In October 2021, Shasta County supervisors voted 4–1 against providing a permit for the Fountain Wind project, denying Houston-based corporation ConnectGen the right to erect forty-eight massive turbines up to 610 feet tall throughout the mountain ridges of Eastern Shasta County. 

For the Pit River Tribe and a diverse coalition of Intermountain residents who mounted a strong resistance to the project, it was a stunning and momentous victory, the culmination of years of arduous organizing and researching. For ConnectGen, it represented the frustrating defeat of a project they argued was critical to reduce the impacts of climate change, which has already contributed to catastrophic fires and droughts throughout the state. 

But the community coalition’s victory against the project, which some activists compared to David slaying Goliath in the Old Testament, proved to be short lived. This February, ConnectGen was able to file yet another Fountain Wind application, this time under a recently passed state law designed to ramp up the construction of new renewable energy sources. 

State officials say that ConnecGen still needs to submit more required documents about the project before the new “opt-in” licensing process can begin. But assuming ConnectGen completes their application, Shasta County won’t have the power to veto the project the third time around.  

That’s because under the recently passed AB 205, the Fountain Wind project won’t be evaluated by the county, but by state officials at the California Energy Commission (CEC), who have the power to override the county’s previous decisions. Fountain Wind is eligible for the AB 205 process because it would generate more than 50 megawatts of power (ConnectGen states it would produce about 216 megawatts, enough to power 86,000 California homes). 

AB 205 also gives the state the authority to green light the project even if it breaks county law, as long as the CEC determines that the benefits outweigh the costs. That means ConnectGen could still build Fountain Wind even though the county has enacted a ban against giant wind turbines in the proposed project area, located about six miles west of Burney and just south of State Route 299.

Shasta County supervisors passed the new zoning amendment banning large-scale wind turbines in the unincorporated areas of Shasta County in December. It’s similar to measures other counties have implemented to restrict certain types of renewable energy development.

 A significant reason Shasta County officials passed the ban was the testimonies from pilots and community researchers who argued that massive turbines impede aerial firefighting and can increase the threat of catastrophic wildfires to local communities. 

Although ConnectGen’s new application for Fountain Wind is still incomplete, the studies they’ve submitted to the state so far suggest the latest version of the project would be about half the size of ConnectGen’s first proposal in Shasta County. In July 2021, Shasta County rejected that original project, which would have erected seventy-two turbines on 4,500 acres of leased land belonging to Shasta Cascade Timberlands, LLC in Eastern Shasta County. Just one month later, the  County also rejected Fountain Wind’s second, much smaller, application, for a 48-turbine wind farm, similar to the size of the project now being proposed at the state level. 

Shasta County rejected the two ConnectGen proposals only after many months of public meetings and environmental review. It was soundly opposed by the Pit River Tribe, who condemned the project because it would irrevocably damage sacred mountain ridges where the Tribe hold ceremonies, fasts, and gather plants for medicines and basketmaking. 

In addition to expressing fears about increased fire risk, other Shasta County residents also told the County that building the turbines would imperil the natural springs they use for water. Many also expressed frustration that the North State’s natural resources already produce significant  renewable energy that, like Fountain Wind, benefit corporations and other regions rather than locals.

Joseph Osa, a Montgomery Creek resident, was an organizer for the Stop Fountain Wind coalition. Speaking to Shasta Scout for this story, Osa said that he feels “disheartened” that the project has been resurrected by ConnectGen and could be constructed in Shasta County despite past denials. 

In Shasta County, where concerns about disenfranchisement have contributed to dangerous public outrage and dysfunctional government meetings, Osa said the County’s previous decision to deny the Fountain Wind permit provided a rare and encouraging example of Shasta County government officials listening and responding to rural residents. 

“If you attended those planning commission meetings, you saw (the officials) expressed concerns, asked questions based on their professional expertise and their knowledge of the local area. They really understood how this was going to impact us because they live here,” Osa said. “The (state isn’t) going to have those insights.”

Fountain Wind will be the very first energy project to be evaluated by the State under the new AB 205 process, making it a significant litmus test for how the CEC will flex its new muscle to authorize renewable energy infrastructure. 

The law that gave the CEC its new powers to approve Fountain Wind emerged from growing tension between California’s drive to meet climate-friendly renewable energy goals and the often more locally-focused environmental, cultural and social priorities of the state’s small communities. Fountain Wind is one of several high-profile recent examples of communities rejecting or resisting large-scale renewable energy projects, including Humboldt County’s denial of the Terra-Gen wind farm in 2019.

California is likely to support a mega-project like Fountain Wind because it’s designed to alleviate the increasingly dire impacts of fossil fuel emissions on the world’s climate. Despite that, Tribes and local communities often resist them because their massive footprint can also cause damage to the local environment, endangered species, Tribal cultural sites, and property values. 

Governor Gavin Newsom pushed for the passage of AB 205 in June in order to “streamline” the construction of green energy projects despite objections that it would usurp local decision-making power. According to the report, Newsom anticipates the bill will not only help California reach its clean energy goals, but also prevent the state’s recurring summer blackouts. 

Newsom is not the first to focus on this issue. In 2018 Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 100 into law, committing California to generating 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2045. “California is committed to doing whatever is necessary to meet the existential threat of climate change,” Brown said at the time.

While there is scientific consensus that it’s essential the world eliminate its reliance on fossil fuels, how to go about implementing that transition is a source of debate, especially since California’s energy appetite continues to grow. To reach its clean energy goals while satiating the state’s power hunger, one state analysis concluded that California will need to produce 6,000 megawatts of new renewable energy annually for several years, which would mean building the equivalent of 30 Fountain Wind projects each year. 

While ConnectGen has not yet completed their state application, the CEC has already reached out to County officials for input about the plan, Paul Hellman, Director of the County Department of Resource Management, told Shasta Scout by email May 26. The County’s full response to the State is pending, Hellman said, but County officials have already told the CEC that they believe it would be “not appropriate” for the State to approve Fountain Wind under AB 205 for a variety of reasons, including the past rejections by local decision-makers. 

He also noted that the ban against large wind turbines was a targeted regulation, and the county is interested in other proposals for renewable energy developments that are a fit for the unincorporated areas. Several small- and large-scale green energy facilities have been developed in Shasta County in recent years, he added. 

If CEC approves the Fountain Wind energy project, it would contradict a local decision that was based on years of legally required environmental studies, public meetings, and consultations with the Pit River Tribe. Radley Davis, a Pit River Tribal Citizen who was also part of the coalition that opposed Fountain Wind, said the CEC shouldn’t even consider the Fountain Wind project because it was denied after such an extensive review.

Although he doesn’t speak for the Tribe’s government, Davis said he helped interview elders, review old ethnographic reports, and gather evidence of how the project would harm the Pit River people’s spiritual and cultural ways of life. Many other local residents with technical expertise also submitted extensively researched comments pointing out potential flaws with the project, Davis said.

“It’s like literally a do-over. It just doesn’t make any sense,” Davis said of the new application. “It’s incredible that the state can exercise such power; they don’t need permission from the Tribe or the County.”

CEC officials state they are closely examining the environmental studies and comments from the County’s review of the wind energy project. Because they’re aware of Pit River people’s concerns about the cultural impacts of the project, the agency has already begun consultations with the Tribe, far earlier than is required, wrote Louey, the CEC spokesperson. 

Under AB 205, the CEC will conduct an entirely independent project review and then make a decision whether to license the project within 270 days, a timeframe that is relatively short considering the massive scale of the project. If ConnectGen completes their application, there will be some opportunities for public comments, according to Louey. These will include, at a minimum, a public meeting within thirty days of the application being accepted and a public meeting upon the release of the agency’s environmental impact statement on the project.  

Ally Copple, a public relations consultant for ConnectGen, declined to respond to questions for this story, saying only that the corporation would not have any updates about Fountain Wind or comments about the AB 205 process until the public comment process begins. Copple did not respond to a follow-up question regarding whether ConnectGen intended to complete its application and when that might occur. 

In 2021, ConnectGen officials were adamant that the County had made the wrong decision in denying the project. They told Shasta Scout while providing comments for previous stories that studies conducted during the environmental review indicated the project wouldn’t increase fire danger. 

ConnectGen officials also argued that they modified the project significantly in response to community input and that the negative impacts of the Fountain Wind project are dwarfed by the dire need to transition away from fossil fuels and slow down climate change.

Despite the well-established need to transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy, the CEC would have to provide significant justification in order to overturn the County’s previous decision on Fountain Wind, according to Hellman. The State would have to conclude that the Fountain Wind project would provide an overall positive economic benefit to the County, although it’s not clear what metrics they would use to do so. The CEC would also have to confirm that ConnectGen has cooperatively entered into legal agreements to provide benefits to community-based organizations or local Tribes. 

In 2021, ConnectGen pledged to invest around $2 million into the local community impacted by Fountain Wind, including a $250,000 allocation for a Pit River Tribe jobs programs and $1 million for Round Mountain and Montgomery Creek community programs. However, the Pit River Tribe and several community members rejected the offer, stating the proposed benefits were paltry considering the potential damage and risk the $300 million Fountain Wind project could pose to the area. 

Many also expressed frustration that ConnectGen’s engagement with the community seemed, in their eyes, like an attempt to pacify resistance rather than to truly work together to integrate renewable energy safely and respectfully into the area. 

These perceptions of unfairness and disenfranchisement are common among local residents who resist or stop the construction of large renewable energy infrastructure in their communities, according to recent research. Scholars who have examined numerous case studies similar to Shasta County’s rejection of Fountain Wind contend communities may support renewable energy in general, but resist local projects because they aren’t designed with community knowledge, ways of life, or hopes for the future in mind.

These scholars suggest the development of renewable energy sources is not just a technological endeavor, but also a challenge to build new kinds of collaborative relationships among investors and state and local communities. One study recommends weaving community input and decision-making into the earliest stages of conception and design, working with residents to build renewable energy projects that fit their communities’ needs and landscapes.

It’s a new way of planning and development that appeals to Joseph Osa, the Montgomery Creek resident who helped organize the resistance to Fountain Wind. 

“The energy projects should fit the local environment,” Osa said. “The state could help the counties zone areas for different types of energy projects to where they’re suited and encourage that development. Then the (environmental review) process might go much faster.”

Want to learn more? See the rest of our Fountain Wind coverage, here.

If you have a correction to this story you can submit it here. Have information to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org 

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This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires that turned skies along the East Coast a sickly yellow also brought air quality alerts to much of the Midwest this week. State health departments cautioned people with heart and lung conditions to reduce outdoor exposure.

It’s likely more days of bad air will come — not only are fires burning in the west in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and in the east in Quebec, but new blazes have erupted in Ontario, directly north of Minnesota, according to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency air quality meteorologist David Brown. The next plume could arrive Friday.

“We’re kind of surrounded at this point. Any wind direction is likely going to bring some smoke now,” Brown said.

In mid-May, sustained winds blew wildfire smoke in from the West, then a few slow-moving weather systems brought stagnant air that triggered ozone advisories.

“It’s been a very unique spring,” said Craig Czarnecki, outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s air management program.

Climate experts say that as the planet continues to warm, this kind of spring will become less and less of an anomaly. In the process, air quality will continue to worsen, as will its impact on human health.

The largest fires have historically been concentrated in the West, and though there are examples of damaging fires elsewhere, wildfire scientists assumed the eastern part of the continent was immune from the worst effects, said Erica Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State.

That’s proving untrue.

Higher temperatures, periods of drought and more volatile winds are yielding wildfires that burn faster and stronger than before, Smithwick said. Wildfire season is also getting longer, as rivers in the West dry out sooner and the East sees stronger storms mixed with drought. Some scientists question whether the whole idea of a wildfire season still applies.

“I’ve studied wildfires for decades, and I’m quite alarmed by the changes that we’re seeing to the wildfire systems,” Smithwick said.

The severity of the fires is even affecting how far their smoke can travel. Smithwick said the stronger the blaze, the higher into the atmosphere the smoke can waft, being picked up by winds that travel long distances and ultimately push it into places it wouldn’t normally go.

Air pollution worsens respiratory, heart problems

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is one of the main pollutants released from wildfire smoke, which are so tiny they “penetrate pretty deep into our lungs and get into our bloodstream,” according to Katelyn O’Dell, a researcher at George Washington University.

Hotter summers are also making stagnant air days more frequent, according to an analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science. During those stagnation events, pollutants like ozone get trapped and make breathing more difficult.

Both fine particles from wildfire smoke and ozone can cause respiratory issues like coughing, difficulty breathing and aggravated asthma. People doing physical activity outdoors, particularly those who already suffer from respiratory problems, will usually find it harder to do.

On top of that, PM2.5 can have more dramatic effects because the particles are small enough to get deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream.

“Particulate matter is one of the most well-studied types of air pollution, and it is incredibly dangerous to the body,” said Dr. Neelu Tummala, a clinical assistant professor of surgery and co-director of the Climate and Health Institute at George Washington University.

While short-term exposure typically results in respiratory concerns, chronic exposure brings worsening impacts like increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, Tummala said.

For Black, brown and low-income communities, which already bear a higher burden of air pollution, the recent short-term exposures could further elevate their risk.

Both fine particle and ozone exposure can also result in pregnancy complications like preterm births and babies with low birth weights, Tummala said.

And a 2021 study in the journal Pediatrics found that the particles in that smoke are 10 times more harmful to children’s respiratory health than other types of air pollution. Smithwick, who is also a representative of the Science Moms campaign, said kids are vulnerable because they are more active, play outside more and are still growing.

“We’re definitely going to be seeing this play out in our health systems for many years to come,” she said.

Protect yourself from dirty air

Pay attention to air quality. The Air Quality Index, or AQI, measures risk from dirty air on a scale of 0 to 500. The AQI doesn’t measure the amount of a specific pollutant but generally reflects health impact.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site offers real-time readings of AQI and also shows where fires are burning and where smoke is wafting. Purple Air, a company that makes air sensors, also has a network of AQI sensor readings at map.purpleair.com.

People should start paying attention at the orange category of AQI — readings between 101 and 150. That’s when sensitive groups like children, the elderly and those with breathing or heart conditions can encounter problems, said Brown.

He added that relatively healthy people might start to feel headaches or chest tightness at the higher end of orange readings.

In the red category from 151 to 200 AQI, all people, regardless of health, may start to feel effects; the purple category from 201 to 300 is considered very unhealthy; and maroon readings of 301 or higher are hazardous.

Avoid time outdoors when the air is bad. Jesse Berman, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, said it’s safest to stay inside with windows closed and air conditioning on. In a car, run the air conditioner set to re-circulate in the interior of the vehicle, he said.

Put those N95 masks back on. For those who have to be outside for work or commuting, try to relocate tasks or reschedule them, reduce strenuous activity, take breaks in a place free of smoke, and wear a well-fitting mask designed to filter out small particles, like an N95.

The Centers for Disease Control warns, however, that N95 masks are not made to fit children and will not work effectively to protect them from smoke.

Filter your indoor air. In the home, air purifiers with high-quality HEPA filters can help remove pollution that sneaks inside, Berman said.

It may also be worth switching out the filter on a home HVAC system. Airflow filters with a higher MERV rating, an industry measurement of how effective the screen is in capturing small particles, can also help. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends MERV 13 or higher.

Berman warned, though, that tighter filters can clog more quickly and may need to be changed more often. For a cheaper option, O’Dell recommended creating one at home with some filters taped to the four edges of a box fan — a do-it-yourself method known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box.

Wildfire smoke is new hazard in upper Midwest is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Police and private security for a Canadian mining company arrested an Indigenous protester and demolished a protest blockade erected by descendants of a survivor of the 1865 massacre at the site, according to land and water defenders who were there.

Strolling through rows of his trees on a gray, rainy day in June, Greg Burtt couldn’t help but smile when he pictured a typical autumn day at his apple orchard in Cabot.

In his picture-perfect imagination, he envisioned a sunny day. He described how hundreds of cars park in his fields and stretch down his road on any given fall weekend. Along with his family and a handful of staff, Burtt will fry roughly 600 dozen cider doughnuts in a single day. Families will stay for hours picking their own apples and munching on fresh fruit, doughnuts and cider. Kids can slide down a playground’s yellow curly slide or run through the small corn maze as many times as they’d like. A pumpkin patch and 15 acres of fruit trees are surrounded by hazy blue mountains.

“You know, it’s surprising how it doesn’t feel crowded in the orchard. I think there’s just so much space,” he said. “But you can just hear chatter and families hanging out together having a good time.”

Things may look different this fall at Burtt’s Apple Orchard. On the night of May 17, temperatures plunged into the 20s in Vermont, and a deep freeze set in across the entire Northeast, decimating fruit crops in a region known for its yearly bounty.

More than three weeks later, it is unclear how much aid the federal government will provide to farmers who suffered devastating losses in the once-in-a-generation weather event.

“A frost in May is not unheard of, but this one was significant enough because it was so cold,” Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts told VTDigger this week. “And the particular timing — the apples were in bloom, the blueberries were in bloom, very tender vines for the grapes — everything was really vulnerable.”

Much of the damage was immediately visible. On the morning of May 18, farmers could split open their apple buds and find brown inside, a sure sign of death for the young fruit. But weeks later, a fuller picture of the frost’s impact is coming into focus.

Along with colleagues at the state Agency of Agriculture, staff with the University of Vermont Extension surveyed fruit tree farmers across the state. Nineteen apple orchards responded, accounting for roughly half of the state’s acreage. “For the vast majority of respondents, estimated crop loss was 95% or greater,” Tebbetts told VTDigger.

In apples alone, the financial losses accounted for in the survey are upward of $3.6 million. For cider, the survey documents another $1.2 million in losses. Add in other types of fruits — grapes, blueberries and stone fruits — and the total crop losses among respondents are an estimated $5.8 million.

Assuming that the farms that haven’t responded to the survey fared similarly, Tebbetts said, losses across the state could surpass $10 million.

“I think there was a lot of frustration that there was really nothing anyone could do about it,” Tebbetts said. “You know, Vermont does not have that infrastructure of possibly protecting crops from frost. … It’s really heartbreaking.”

It’s a blow so devastating that Tebbetts has drafted a letter — which he is now circulating among state officials across New England and the Northeast, gathering signatures — to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, pleading for a federal disaster declaration and financial aid to the region’s farmers.

Worrying about the unknown

Three weeks after the frost, Burtt walked through his rows of trees, inspecting their branches. Some varieties seemed to persevere. He plucked a Pixie Crunch fruitlet off a branch, and broke it open to reveal a hopeful green interior. 

Others varieties seemed almost frozen in time, their blossoms — now papery and brown — holding on to the branch, refusing to bear fruit. As he walked through the rows of anomalies, he shook his head, muttering that the trees were “doing weird things.”

Burtt hopes he’ll see 25 to 40% of his usual crop, and knows he’s lucky compared to fellow orchardists whose crops were wiped out completely. But there are still so many unknown factors: Will this year’s apples have damaged cores, rendering their flavor bitter? Will their growth be stunted, making for tiny, undesirable fruits?

“The first couple days afterward, it was really nerve-wracking. You go through periods of being mad, and then just being distraught,” Burtt said. “You realize how much of what you do is out of your control, which is, in a lot of ways, humbling, I guess.”

Still, his mind wanders. It’s human nature. One swath of his orchard fared significantly better than the other, and he developed his theories of why: He gestured to the mountains and mimed airflows and cold bursts and shelter provided by surrounding trees.

“I’m sitting here saying, ‘What did I do different to this orchard than that orchard? Could I have done something to get fruit on my whole orchard?’” he said. “Probably there’s nothing I could have done. You still sit there and you wonder if you could have done something better.”

For some, crop insurance may help cover their losses. But crop insurance is not mandatory, and many farmers forgo it in order to save the premium. Others, like Burtt, opt for what he called the “bare minimum” coverage level.

Burtt is insured through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. An agent has already taken a preliminary assessment and will come back in the fall to conduct a final assessment of how his crop fared.

But Burtt has no idea what kind of payout he will ultimately receive. Never having experienced a natural disaster like this since he began selling apples in 2009, Burtt has never had to file a crop insurance claim before.

‘We don’t have a piggy bank’

John Roberts, a former dairy farmer who now serves as the Vermont state executive director for USDA’s Farm Service Agency, told VTDigger that he wants to be cautious not to raise farmers’ hopes too high that the government will come to the rescue.

“If they had insurance, great. If this event encourages them to get insurance in the future, great,” Roberts said. “If we can get a (disaster) declaration, I don’t know the extent to which relief would be granted to the farmers. I have no way of knowing that.”

Asked about un- or under-insured farmers for whom May’s frost may be the final financial blow, forcing them to shutter, Roberts exhaled and said, “Goodness. Well, I would not be surprised.”

“Certainly, my message would be not to look them in the eye and say, ‘Well, tough beans. These are the breaks,’” Roberts said. “No. I work for an administration that does try its hardest to keep farmers on their farms.”

He pointed to low-interest loans serviced through the Farm Service Agency. He conceded that a loan can’t help every struggling farmer — particularly those already “mortgaged to the hilt” — but, “If you’ve got somebody who wants to keep going, I know that our staff will bend over backwards to do what they can to help them.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a piggy bank sitting with cash in it, and these are the harsh realities of life,” he said, before correcting himself. “Of farming, maybe not life, because farming is so unique.”

In his letter to Vilsack, Tebbetts painted a relatively grim picture for producers ravaged by the freeze, saying the region is at “a critical crossroad with our growers.”

“Right now, growers are assessing their ability to stay in this industry,” Tebbetts wrote. “Unfortunately, many orchards, produce operations, and vineyards are either uninsured or under-insured and insurance claims are unlikely to cover the total business loss from crop damage and reduced revenue from value-added products. Without aid we will see devastating blows to local economies because of downsizing and closing businesses.”

Vitally, crop insurance covers only crops — meaning, no value-added products made using the crops. That means crop insurance won’t cover vineyards’ lost income for the wine they can’t produce and sell with the grapes they now don’t have. They can only claim the losses on the grapes themselves.

Or for Burtt, he can’t claim any income lost on his annual fresh cider and doughnuts. He’s begun calling orchards significantly larger than his own, hoping to purchase some of their apples wholesale, and make his cider and doughnuts using their apples. But when he calls, even they don’t know what to expect of their crop come fall.

‘You have to do all the same work’

All the while, Burtt has to keep working hard, knowing all the meanwhile that his crop is sure to be scant.

“You still know you have to do all the same work. You’ve got to mow the grass, you’ve got to protect the trees from different diseases and bugs, you already did all the work on pruning,” Burtt said. “You’re like, ‘OK, all this work I’m doing is for a year-and-a-half from now when I might get paid.’”

Burtt just hopes that people will still come out to support his orchard — even if he has to press his cider with apples from elsewhere. His primary-school-age children are brainstorming new endeavors to support the family business. Their recommendation: a french fry stand.

“I’m just hoping that people still come out even though we won’t have as many apples,” Burtt said. “Crop insurance, that’s great. But as long as people still want to come out and support the farms, that’s huge.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont leaders pursue federal disaster aid after orchardists face ‘heartbreaking’ losses in May freeze.

Cathy Topper stood at the door to her house looking over the field of solar panels visible from just about anywhere on her property. 

“I finally have gotten to the point where I don’t cry all the time,” she said, as we sat at her kitchen table. 

The shades were drawn throughout the house so she wouldn’t have to see the solar array while going about her day.

Solar farms have been popping up all around Montezuma County, Colorado, over the past few years. Montezuma County, sitting at 6,000-7,000 feet in elevation, gets 300+ days of sun a year. With the high elevations keeping temperatures cooler, and a significant amount of sun, the region is an ideal place for solar development.

Topper has lived in her house on agricultural land outside Cortez, Colorado, in the Four Corners region for 31 years. She hopes to pass down the house and land to her son. She said it was a peaceful place to live, with views of the fields to the north and Sleeping Ute Mountain to the southwest. 

That changed in June 2022 when the solar farm, a project of Empire Electric Association (EEA), began construction. Since then, Topper said the sound of jackhammers has filled the air every day, seven days a week. 

A Long List of Concerns

The location of solar development can be a major point of contention for residents, especially those who have to look at solar projects every day. For Topper, the issue is about the way the installation has disrupted the peace of her rural life. But people have other concerns about solar installations, including solar arrays installed on irrigated agricultural land, which render it useless for agricultural production. 

In 2004, Colorado was the first state to enact a renewable energy standard (RES), requiring 30% renewable energy for investor-owned utilities, and 10% or 20% for municipalities and electric cooperatives. Rural electric coops, including Montezuma County’s Empire Electric Association, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, where Empire Electric buys most of their electricity, have been ramping up their transition toward renewable energy in the past few years.

Mike Conne, who lives adjacent to another Empire Electric solar array at Totten Lake, was worried about wildlife in the area and how the solar project would affect the animals. During the permitting process for the Totten Lake solar project, Conne attempted to convince the county that the solar project should go elsewhere, on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, away from residential and agricultural land. However, the land used for the Totten Lake solar project was already owned by Empire Electric. “It made economic sense to use that property to generate additional revenue for our members through a lease with the array developer,” said Empire Electric in an email.

One of Conne’s biggest concerns was the bald eagle nest next to the Empire Electric-owned property. Colorado Parks and Wildlife recommends placing any development at least a quarter mile from any eagle’s nest. OneEnergy Renewables, the developer for the Totten Lake project, followed these recommendations and curved the solar project to provide a quarter-mile radius around the nest. OneEnergy also completed construction before nesting season. Now, Conne worries about a housing development going in across the street from the solar array, within the quarter-mile radius of the eagle’s nest.

The Totten Lake solar project was completed and brought online in December 2022. Now, Conne has seen deer get hit by cars because they walk on the road instead of crossing the newly-fenced-off land with the solar array.

Perry Will, a Colorado State Senator for District 5 and former wildlife officer, said that any time you take land out of production by fencing it off, you’re reducing wildlife habitat, especially for ungulates like deer and elk who need fields and sagebrush for critical winter range. “It’s impacting the habitat,” Will said. “It’s really no different than paving it over as a parking lot or putting up a building. It’s still habitat loss.”

Conne was also frustrated with the amount of land degradation that took place while the solar construction was underway. “I expected that they were just gonna put the panels over the vegetation. They completely destroyed the whole area,” he said as he showed photos of a machine grading the 12-acre property next to Conne’s house. 

In response to questions about landowner concerns, Empire Electric said in an email that “During the permitting phases for both the Totten Lake and Montezuma solar generators there were landowners adjacent to the projects who came forward with concerns about the facilities being built near their homes. EEA [Empire Electric] worked with the solar developer and the county planning and zoning board to ensure the projects complied with statutory requirements and also addressed individual member concerns. In the end, all parties were able to come to terms and the projects were approved. In our opinion, the process allowed members with concerns to have their concerns addressed in a fair manner.”

Topper said that when the solar project was announced, she and her neighbors fought it, but they lost the battle. Nathan Stottler, associate director of project development for OneEnergy Renewables, says that he should have reached out to neighbors earlier in the project development for this specific project. During the permitting process, however, there is built-in time for public comment. When neighbors like Topper came to the public comment meetings with frustrations, OneEnergy did make some allowances like moving the project 50 feet from the property line, building an 8-foot-tall privacy fence (which you can still see over from most spots on Topper’s property), and promising to plant 6-foot tall trees for privacy once the project is finished. 

“We’re held to a higher standard than oil and gas because oil and gas is an established use,” said Stottler, “And to the extent we can, we try to welcome that, we want to be better, we want to do better. I work in solar for a reason, because I want to fight climate change.”

A Legal and Logistical Maze

Empire Electric’s contract with Tri-State dictates that the co-op is only allowed to generate up to 5% of its own electricity and must buy the rest from Tri-State. If Empire Electric was able to generate more of its own electricity with solar, electricity prices could go down. But because of the current contract, community members like Topper do not receive any financial benefits from having a solar project in their backyard. 

Stottler, who grew up in rural Minnesota, understands how the view of a solar farm is not what residents desire. However, he said that if people see themselves as a part of the regional community and county, there are more direct benefits to having solar installed locally, including keeping money in the community and stabilizing electricity prices.

“OneEnergy is going to be pumping more tax money into Montezuma County, and that’s a big thing that wouldn’t have happened if you were buying your power from out of state or out of county,” said Stottler. Because Empire Electric, a locally owned cooperative, owns these solar farms, anyone who purchases electricity from Empire Electric keeps their dollars in the community instead of sending it out of the county to a coal or natural gas plant elsewhere.

Other Southwestern rural electric coops such as Kit Carson in Taos, New Mexico, and Delta Montrose in Southwest Colorado have bought out of their contract with Tri-State and are now pursuing 100% solar energy during the day, which can stabilize and lower electricity costs for residents. 

One of the reasons solar developers choose a specific parcel of land is access to roads, power lines, and substations. If the power is being sold to a transmission company, there need to be transmission lines nearby. The Totten Lake and Montezuma Solar projects are only for distribution through Empire Electric Association, which means they need to be located near Empire Electric-owned distribution lines. EEA is not allowed to back feed power onto the transmission grid because of their contract with Tri-State, which means they are only allowed to generate the minimum daytime load (typically determined by the amount of power used from a substation in the middle of the day) and they cannot use Tri-State owned transmission lines to distribute the power produced by the solar arrays.

Stottler said the siting of solar development has three phases. 

“It has to be in Empire’s territory, [and] it has to be on their distribution lines,” said Stottler. The project also needs to be adjacent to a substation. 

For smaller solar projects like the Montezuma (5 megawatts) and Totten Lake (2.5 megawatts), there is not much wiggle room for moving farther away from distribution lines and substations. Building new infrastructure isn’t feasible because the profit margins are much smaller than they would be for a larger, transmission-size solar project. 

“Some of the prime agricultural land is also the prime land for solar energy production because it’s flat and it gets a lot of sun,” said Tyler Garrett, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union’s director of government relations. “The worry is that that [land] will be taken and we’ll be gradually decreasing the amount of land that’s available for agriculture.” 

Bob Bragg, Topper’s neighbor and an agricultural journalist, said that it’s important for developers to consider the people who live near solar arrays. “We’re so hellbent on putting in solar installations that we want it close to the substations, when in reality maybe we need to spend a little bit more money to get those to where they’re not impacting someone’s home who lived there for a very long time,” Bragg told the Daily Yonder.

Garrett worries a lot about farmland being taken out of production with the development of more and more solar farms across the West. He sees agrovoltaics — the marriage of solar and agriculture — to be the best path forward. 

One way agrovoltaics can work is to raise solar panels high enough for farming or ranching to take place beneath the solar installation. Colorado-based farm Jack’s Solar Garden is working with the Colorado Agrovoltaic Learning Center to educate farmers and ranchers about what this could look like.   

Byron Kominek, director of the Colorado Agrovoltaic Learning Center, agreed. “We have well over 10,000 acres of solar panels in Colorado as far as I understand, and we’re going to have millions of acres of solar panels across our country in the coming years,” said Kominek, “It would be unfortunate if all that land just goes to dirt or weeds or gravel or any degraded state.”

The potential of agrovoltaics is still being explored in Colorado and around the country. In Colorado, a bill was signed on May 19th, 2023, that will provide half a million dollars in grant money for agrovoltaics and conduct a study on the opportunities and challenges with agrovoltaics in Colorado. 

Conne said he loves solar but would prefer to see development away from homes and with less land degradation. He said he would support more agrovoltaic development with cattle or sheep to maintain the agricultural nature of rural areas. He sees BLM land as a good opportunity for future solar development as well as landfills. “I love solar, I really do,” said Conne, “but there’s a lot of things that need to be changed in the future.”

The post Solar Farms in Colorado: Fossil Fuel-Free Energy Comes With Controversies appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

By Will Atwater

On Friday, three large chemical manufacturers agreed to contribute $1.19 billion to a fund to settle lawsuits brought by water utilities across the country that allege that the companies contaminated drinking water supplies with per- and polyfluorinated chemicals, or PFAS.

This announcement comes as lawsuits — filed by state governments, environmental advocacy groups, water utilities and others — accusing Chemours, DuPont and Corteva of poisoning the environment and causing illness among people with long-term exposure to PFAS are piling up.

Seven years after the Wilmington Star-News first published the announcement about the presence of GenX compounds in Cape Fear River deposited there by DuPont spinoff Chemours, the settlement agreement was met with skepticism by many in the environmental community.

“I am extremely concerned about this, as lawyers are going to make a ton of money off the backs of contaminated communities — and giant chemical corporations are getting out easy,” said Dana Sargent, executive director of Cape Fear River Watch, a Wilmington-based environmental advocacy group.

Cape Fear River Watch sued Chemours in 2018 for discharging the chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River. The action led to a consent order among Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

The order required Chemours, among other things, to develop and execute a PFAS remediation plan for contaminated air, soil and water for the affected lower Cape Fear River Basin communities. 

This area includes New Hanover, Brunswick, Columbus and Pender counties. Like many critics, Sargent believes the pledged funds represent a small fraction of what’s required to address the nationwide problem.

“This settlement comes nowhere near the amount needed to cover the devastation they have caused. It is clear they’re coming out on top; their stocks have gone up as their shareholders see this as their liability issues being behind them,” Sargent said. “I am grateful that, to my knowledge, lower Cape Fear utilities are not participating in this settlement.”

Since the 1940s, PFAS — referred to as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment and the human body — have been used in the manufacturing of oil and water-resistant products, as well as products that resist heat and reduce friction. 

More than 12,000 PFAS compounds are almost ubiquitous in nonstick cookware, cosmetics, cleaning products, dental floss, water-resistant clothing and textiles, and in some firefighting foams and firefighting turnout gear.

While there is no definitive evidence about PFAS posing health risks to humans, there is mounting research that suggests links between extended exposure to forever chemicals and weaker antibody responses against infections in adults and children, elevated cholesterol levels, decreased infant and fetal growth, and kidney and testicular cancer in adults.

Who’s eligible?

Settlement funds are only available to municipal water systems with detectable levels of PFAS and systems required to monitor for PFAS per “EPA monitoring rules or other applicable laws,” according to the news release. 

Water systems not eligible include those managed by state and federal governments and small systems that currently have no PFAS detected and are not required to be monitored. Also, water utilities in the Cape Fear River Basin are ineligible unless they request to opt in, the release says.

In response to the recently announced settlement, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which would be allowed to opt in based on the guidelines outlined in the agreement, posted a response on its website that states, in part:

“Unfortunately, CFPUA has not been provided with the terms of the agreement and we do not know what compensation CFPUA should expect if it were to participate. Our utility’s financial losses and future financial commitments to address our upstream neighbor’s pollution are substantial, and any settlement must substantially address these damages. 

“Litigation will continue until the polluter provides solutions that meet our community needs. CFPUA must consider the best interests of the Authority and the community it serves.”

In 2019, CFPUA, which provides drinking water to more than 200,000 customers in the Wilmington area, started construction on a $43 million granular activated carbon filtration system at its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant to remove GenX and other PFAS compounds from the drinking water supply. 

CFPUA anticipates spending “$3.7 million for Fiscal Year 2023 [and] $5 million in subsequent years,” according to the utility’s 2022 annual report. 

The millions of dollars spent by CFPUA and the ongoing financial burden required to maintain the system are examples of why critics argue that the settlement amount falls short of what’s needed.

“Chemours, DuPont and Corteva’s recent $1.19 billion agreement will not cover the installation of reverse osmosis filters to all 101 water providers in North Carolina, let alone the over 150,000 public water systems in the U.S.,” said Beth Kline-Markesino, founder of North Carolina Stop GenX in Our Water, a grassroots advocacy organization based in Wilmington. 

A closer look at the agreement

The following are key points outlined in the agreement, according to the release:

• Chemours will contribute 50 percent (about $592 million), DuPont about $400 million and Corteva about $193 million. The court ordered the money to be deposited in a fund and made available within 10 business days of being approved by the court.

• If the agreement is finalized in 2023, a final ruling will be delivered by the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. Then, those wishing to join the settlement will have a certain amount of time to do so. If not enough water systems join the settlement, the chemical companies can decide to opt out of the agreement. 

• If an agreement can’t be reached with plaintiffs, the chemical companies have vowed to defend themselves in court against pending litigation.

Though many environmental advocates argue that the best way to address the issue of PFAS contamination is for manufacturers to stop producing the chemicals, there was a sliver of optimism coming from the North Carolina Attorney General’s office after first hearing about the settlement agreement. Attorney General Josh Stein has filed several lawsuits against Chemours.

“Our office is pleased to see Chemours/DuPont/Corteva beginning to take some responsibility for their actions,” said Laura Brewer, Stein’s communications director. 

“We look forward to reviewing the details of the proposed settlement. Based on initial reports, this proposed settlement does not address all of the issues in A.G. Stein’s lawsuit,” she said. “A.G. Stein’s case against these companies continues, and he will continue his work to ensure that the water North Carolinians drink is clean and safe.”

The post Critics skeptical as chemical companies agree to $1.19 billion PFAS settlement appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

Here in the Western U.S., smoke season has become a summer ritual. It’s never enjoyable and never routine, but far too common to brush off: Days too choked with smoke to go outdoors, weeks of scratchy throats and headaches, constant low-level anxiety about fire and health impacts.

But so far the heavy smoke has mostly clung to the Western half of the country.

So it’s strange to see it take hold in New York City: That familiar smoky orange haze hanging over skyscrapers, enveloping the Statue of Liberty, smogging up the streets. Sorry to say this, Northeasterners, but welcome to our reality. Our sympathies. It’s stressful and suffocating and disorienting. We get it.

But for better or for worse, though, we’ve developed some coping strategies that some might find useful. So from your friends out West, here are some tips on surviving smoke season:

The first time Oakland was fully socked in with smoke a few years ago — the sun didn’t come out for a day or two, which was really eerie and frightening — I was shocked that some people just tried to keep on with their workdays. It helped me a lot to pull back and take time for what was really going on: grief. THIS IS NOT NORMAL, and trying to go on with my regular day made it feel even worse. I ended up strapping on an N-95 mask and going for a really short walk to take in how totally scary and weird it was in my neighborhood. That was a physical health risk, to be sure, but it helped my mental health to fully process what was going on. And I ran into other neighbors who were walking their dogs or doing the same thing I was. Connecting over the scariness of it all helped, too.

—Sarah Trent, editorial intern

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“All is changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

If you know someone with COPD, asthma or similar diseases — in my case, a vulnerable family member — try to find ways to help them so they don’t have to leave their house. Fetch groceries, pet food, mail, etc., if you can, and make sure that they have necessary prescriptions, especially inhalers, and that their cooling system is working as well as possible — which is not easy for poor folks living in challenging conditions, I know. Like Sarah, I sometimes masked up (thank you, Dr. Fauci!) to go for walks outside, because walking is necessary to me, and besides, if I stayed inside too long, the climate grief and depression overwhelmed me — but I certainly avoided any outdoor activities that might require heavy breathing. You never really get used to it — or even accept that it’s actually happening to a place you love so dearly. It was strange, but at times the light was eerily magical; sometimes I thought of Yeats: “All is changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

 —Diane Sylvain, copy editor

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A home air filter is about the same size as a box fan. You can duct-tape one to the back/intake side of the fan and turn the fan on. It’s an inexpensive way to filter particles out of the air indoors.

— Toastie Oaster, staff writer

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The light is different, the air can feel strange, time passes differently. You’re not going crazy; it is really disorienting. I found it helpful to remind myself this was just going to be weird and find ways to ground myself. For example, cold showers help with the vaguely sooty, sweaty feeling. Also: That headache? Yes, it probably IS because of smoke.

Also: Use your COVID toolkit. Maybe you got yourself an air purifier or rigged up a makeshift one. Put that back in action! Did you get a humidifier to help with COVID symptoms? That may help ease your throat scratchiness. If you have to go outside, your N95 mask will help protect you, although it isn’t going to block everything.

 —Kate Schimel, news and investigations editor

“Fire season” is a household phrase here, as depressing as that is. But I noticed that like the grinding doldrums of the pandemic, we slowly found ways to process the nightmare through humor and memes — all small acts of defiance against something larger than ourselves and largely out of our control. So share that selfie with the hellish sunset! Become Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick! For once, we all get to be in on the same pitch-black joke. And If you’re a nerd like me, you might also find that mapping the inferno provides a small measure of calm: it’s nice to know thy enemy, so to speak. Here’s a NASA tool where you can put a face to that flaming monster with satellite imagery. 

—Samuel Shaw, editorial intern

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If you have young kids, find out where the indoor tumbling classes are to keep them occupied. And I think it helps to invest in a good map app that can show you smoke paths, like OpenSummit.

 —Michael Schrantz, marketing communications manager

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I boil rosemary. Somebody told me it purifies the air by binding to smoke particles. I have no idea if this is actually true, but the added humidity and pleasant smell make me feel better when my asthma acts up during smoke events.

There’s value in rituals of healing, something as simple as sipping tea or massaging oil onto a strained muscle. Even if it turns out whatever the tea was made of, or whatever was infused in the oil, doesn’t have any extra health benefit, the act of noticing an ill and paying attention to it does. These things allow me to pause, admit there is a problem, and feel for a moment that I have some agency over a solution.

 —Luna Anna Archey, associate visuals editor

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When it looks, feels and smells like the world is ending, don’t expect you’ll be at peak physical and mental performance.

Wildfire smoke will wreck more than your lungs. Ash can also damage vehicles and other items outdoors if you try to wash it off with water: The particulate wood ash reacts to form a weak lye solution that can damage your paint. Keep vehicles indoors, or cover them if you can. If not, try to brush the ash off rather than rinsing it. In a pinch, putting a wet bandanna over your nose and mouth can help with the worst effects of smoke.

Also, it’s normal for orange skies and the eerie, blood-red sun to affect your mood and mental health. Symptoms of smoke exposure, like shortness of breath and a vague, general feeling of unwellness, mirror and can exacerbate anxiety symptoms. When it looks, feels and smells like the world is ending, don’t expect you’ll be at peak physical and mental performance.

 —Rachel Alexander, managing editor at Salem Reporter

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Being surrounded by wildfire smoke soup often makes me feel powerless and hopeless. It’s hard to feel safe when systemic forces and global problems — climate change, forest management — seep across borders and make your lungs, throat, eyes and head hurt. But I’d encourage people experiencing wildfire smoke for the first time to protect themselves, and then push for change that lasts after the smoke dissipates and protects the most vulnerable. Disasters can be pivotal moments, and action is an antidote to despair. Demand that wildfire fighters, who are on the frontlines of these blazes, receive adequate compensation and health care. Demand that farmworkers, who harvest food when the rest of us hole up inside, receive adequate protections from smoke (and heat!). Demand that people living without shelter have access to clean indoor air. Don’t just buy an air filter and go back to normal.

—Kylie Mohr, editorial fellow

Being an avid walker and hiker is difficult during wildfire smoke events. Some days it’s simply not feasible or advisable to exercise out of doors (purple and red days!). But other days, especially for those who don’t have health issues that make them particularly vulnerable to marginal air quality, it can be done. I watch the air quality index (AQI) throughout the day and choose my walking/hiking time based on air-quality reports. I also watch different air-monitoring stations throughout my area, and choose my walking/hiking locations based on AQI, which can be variable even locally. Sometimes I will take a walk wearing a N95 mask. I don’t do more strenuous walking or hiking masked, though. On days when it’s better to stay inside, I use a stationary bicycle to get my cardio fix. During the Thomas Fire of 2017-2018 (which burned for over a month), air quality was so bad for such a prolonged time that I and many others in our area who had the ability to do so simply packed up and left home.

—Jennifer Sahn, editor in chief

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I grew up in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. The summer after college, I went to Montana for eight weeks of field ecology classes (maybe I was done with college, but college wasn’t quite done with me). On the last day of the program, I woke to the hazy hot air and lurid neon-red sun that now, after more than 15 years of living in the West, I’m very familiar with. That day felt like the Apocalypse or the End Times — something biblical, something entirely beyond my previous understanding of what the world could even be. What I’ve learned since then is that the smoky days will always be hard and scary, but they do pass. One day it will rain, one day I’ll be able to see the distant hills from my back deck, one day the morning sun will be as yellow as the roses blooming in my neighbor’s yard.

—Emily Benson, senior editor-north

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

Meteorologists expect smoke from Canadian wildfires to remain over central Virginia until this weekend.

That means air quality will remain poor in Charlottesville and surrounding counties until around Saturday, and people should try and avoid exerting themselves outside, especially those with heart and lung issues.

The National Weather Service has issued a “code red air quality alert” for this area beginning Tuesday. That means, the air quality could become so poor that it could be dangerous for even healthy people to be physically active outside.

The air quality was not quite that bad in Albemarle County as of 10 a.m. Wednesday. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality measured the amount of fine particulate matter in the air to be at a moderate level, which is most dangerous to “unusually sensitive individuals” with heart or lung disease or older adults.

“That is currently moderate, but it’s a high moderate,” said Dan Salkovitz, a VDEQ meteorologist.

And that could change at any time, he added. If the amount of fine particulate matter in Albemarle County increases just a bit, more groups of people become at risk for health issues — including children.

The issue is wind direction. Well, and wildfires.

As of Tuesday there were 240 wildfires deemed “out of control” by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Many are directly north of this area in the Québec province, and many have been burning for days.

As those fires burn, the smoke that billows from them contains the fine particle matter that the DEQ measures to determine weather quality.

Right now, there is an area of low atmospheric pressure just over New England, and the wind surrounding that area of low pressure is rotating counterclockwise, said Kevin Rodriguez, the lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in the Baltimore/Washington office. That circulation is perfect for grabbing up smoke and fine particles from those massive wildfires raging in eastern Canada and slinging it south over the mid Atlantic and into Virginia.

“We’re going to be in this pattern for at least the next two or three days,” Rodriguez said. “And then another weather system will come in over the weekend. They might get some showers out of that Friday, but the main thing is it’s going to change the wind direction so it will come from the west. And we’ll finally get some cleaner air that’s not coming from Canada.”

When that happens, the smoke from the fires will be pushed out over the Atlantic Ocean, he added.

In the meantime, folks in central Virginia can keep track of the air quality at this link. The site will take you to a map of Virginia. Click on the box over Charlottesville. That box will show the measured air quality at Albemarle High School, the only station in this region that measures air quality.

The changing weather patterns this weekend will give this area a welcome reprieve from smoke, Salkovitz said. But it’s impossible to know how long it will last. As long as the wildfires continue burning in Canada, Virginia’s air quality will be at the mercy of the winds.

The New York Times has created a map tracking the smoke from Canada’s wildfires.

To learn more about the possible health concerns from breathing smoke, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a fact sheet that includes information about how to keep smoke and fine particles out of your home.

The post Meteorologists expect smoke from Canada to remain over central Virginia until the weekend appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.