SPRING SALE: Get home delivery of Oil City Weekly newspaper, arriving by mail each Friday!
JUST $99/year
Over 3.5 million readers this year!
Over 3.5 million readers this year!
Oil City News
Casper News – Oil City News Local News Casper, WY – Oil City News – Local News Casper, WY
Millions of readers this year!
THANKS TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS
CASPER, Wyo. — Several Natrona County residents voiced concerns regarding a proposed solar farm planned to be built west of Casper at a Monday evening town hall.
EG Haystack Solar LLC is seeking to build a 2,160-acre solar farm about 24 miles northwest of Casper off U.S. Highway 20/26. The planned solar facility would have a capacity of 199 megawatts of alternating current and 259 megawatts of direct current.
EG Haystack Solar representatives say the project would create jobs, improve energy sustainability and lead to economic development in the area. However, local residents aren’t so sure.
A common concern voiced at Monday’s public meeting focused on area wildlife.
“Antelope graze out there, elk graze out there [and] deer graze out there,” county resident Garren Forth said. “What’s going to happen to them?”
“We have a lot of animals out that way, and I’m worried this will run them off,” resident Rita Spiva also told Oil City News.
One resident asked about reports of birds flying into solar panels after mistaking them for bodies of water. Senior project developer Ethan Jahnke responded that while there have been reports of birds mistaking panels for water bodies, EG Haystack Solar’s panels will be installed at an angle and designed to follow the sun’s trajectory, which should ease that issue.
Others asked about the possibility of toxic runoff, but Dale Harris, director of development for EG Haystack Solar’s parent company Enfinity, said the project would not create any toxic waste or runoff.
“We hear [environmental] concerns throughout the country,” Harris said. “We do a lot of things to mitigate our environmental impact by working closely with local agencies, doing years of environmental studies and modifying our designs to allow for proper flow of big game.”
Many in attendance worried about the impact the project would have on roads, particularly in the event of a wildfire.
“There’s only the one road out,” Tami Forth said. “We’d be trapped.”
In addition to the effects on drivers attempting to evacuate the area, other concerns related to wildfires included the speed they would spread and how fires would be reported at the mostly autonomous facility.
Meeting participant Michelle Sleep said she’d been told the site would be mostly automated and lightly staffed, which would raise concerns of emergency response time in the event of a fire.
However, Harris pushed back against those concerns, saying software would be able to monitor the facility and send alerts in emergencies, with some employees remaining on-site as well. He also said the company will have an emergency response plan in place.
“We are going to be having so many things in place that are going to be slowing down that fire,” he said. “If it was no project out there — current conditions — that fire would spread even faster.”
On the topic of impact to traffic and roads, project representatives say they are taking steps to reduce any effects. The facility would be located along County Road 209, also known as Natrona Road. Harris said that if the project is approved, the company would fund the widening of Natrona Road from the U.S. 20/26 intersection to the facility’s entrance and a temporary left-turn lane on the highway would be constructed. There would also be a replacement of the Natrona Road bridge that crosses Middle Fork Casper Creek, he said.
Other attendees questioned the project’s promised economic impact, with Maria Ferraro pushing back against the company’s claim that roughly 250 jobs would be created. Ferraro stated, to which Harris agreed, that most of the jobs created would be temporary construction jobs and not permanent employment for area workers.
“It’s going to be short-term and it’s going to be minimal,” she said.
“I agree it should say ‘[250 jobs] mostly during the construction period,’” Harris said.
Ultimately, the vocal participants in attendance remained opposed to the project.
“You don’t care about anyone who lives out here, period,” meeting attendee Patti Fryspence said.
Harris said the company hopes to see construction begin in late 2027 or early 2028. Before that can happen, though, EG Haystack Solar needs approval from the Natrona County Board of County Commissioners, after having been denied by the board in 2025.
According to Natrona County Commissioner Dave North, they were denied at the time for errors in their application.
“They didn’t have a waste management plan, they didn’t have a land management plan as far as what they were going to do and how they were going to do things,” North said. “They didn’t cover stormwater; they claimed they were only going to have an acre of disturbance with 600 acres of solar farm. There were a lot of things like that.”
Harris said the company has been working on a revised plan since then, and expects to have a new application before the county in the coming months.
“We’re working very closely with the county as well as the necessary local agencies to improve our application,” Harris said. “There was some mistakes that we had in the past and we are getting rid of those mistakes.”
Community Reporter More by Tommy Culkin
Sign in by entering the code we sent to , or clicking the magic link in the email.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
