TYLER, Texas (KLTV) – Two East Texas counties are considering a partnership to study the effects of large-scale projects including solar farms and high-capacity water wells at no cost to taxpayers.
David Dunagan leads a group called Save Van Zandt County. He made the drive to Tyler on Tuesday to voice support for a possible partnership involving Smith and Van Zandt counties for what’s called a 391 commission.
“We woke up one morning and we found out that there were going to be 450,000 solar panels around us,” Dunagan said. “We don’t want that for any other citizen in any of these East Texas counties.”
The effort is backed by state lawmakers including Sen. Bob Hall and State Rep. Daniel Alders.
“Texas is growing by leaps and bounds, and that’s good in many ways, but not all growth is necessarily beneficial,” Alders said.
The commission is a planning tool allowed by local government code to study projects affecting health, safety and welfare.
The commission would study proposals to pump millions of gallons of groundwater out of East Texas along with large-scale solar farms and battery energy storage systems, specifically the fire hazards they bring and the loss of land.
“We don’t have the strengths that Collin County, Bexar County, Tarrant County has,” Smith County Commissioner Christina Drewry said. “And so, it’s important for us to partner with our neighbors so we can unite our voices and protect our citizens better.”
Smith County Judge Neal Franklin said the commission is not against development.
“We’re all about that here, economic development and bringing companies in,” Franklin said. “But we want them to do things on our terms.”
By law, state agencies like the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Public Utility Commission would be required to work with the commission to “the greatest extent possible.”
“It doesn’t ask them to listen. It forces them to listen to our concerns,” Dunagan said. “And instead of rubber-stamping things, which they clearly do today on a lot of projects, it says ‘no, you will do this study and there is this information here and you will pay attention to it.’”
With developers often tight on time and not willing to wait, the commission could dissuade some of them.
“I won’t say necessarily a deterrent, but it makes them stop and think ‘is this the right place for us to try to build something?’” Dunagan said.
Smith County commissioners will vote next week on whether to join the commission. Other counties in the East Texas Council of Governments could also sign on.
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