrial solar farms was Peggy Figlar, President of the Nottoway County Historical Society. She said there are many historical sites and graves within a 700-acre area — six miles SW of the courthouse — eyed for 400,000 solar panels by Northern Virginia based Solunesco. “I’m very concerned that our association wasn’t contacted… this ordinance needs to be revisited to include historically-significant sites and cemeteries.”
Read the full article here.