Jen Allen, chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors seen here in a March protest over an ICE detention facility in Marana, has criticized a massive solar farm proposal 25 miles southwest of Tucson. The Center for Biological Diversity also is critical of the plan.
Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen has become the first elected official to come out against a massive solar farm proposal 25 miles southwest of Tucson.
Allen penned a statement in the Fence Post, a newsletter for the Three Points and Robles Junction area, earlier this week that she had met with leadership from RepSol, the parent company proposing a 5,554-square-foot utility-scale solar farm.
Allen, who chairs the board, said she can’t support the project because the company has made no changes to the footprint or energy capacity, despite extensive community opposition.
“No changes, despite several community events with 100-plus people at them being clear about their concerns,” she said.
Allen, a Democrat like four of the five board members, wrote the company still plans to submit permit applications to Pima County early next year.
The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity has also come out against the proposal, saying there are better places for solar projects.
“Where we put solar is as important as whether we build it, and this plan gets it backward,” said Southwest Director Taylor McKinnon. “The proposal puts endangered species, conservation lands and nearby communities in the crosshairs of industrial development. Solar belongs on rooftops and already disturbed land, not in pristine desert habitat that deserves protection.”
CG Three Points, Repsol’s subsidiary, sent landowners letters in mid-August informing them of plans and project maps for a 500 megawatt solar farm and a 250 megawatt battery storage facility on state trust land. It would include its own substation and is estimated to cost about $575 million, with plans to operate for 35 years, according to applications with the Arizona State Land Department.
Expanding large-scale renewable energy is still a necessity, but not at the expense of rural communities, Allen wrote.
Most of the proposed area falls within the Pima County Conservation Lands System and ranked among the most vulnerable land classifications within the system. The project could reverse decades-long restoration work, she wrote.
“Altar Valley ranchers, farmers, and residents have worked with county, state and federal partners for years to develop and implement protections for the Altar Valley and the Brawley wash – establishing wildlife corridors, revegetating historically damaged areas, and preventing the spread of invasive fire-prone weeds, to name a few – all while preserving the rural traditions of ranching and farming. This work is valuable, as are the rural traditions and culture of the region,” her statement reads.
Allen also expressed her support for the Southern Arizona Open Space Alliance, an opposition group formed before any official notification. They’ve held community meetings since early this summer and are encouraging residents to petition the Board of Supervisors to reject the project, saying fields of solar panels will disrupt the environment and the region’s rural character.
Allen said the project carries environmental risk, including spreading invasive species and increasing the risk for wildfires.
She called on utilities to make investments closer where the need is highest, closer to industrial, commercial, and residential areas in urban and suburban areas.
“We cannot ask our rural communities to bear the brunt of these developments,” she wrote.
Although the company plans to file an application with the county’s Planning and Development Services early next year, it may be several more months before it appears on any public agenda, Allen said.
Because the county has existing land use codes for a utility scale solar, the project would not have to go through a full Planning and Zoning Commission, and receive a hearing administrator process instead. Class II conditional use permits, which the RepSol project would most likely apply for, go through the hearing administrator, which still has opportunities for public feedback, but less eyes on any given proposal, Allen said.
“It’s just heard by one person as opposed to being heard by the full commission,” she said.
The hearing administrator then makes a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors, which they will vote on.
However, all the applicable county departments have to weigh in on their piece of the project before it gets on a hearing administrator’s meeting agendas, which are held once a month.
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Jen Allen, chair of the Pima County Board of Supervisors seen here in a March protest over an ICE detention facility in Marana, has criticized a massive solar farm proposal 25 miles southwest of Tucson. The Center for Biological Diversity also is critical of the plan.
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