RECAP: 29Palms Solar Project Meetings
RECAP: 29Palms Solar Project Meetings
Barbs thrown at last week's neighborhood and scoping meetings
Two meetings were held last week on a proposed 241-acre solar project located north of Two-Mile Road near the Sugar Bowl and west of the Harmony Acres neighborhood. The first was held on March 20 by E-Group PS, the solar project developer, to let immediate neighbors know about the project. The second was a scoping meeting gathering public comment for an Environmental Impact Report held by the City of Twentynine Palms.
YOUR VOICE MATTERS
Comments are due on March 29 for a draft Environmental Impact Report that the City is preparing. Send your comments to Community Development Director Keith Gardner, kgardner@29palms.org
The City, with Terra Nova Planning & Research, conducted an initial study that determined the solar project could have on significant impacts on local
aesthetics (visual character and glare),
air quality & greenhouse gases (increased residential density),
biological resources,
geology & soils (erosion),
cultural resources & tribal cultural resources, and
land use (conflict with the General Plan).
Commenting on these and other issues of concern to you at this early stage can have an important impact on the outcome of this project. You will have other opportunities as the development process continues.
“ESTEEMED HOMEOWNERS & LANDOWNERS” MEETING, MARCH 20
In a sometimes contentious but mostly civil meeting, Robert Smith, counsel with the K&L Gates law firm, presented the 29Palms Solar Project to homeowners and landowners in the area surrounding the facility. Smith began with the parameters of the solar facility, which we covered in our overview.
Visibility and grading. Smith noted that one of the main concerns from earlier conversations with the community in City Council meetings was visibility from neighborhoods. He pointed out that E-Group PS, the developer, has located the solar field downslope in the northern part of the acreage so that it is less visible from Two Mile Road and nearby properties.
Meeting attendees—including Planning Commission Chair Jim Krushat, who lives nearby—raised the point that the land in this area is, as Krushat put it, “convoluted terrain,” and isn’t flat. Smith acknowledged that some grading would be needed to accommodate the solar facility’s 760 arrays. He said that there wasn’t a final grading plan yet, but, when pushed, said about 40% of the solar site north of Samarkand Road would be graded. Krushat was clear he was there as a resident and not as a member of the Planning Commission.
Smith claimed that vegetation would be much less disrupted than in some solar farms because the panels don’t rotate and move with the sun. E-Group also plans to plant “native plants and palm trees” along the perimeter to mask the panels from the road. This prospect drew some heat from the 40 or so attendees, who said that native plants grow slowly and need water to get established and that palm trees aren’t local vegetation and would not thrive without water and care.
City benefits and jobs. Smith said there would be enough power for all the homes in Twentynine Palms although energy would go to the Southern California Edison grid and not directly to the City. The City could form its own power company and provide electricity to residents. (An example of this would be the city of Lancaster in the Antelope Valley and its Lancaster Choice Energy.) “It's certainly something that we'd be willing to support,” Smith said. “But at the end of the day, it's the city's decision.” He also said that there was a benefit package for the City:
“We're still in negotiations with the City as to what that community package will look like. It's going to include a local solar fee, which is going to go into directly into the General Fund to fund whatever projects City Council and Planning Commission determine are appropriate….we also proposed to provide free local solar generation at places in the City where it's appropriate, so we suggested things like schools, public buildings, places with affordable housing, we'd be happy to install those free of charge.”
Smith and E-Group have claimed the solar facility would bring up to 300 jobs, which he admitted would be over the 35-year lifespan of the facility — 200 jobs are construction that would end in a year, 100 jobs Would be over the life of the facility “It’s not a lot of jobs,” he said, and virtually none would be needed once construction was completed beyond landscaping maintenance and remote security. Robots would clean the panels with water trucked in from elsewhere after “wind events” and as needed.
Credibility of E-Group. Meeting participants questioned E-Group’s track record of building solar facilities in the United States and in the California desert in particular. Smith said, “They're based out of Europe, although they have a number of partner projects they've done in the United States. They're hoping that this is their first in California, but hopefully not their last.”
E-Group rep Peter Bobro said they have ongoing projects in Oregon, North Carolina, and New York State and many in Europe. He provided the company’s website, from which we learn that the company was founded in Slovakia and is listed on the Czech stock exchange; it appears to be an investment firm more than an engineering company. The website lists projects in Slovakia, Finland, Romania, and the Czech Republic, and “it sees potential in the booming Asian tiger economies.”
Desert tortoises. Neighbors sometimes see desert tortoises on their walks through the area. Smith acknowledged that tortoises had been seen on the site and said that “we have proposed a desert tortoise relocation plan that will coordinate with the California Department of Fish & Wildlife to make sure that they are relocated to appropriate habitat.”1
Why Twentynine Palms? Why this property? “Before we even submitted an application,” Smith said, “a group looked around Twentynine Palms for about two years for appropriate sites.” These two parcels were chosen because “every mile to interconnection costs $7 million. And so why this site attractive in the first place, because you're going down half a mile and private lands, and you're going half a mile to the Carodean substation, so it's very close to the point where you're going to plug into the grid.”
Attendees asked, why Twentynine Palms when the city has a moratorium against developing solar facilities? Pat Flanagan claimed that this was based on the negative effects such as large amounts of dust generated by the Highland 1 station when it was constructed in the early 2010s. Smith did not address this question but did bring up California State Senate AB 330—that any decrease in residential zoning has to be offset by an increase in zoning elsewhere in the City. Because the parcels where the facility will be located are zoned Rural Lands 5 (RL5) with Single-Family Residential Estate (RSE) zoning south of the site.
“So what we're doing is there'll be a new zone called the renewable energy zone, which will be where the solar panels are. The southern portion of the site will be zoned as single family residential. But to be clear, there's no residential development proposed for this project.”
This will lead to a rezoning of the west side of Twentynine Palms, especially if the Yonder/Ofland project gets its conditional use permit and rezones 151 acres in Indian Cove.
Timeframe. If the project receives approval from the City Council and the area is rezoned, construction will begin in 2025 and the facility will become operational in 2026. Smith was asked what happens if the City rejects the proposal? Russell Kohn said, “After all, it doesn’t allow solar farms, and it seemed that the letter that R&L Gates sent was a ‘bully letter’ that said it would bypass the City and go straight to the state of California.”
Smith responded:
What we said the City was that there is a separate state process that was enacted by the state legislature that would allow us to circumvent city approval because the state of California decided that they need to develop more solar. While we're here today, why we presented at the City Council last year, while we've been in this community for four years, is we don't want to do that process. We want to be an invested neighbor. There's tons of solar developers that are currently working with the California Energy Commission to go around their cities. We are not that developer.”
Whether this stated intent still holds as the process hits its benchmarks remains to be seen.
Desert Trumpet subscriptions are always free—but thanks to our paid subscribers, we’ve met 86% of our quarterly $2,400 fundraising goal! We need to raise $370 by March 31 to stay on track and fund our upcoming City Council election coverage as well our in-depth coverage of the planned solar farm. Won’t you consider upgrading to a paid subscription or donating $100 or more through Paypal?
MARCH 21 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT SCOPING MEETING
Keith Gardner, Community Development Director, and Nicole Criste of Terra Nova Planning and Research presented an overview of the 29Palms Solar Project and the steps involved in submitting an Environmental Impact Report.
Criste also noted the zoning change needed and the conditional use permit that would be required for the facility to go forward. She said,
“Because of state law that requires that the city maintain its housing capacity, the project itself then includes a general plan amendment and a zone change to add a zone to the city zoning code to allow for energy uses for solar.”
She briefly ran through the impacts on aesthetics (visual character and glare), air quality & greenhouse gases (increased residential density), biological resources, geology & soils (erosion), cultural resources & tribal cultural resources, and land use (conflict with the General Plan). She then opened the floor to comments from the 40 or so meeting attendees.
Aesthetic. Several audience members spoke on their emotional connection to the land and the beauty that will be lost to the solar farm. Richard Gray said that “I’ve been on six different projects that we’ve managed to stop. They promise the good that will come to our community that never seems to trickle down.” Peter Lang said walking down Samarkand, “the beauty really hits you.” He cited the City code that prohibits solar developments and brought photographs of the vista and some of the desert tortoises residents have encountered.
Air quality. Property owner Kurt Keppeler expressed concerns about the sand and dust that would blow from the solar facility, as did Beth Sheffield and Pat Flanagan. She also raised concerns about the carbon sequestration and mycorrhizal networks lost when creosote and other native plants are scraped off the land.
Land use. Cindy Bernard (Desert Trumpet editor-in-chief) pointed out a potential conflict of interest with Crist and Terra Nova working on environmental reports for the City on the solar project and for the Ofland resort, which is proposed just to the south of the solar farm. Would the City also need a residential offset if land zoned residential becomes the Ofland resort? She also asked if the developer would go to the State didn’t approve the project. Robert Smith of K&L Gates addressed this by saying the developer would prefer not to take that route and would try to work with the City as much as possible.
Biological resources. Mary Kay Sherry asked about water usage and spoke about the desert tortoises she has encountered, as did another speaker, who described the wildlife she has encountered riding her horse through the area.
Climate. Jonathan Hume (Desert Trumpet writer) said he might be the only person speaking in support of the solar facility. He said that electricity has magically appeared and he has never had to think about where it comes from. And he understands why people might not want to have a solar farm next door. “But we're coming into an era where era where we no longer can't afford to make those trade-offs and have things just be invisible. They're essential to continue our way of life and to reduce global warming.”
Other speakers suggested alternate locations for the solar facility and said how unsuitable this one is.
Nicole Criste and Keith Gardner closed the meeting asking for written comments and thanked attendees for taking the time to come to the meeting.
We’ll note that desert tortoise relocation is not very successful: see this research project, “Study shows relocated desert tortoises reproduce at lower rate.” Desert tortoise numbers are plummeting: As reported in an LA Times article, 2018 study estimated that there were 124,050 fewer adult tortoises within their historic range in 2014 than the 336,393 tortoises present in 2004.
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First the Lear solar project, then the Morongo Road/Indian Road solar project, now this mind-bending -- massive acreage -- proposed solar farm... .The genie out of the bottle and the lid to pandora's box is cracked open. These projects need to be moved outside of desert cities. Foreign and domestic corporations we'll fight tooth and nail. That's because of the additional costs for corporations, the downside to. shareholder's dividends and And the encroachment upon executive's massive bonuses.