February 16, 2024 (Cover image credit: Bannock County)
The Bannock County Commissioners voted unanimously to prepare an ordinance prohibiting large-scale solar and wind farms in the county at a meeting held yesterday.
Chairman Ernie Moser stated at the beginning of the solar ordinance discussion, “I reviewed this, I looked over things, and I would like to send this back…” He continued that he had “talked with the Commissioners out of Caribou County and I think that they have an ordinance that I would like to implement…” Moser went on to say that he was going to propose an ordinance that would allow, “no solar for industrial, if you have a residence, you can have it…on your house.”
Moser cited “three key factors” in his decision; emergency services not being in a position to deal with problems that might arise, a potential loss of tax revenue for Bannock County, and decommissioning costs that might fall on Bannock County residents.
Following his remarks, Moser asked Commissioner Hough for his thoughts. Hough deferred to Commissioner Crowder.
Crowder first asked a question of Moser. “Just to be clear on this, you said no industrial, is what you’re looking to do prohibit solar farms in Bannock County period?” Moser replied, “Yes.” Moser then said that he also wanted to ban wind farms.
Crowder stated in his remarks, “I agree with everything that you’ve said. I’ve studied this extensively.” “The concerns you have, I have those same concerns, in addition, when I look at the potential environmental impacts, they could be quite significant.” Crowder referenced a study that he said determined that broken solar panels would allow cadmium and lead to leach into the environment. He concluded, “This is not the time or the place to be installing solar farms.”
Commissioner Hough began his remarks by stating that he had, “spent the last three weeks trying to find the answers to my questions in regards to how do we write something that doesn’t slam the door on solar farms, but allows it to potentially if we can find a spot for it, but I haven’t been able to find significant answers to help me feel better about that, and so I’m like Commissioner Moser.” He went on to say that he was concerned about fire. “We do not have the resources to take care of that,” he stated. The second issue that he cited was disposal of solar panels. He concluded, “I’m kind of sad…but I can’t find…what I felt was a good path forward at this point in time.”
Following the discussion, Moser moved to send the issue back to Planning and Development with instructions to develop an ordinance along the lines of what Caribou County had done, and the commissioners voted unanimously in favor of his motion.
You can watch the solar discussion by clicking on the link, below, starting at time 40:50.
Bannock County 02/15/2024 Claims and Work Sessions (youtube.com)
