With a unanimous vote from the Sweetwater County Commissioners, the county will now be the first in the state to have a solar farm.
The Commissioners recently approved a conditional use permit for Sweetwater Solar LLC for a utility scale solar energy project for three to 3o years. The property is located on Bureau of Land Management, Rock Springs Grazing Association, BLM/BOR transmission line land and is located along Highway 372 about 7 1/2 miles northwest of the intersection of Interstate 80 and Peru Hill. The land is currently zoned agriculture and will be constructed on about 638 acres and will be completed by the end of 2018 or beginning of 2019.
During the four to five month construction period, an estimated 30 to 300 employees will work on the project. The labor costs are estimated at $15.9 million. It’s also estimated that nine full-time employees will operate the solar farm once construction is complete. Estimated tax property taxes over a 30-year period is $17.1 million.
“If approved, this will be Wyoming’s utility scale solar project in the state of Wyoming,” County land use director Eric Bingham said.
The power generated through this project will be transmitted to a Rocky Mountain Power substation, Bingham said.
Not only is the area where the solar panels are going to be located near the Lewis and Lewis gravel pit, but near the Ciner’s trona mine. The solar panels are flat, but will follow the sun as it rises and sets from east to west.
Even though the project is completely surrounded by a six-foot chain link fence with 18-inch barbed wire on top of it, a corridor has been set aside for antelope migration. Wyoming Game and Fish doesn’t want the site of the solar farm to block the migration.
Patrick Burke, Green River wildlife biologist Wyoming Game and Fish, said in severe winter conditions they get a lot more migration going through this area. Right now, the animals just wander right through the open section.
“I guess I’ll just kind of reiterate some of that again, we do feel there are places that are better in the county for solar energy than this ridge,” Burke said.
He said migration will still be impacted even with the corridor in it.
Commissioner Wally Johnson said the antelope will find a way to get around there. He said the antelope have learned to coexist with the oil and gas projects.
Dominion Energy had raised an issue about Sweetwater Solar LLC driving over their pipeline and damaging it, however spoke in favor of the project at the meeting after being assured the issues would be addressed.
Betsey Biesty, 174 Power Global Corp director of permitting, said the company has looked at that and are willing to work with Dominion to ensure that doesn’t happen. During the public comment portion of the meeting, residents brought forth issues.
Ciner’s site manager Craig Rood said he didn’t like a facility being placed over a trona reserves area.
“It sort of feels like we’re the only ones not excited about this project, but I think we have obvious concerns about placing a huge facility over trona reserves,” Rood said. “We want to mine those at some point in the future. It may not be with mechanical mining that we’re doing now, but, as some of you know, we have a very successful solution mining company in Turkey, that just recently purchased our facility and we are seriously exploring different solutions mining options in Sweetwater County right now.”
Rood said they have an issue with a placing a large facility that doesn’t allow for subsidence.
He said Ciner employs 430 employees and he was asked to sign a contract with Sweetater Solar LLC stating the company wouldn’t subsidence mine in that area. Rood said he refused to sign it. The BLM currently owns the mineral rights to this property, but Rood said it’s part of their plan to obtain them.
Commissioner John Kolb said he thought that in Wyoming mineral rights trumped all others and he doesn’t see how Rood’s concerns should impact this project. He said those on top of the ground are the ones running the risk of subsidence.
“I have a lot of concerns about this project,” Michele Irwin said.
Irwin asked the commissioners to please consider postponing making a decision until they could find a more suitable place for the solar farm. She said the Rock Springs Grazing Association and Game and Fish both agree there are more suitable locations for this in Sweetwater County.
“We know we are going to be causing problems if we build it there,” Irwin said.
With all public comments taken, the Commissioners voted unanimously to approve the solar farm.
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