Clearing Forests for a Solar Factory Doesn’t Make Sense
By Skip Connett
Students of local history know how Bastrop County values and depends on its wealth of trees. Over-harvesting in its early days and recent wildfires are painful reminders of human encroachment on this treasured resource. Unfortunately, our school system leaders haven’t taken this lesson to heart.
Last month, Elgin ISD approved a tax abatement application for a 2,100-acre solar energy factory sited on one of the most densely-forested tracts in the school district. Solar Proponent LLC’s rushed application is one of six other similar solar projects the newly formed Austin company has put before school boards across Texas before the tax-abatement program ends in December. The Elgin ISD decision was unanimous and made without public input.
As a Bastrop farmer and founder of Friends of the Land, an organization dedicated to supporting sustainable farming and the environment, I need to speak for the trees. Hundreds of our farm’s cedar elm and hackberry trees died a slow death in the 2011 drought. I was one of the county's more fortunate landowners. Others lost homes and entire ranches to the most destructive wildfire in Texas history. Earlier this year, a costly miscalculation turned a controlled burn into a deja vu nightmare. More than 700 acres of woods and pasture were consumed before the blaze was contained. Cutting down trees in these endless days of record heat and worsening drought doesn’t make sense. This county has thousands of acres of flat, cleared land outside flood-prone watersheds that meets the industry’s need to be close to transmission lines.
While I am a firm believer in renewable energy, property owners should have the opportunity to ask basic questions and offer input on this new industry before it becomes their neighbor, including:
How many residents will be impacted by this project and what are the long-term environmental consequences for both people and wildlife depending on those trees?
What commitments will Solar Proponent make for buffers, erosion control, and vegetation management? Other states, for example, have statutes to encourage companies to "provide native perennial vegetation and foraging habitat beneficial to gamebirds, songbirds, and pollinators, and reduce storm water runoff and erosion.”
How will several years of 18-wheelers and heavy construction equipment on narrow Old Sayers Road — one lane in several spots — not disrupt traffic flow and create safety hazards for school buses?
This rolling thicket of hardwoods and evergreens near historic Sayersville is a success story of how nature, when left alone, will eventually undo our endless attempts to bare and level the landscape. Worn-out, eroded cotton fields are now thick with post oaks, pecan, and cedar elm that have been sequestering carbon for more than a century. In a county that continues to lose trees to the stresses of drought, disease, and unchecked development, clearcutting a forest to build a factory to harvest the sun is no one’s model for green energy or smart growth.
If you care for our preserving our forests, please join me in speaking for the trees. The Elgin School Board has not yet cast a final vote on this application. Its next meeting is Monday, June 20, at 1002 N. Avenue C.
Skip Connett is co-founder of Green Gate Farms, the first certified-organic vegetable farm in Bastrop County. You can learn more at: friendsoftheland.com
By Skip Connett
Students of local history know how Bastrop County values and depends on its wealth of trees. Over-harvesting in its early days and recent wildfires are painful reminders of human encroachment on this treasured resource. Unfortunately, our school system leaders haven’t taken this lesson to heart.
Last month, Elgin ISD approved a tax abatement application for a 2,100-acre solar energy factory sited on one of the most densely-forested tracts in the school district. Solar Proponent LLC’s rushed application is one of six other similar solar projects the newly formed Austin company has put before school boards across Texas before the tax-abatement program ends in December. The Elgin ISD decision was unanimous and made without public input.
As a Bastrop farmer and founder of Friends of the Land, an organization dedicated to supporting sustainable farming and the environment, I need to speak for the trees. Hundreds of our farm’s cedar elm and hackberry trees died a slow death in the 2011 drought. I was one of the county's more fortunate landowners. Others lost homes and entire ranches to the most destructive wildfire in Texas history. Earlier this year, a costly miscalculation turned a controlled burn into a deja vu nightmare. More than 700 acres of woods and pasture were consumed before the blaze was contained. Cutting down trees in these endless days of record heat and worsening drought doesn’t make sense. This county has thousands of acres of flat, cleared land outside flood-prone watersheds that meets the industry’s need to be close to transmission lines.
While I am a firm believer in renewable energy, property owners should have the opportunity to ask basic questions and offer input on this new industry before it becomes their neighbor, including:
How many residents will be impacted by this project and what are the long-term environmental consequences for both people and wildlife depending on those trees?
What commitments will Solar Proponent make for buffers, erosion control, and vegetation management? Other states, for example, have statutes to encourage companies to "provide native perennial vegetation and foraging habitat beneficial to gamebirds, songbirds, and pollinators, and reduce storm water runoff and erosion.”
How will several years of 18-wheelers and heavy construction equipment on narrow Old Sayers Road — one lane in several spots — not disrupt traffic flow and create safety hazards for school buses?
This rolling thicket of hardwoods and evergreens near historic Sayersville is a success story of how nature, when left alone, will eventually undo our endless attempts to bare and level the landscape. Worn-out, eroded cotton fields are now thick with post oaks, pecan, and cedar elm that have been sequestering carbon for more than a century. In a county that continues to lose trees to the stresses of drought, disease, and unchecked development, clearcutting a forest to build a factory to harvest the sun is no one’s model for green energy or smart growth.
If you care for our preserving our forests, please join me in speaking for the trees. The Elgin School Board has not yet cast a final vote on this application. Its next meeting is Monday, June 20, at 1002 N. Avenue C.
Skip Connett is co-founder of Green Gate Farms, the first certified-organic vegetable farm in Bastrop County. You can learn more at: friendsoftheland.com