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Hundreds of Three Points residents gathered Wednesday in opposition of one company’s proposal that could turn 5,000 acres of rural desert into a solar farm.
The room was united in its opposition to the project and in its dissatisfaction with CG Three Points, a subsidiary of Spanish utility company RepSol, which many said has kept community engagement at a bare minimum.
CG Three Points sent landowners letters on July 31 informing them of potential plans to build a 500 megawatt solar farm and a 250 megawatt battery storage facility as soon as next year, the Star previously reported. Three Points is about 25 miles southwest of Tucson.
Wednesday night’s meeting was led by a self-assembled steering committee of the group calling itself Open Space Alliance Southern Arizona. The group’s leader is surgeon and rancher Doug Lowell, who ran a brief campaign in the Republican primary for Arizona’s 6th Congressional District in 2021, and Robert Contreras, who ran for Marana Town Council earlier this year but did not qualify for the ballot.
Doug Lowell listens to Robert Contreras brief the community members gathered for a meeting about a proposed solar energy generating farm in Three Points.
Lowell and Contreras took questions from the audience and asked for input on the group’s mission statement, as well as ideas for more formal organizing. Many cheered and clapped as attendees shared their grievances with the project, including negative impacts to wildlife and changing the character of the rural desert town.
Erik Andreasson owns 26 acres of land near West Hermans and South Avra roads. If the project is built, his property would be surrounded by solar panels on two sides. He has started researching legal avenues residents might have against the developer because of what a utility solar farm would do to the landscape, he said.
“I work in town a lot. My blood pressure drops about 10 points when I come out to my property. I can see Kitt Peak and see the stars and stuff at night. I don’t want to see solar panels,” he said.
Despite significant public concern, the company still hasn’t submitted any formal application to the county, said CJ Boyd, a representative of the Pima County District 3 office who attended Wednesday’s meeting.
Although the site is on state trust land, the company will first need county approval for rezoning or use permits, according to the Arizona State Land Department.
Leaders were frank about the challenges of grassroots organizing, like lack of funding, communication and the logistics of an unofficial petition. A few attendees bickered about the best ways of keeping people informed, arguing over whether social media or the community group’s website would reach more people.
Without the formality of a ballot measure, Lowell and Contreras told the group they needed to try to appeal to people outside of the region.
“We are, 1,000 votes out of 15,000 maybe, that vote in our district. What we have to do to get from here to killing the project … is to generalize the issue outside of our small community,” Lowell said.
RepSol representatives held a community meeting Aug. 12 at a local steakhouse. School health aide Sandra Freeman attended and said the meeting felt informal.
“I think they just expected people to go to the different boards that they had set up to ask questions, but if you don’t know what questions to ask, then, you know,” she said.
Several audience members also raised fears that solar energy generated at the potential site would be used to power data centers currently under development in Marana and the Project Blue site, but organizers said it’s still unclear.
“Linking the project to data centers is difficult from a factual point of view,” Lowell said.
Community members packed Serenity Baptist Church on Thursday evening for a meeting about a proposed solar energy generating farm in Three Points, a community about 25 miles southwest of Tucson.
In the letter, RepSol wrote the project will produce “affordable, renewable” energy, but has not released details on where the power will be connected to or what it will be used for. RepSol did not respond to the Star’s request for comment about planned power uses.
The total acreage for the project is 5,554 acres with a total estimated cost of $575 million. They plan to operate for 35 years, according to an application CG Three Points first filed with the Arizona State Land Department in 2021. As well as the solar array and battery storage infrastructure, the application includes associated access roads, underground electricity collection lines, and a substation.
The application lists no impacts to land, endangered species, or groundwater. The company wrote they have completed several environmental site assessments, including a native plant inventory, a hydrology study, site characterization, aquatic resources, and others. The environmental reviews are not included in the application.
Still, distrust remains, said IT consultant Joe Phebus, a member of the group’s steering committee.
“I think it’s a trend nationwide that these kind of projects are coming under the radar and being solved down communities’ throats with very little input,” he said.
Wednesday’s meeting of the opposition group ended with a loose agreement to meet monthly.
One of the crowd of a few hundred rises to speak at a community meeting Thursday evening concerning a proposed solar energy generating farm near Three Points.
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Get your morning recap of today’s local news and read the full stories here: tucne.ws/morning
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Community members packed Serenity Baptist Church on Thursday evening for a meeting about a proposed solar energy generating farm in Three Points, a community about 25 miles southwest of Tucson.
Doug Lowell listens to Robert Contreras brief the community members gathered for a meeting about a proposed solar energy generating farm in Three Points.
One of the crowd of a few hundred rises to speak at a community meeting Thursday evening concerning a proposed solar energy generating farm near Three Points.
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