An alliance of hunters, birdwatchers, and public land advocates in Wisconsin are pushing again in opposition to a large photo voltaic undertaking that’s being proposed in Portage County due to the impacts it might have on better prairie rooster habitat and native looking alternatives. These teams have stopped wanting attempting to dam the undertaking being proposed by Doral Renewables, which they are saying is important in assembly Wisconsin’s long-term renewable vitality objectives. As an alternative, they’re asking the state’s regulatory company to scale down the undertaking in a means that can higher safeguard Wisconsin’s final remaining prairie rooster stronghold. The general public remark interval for the undertaking closes Friday.
If accomplished in its present kind, the 7,100-acre Vista Sands Photo voltaic undertaking can be able to producing round 1,300 megawatts of electrical energy, making it the most important photo voltaic undertaking in Wisconsin by far. That’s sufficient to energy roughly 200,000 houses, and it might be a major step towards the state’s bigger aim of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Doral’s vice chairman of improvement Jon Baker informed Wisconsin Public Radio in July.
The realm the place the Vista Sands undertaking stands to be constructed is right for huge arrays of photo voltaic panels. It’s a flat, sparsely populated, and largely treeless panorama that’s used predominantly for agriculture. Nevertheless it’s these identical qualities that additionally make the area one of many final finest locations for better prairie chickens, a local grouse species that’s listed as threatened in Wisconsin and is on the decline all through the better Midwest.
The Buena Vista Wildlife Space covers greater than 12,000 acres close to the proposed improvement web site and is residence to two-thirds of the state’s general prairie rooster inhabitants, in response to the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. The group filed as an intervener within the state’s ongoing approval course of, which is being led by the Public Service Fee.
Picture by Brandon Jones / USFWS
“It’s handled just like a lawsuit, with testimony, witnesses, and rebuttals. We simply have a vested curiosity on this course of and wish to be engaged on a better stage,” WWF govt director Cody Kamrowski tells Out of doors Life. He says it’s the primary time the group has gotten concerned with the PSC. “We filed as an intervener as a result of there wasn’t actually one other conservation group that was going to step as much as the desk and we have been effectively fitted to this place.”
Kamrowski makes it abundantly clear that WWF helps renewable vitality improvement in Wisconsin, and that features the Vista Sands photo voltaic undertaking. He says the group and its supporters are merely asking the PSC to cut back the dimensions of the undertaking by 20 to 30 %. This discount would embody buffers between the big photo voltaic arrays and the neighboring conservation lands that function lekking grounds for prairie chickens. Their concern is that the huge photo voltaic arrays being constructed — together with the accompanying fences, roads, and different infrastructure — will hurt native populations of the birds, which require giant open landscapes to breed and thrive.
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Though extra analysis is required across the results of renewable vitality initiatives on prairie chickens, previous research have proven that the birds will exit of their solution to keep away from energy traces, roads, and different indicators of human improvement. Related conversations are underway within the West relating to renewable vitality initiatives and sage grouse, a species that’s intently associated to prairie chickens that’s additionally extraordinarily delicate to human improvement.
“We’ve been getting beat up just a little bit simply because there are many teams on the market which might be [pushing] renewable vitality in any respect prices — no matter what the native impacts are,” Kamrowski says. “That’s the actually advantageous line that we’re attempting to stroll. We assist renewable vitality and photo voltaic, however we should be aware of localized wildlife impacts.”
These impacts might (and sure would) lengthen to different species as effectively, he says. The Buena Vista Wildlife space and the encircling public lands in Portage County are residence to loads of whitetails, wild turkeys, and coyotes, all of which give alternatives for native hunters.
Picture by Jim Hudgins / USFWS
Kamrowski clarifies that the present proposal for Vista Sands doesn’t embrace constructing on public land, and nearly all of acreage slated for improvement is privately owned agricultural lands. (Beneath the present framework, farmers are providing their acreage to Doral as a part of a profitable 25-year lease.) Lots of the giant photo voltaic arrays, nonetheless, can be constructed on acreage that abuts the scatter work of conservation lands in Portage County the place prairie chickens and different critters are identified to reside.
Kamrowski voices two main issues with such an association: Along with reducing off migration routes and pushing out wild birds and critters, Kamrowski worries sportsmen and -women is likely to be much less more likely to hunt amongst sprawling arrays of photo voltaic panels.
“In hunter security, they train you to know your goal and past, and if there are constructions round as an alternative of open farm fields, folks aren’t going to be capturing in that path,” Kamrowski explains. “So it does devalue the leisure worth of that property to a point.”
Hunters aren’t alone in pushing again on the dimensions and scale of the photo voltaic undertaking, both. Kamrowski says WWF has been supported as intervener by different conservation nonprofits such because the Dane County Conservation League and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology — each of which have acquired and labored to guard among the finest remaining prairie rooster habitat in and across the Buena Vista Wildlife Space.
“That’s what’s actually highly effective about all this. You’ve received looking teams, and you then’ve received non-consumptive birdwatching teams concerned. That actually speaks to the significance of this and the uniform message that everyone has.”
What’s Subsequent for the Challenge
In July the Wisconsin Division of Pure Sources launched an Environmental Influence Assertion for the Vista Sands Photo voltaic undertaking. The DNR decided that the undertaking, as at the moment proposed, might negatively influence the native prairie rooster inhabitants, and it gave suggestions for the way the PSC ought to transfer ahead on approval.
The DNR’s main suggestion is to take away 10 of the proposed main areas for photo voltaic arrays together with 4 alternate websites. The company additionally asks regulators to contemplate alternate areas that may be much less impactful to wildlife, for the reason that firm is at the moment leasing a further 2,900 acres within the county that isn’t included in its present undertaking footprint.
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Kamrowski says the DNR’s suggestion lined up properly with WWF’s personal request to cut back the undertaking’s footprint by round 20 to 30 % and set up a buffer zone between the photo voltaic arrays and their related infrastructure and neighboring conservation lands.
“We ended up doing a GIS evaluation, and [the two] suggestions truly aligned completely … the DNR simply did [their analysis] by photo voltaic arrays and never by miles,” Kamrowski says. “So we’ve simply mentioned we’re going to undertake the DNR’s suggestion simply to maintain it constant between the 2.”
Kamrowski says the PSC has till January 2025 to decide on the Vista Sands undertaking. The company is at the moment accepting public touch upon the undertaking, however that window closes Friday. (Click on right here to remark.) He says there’s already been a flood of feedback, however he hopes that extra hunters will communicate up and categorical their assist for the DNR’s suggestion to scale down the undertaking.
“It’s all about wildlife-responsible renewable vitality siting,” Kamrowski says. “And I believe we will discover that balancing act.”
