Sixty-eight species of fish, wildlife, and plants are listed as endangered or threatened in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
This is important because Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality is not tasked with protecting endangered species from utility-scale solar projects that are smaller than 150 MW, according to the Virginia Clean Economy Act.
Instead that responsibility rests with the solar company proposing the project.
The federal Endangered Species Act is clear on the need to protect endangered and threatened species. It’s important to make sure these requirements are being met in all large solar projects being proposed in your county.
Please check these lists of endangered and threatened species by county and by species.
The risk to endangered and threatened species of animals, birds, fish, and plants from large-scale solar projects is very real.
Consider: to construct a 1,000-acre solar project, for example, the vast majority of land in that project must first have every tree and bush removed, then be bulldozed to re-grade and level out the terrain, destroying the habitats of not just animals but smaller birds, insects, and wildlife that lived on that property.
This re-grading destroys the small streams and creeks that crisscrossed the land, raising the likelihood of flooding and erosion affecting neighboring properties and river basins, as has happened in every large-scale solar project in Virginia to date.
It’s worth considering the environmental impact and potential damage for any large, utility-scale solar project being proposed for Virginia’s counties before approving them.
- Find endangered species in your county
- Virginia’s endangered & threatened species
- Bald eagles and bald eagle nests
The APA Planning Advisory Service memo also pointed out the need to protect wildlife and wildlife corridors due to the large area disrupted by industrial-scale solar:
- While solar energy is a renewable, green resource, its generation is not without environmental impacts. Though utility-scale solar facilities do not generate the air or water pollution typical of other large-scale fossil fuel power production facilities, impacts on wildlife habitat and stormwater management can be significant due to the large scale of these uses and the resulting extent of land disturbance. The location of sites, the arrangement of panels within the site, and the ongoing management of the site are important in the mitigation of such impacts.
- In addition to mitigating the visual impact of utility-scale solar facilities, substantial buffers can act as wildlife corridors along project perimeters. The arrangement of panels within a project site is also important to maintain areas conducive to wildlife travel through the site. Existing trees, wetlands, or other vegetation that link open areas should be preserved as wildlife cover. Such sensitivity to the land’s environmental features also breaks up the panel bay groups and will make the eventual restoration of the land to its previous state that much easier and more effective. A perimeter fence is a barrier to wildlife movement, while fencing around but not in between solar panel bays creates open areas through which animals can continue to travel (Figure 6).
planning for utility-scale solar energy facilities, p 6
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