Carroll County Commissioners’ President Ken Kiler vows the county will continue to fight against solar projects being built on the county’s vast, open farmland.
Kiler, who represents District 2, promised on his June 18 podcast that the Board of Carroll County Commissioners will continue to fight solar projects going around a county ban by seeking approval from the Maryland Public Service Commission to build on agricultural property.
“Solar and ag, I try to bring up every time,” Kiler said. “We thought we settled it in Carroll, but the Public Service Commission and the state can overrule it.”
Commissioners voted in 2023 to ban solar farms from farmland, but the state agency will have the final say. Since the county zoning code prohibits solar farms on farmland, applicants have applied to the state. Should the agency issue the required certificates, the county’s zoning restrictions on agricultural land could be disregarded.
The solar battle is just one example of the county’s fight for local control. Commissioners have been vocal in their belief that the state has too much control over what the county legislates.
Kiler considers it an uphill battle, since the state regularly approves requests to build solar projects on farmland.
“They’ve allowed 98% of them to be approved,” he said.
In 2020, Frederick County attempted to appeal a decision by the Maryland Public Service Commission’s chief public utility law judge to grant Biggs Ford Solar Center LLC a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to construct a solar photovoltaic generating facility on Biggs Ford Road. Frederick County asked that the decision by the utility judge be reversed.
A Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity grants solar companies the authority to construct energy-generating systems or high-voltage transmission lines in Maryland.
The legal battle, which started in 2017 when Biggs Ford Solar filed their application with the county, ended in August 2020, when the judge’s decision was ultimately affirmed. Fast-forward to this year, and the solar facility is expected to be complete on farmland just outside the Town of Walkersville in Frederick County.
Of the eight solar-generating facilities proposed on farmland in Carroll County, Bear Branch Solar LLC, a 4-megawatt solar farm proposed on a 65-acre property along the eastern side of Route 97 (Littlestown Pike) north of Westminster, has been granted a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, giving the company permission to construct an energy-generating system or high-voltage transmission line in Maryland, according to a 9-page report from the Maryland Public Service Commission.
Carroll commissioners are now fighting two other projects.
In March, they filed petitions to intervene with the Maryland Public Service Commission, allowing them to participate in the legal process, present evidence and attempt to influence the outcome for two of eight solar proposals — one from Chaberton Solar Sunshine LLC at 940 Fannie Dorsey Road. The other project is from Spring Valley Solar 1 LLC for a 2.25-megawatt facility on 14.26 acres at 1500 Fannie Dorsey Road in Sykesville.
“They both sit on flat, fertile farmland,” Kiler said in March. “They sit too close to the road and there is not enough screening. … We decided to fight these two.”
Kiler said in his podcast that the public utility law judges on each case have been receptive to their concerns. But he believes they are “reluctant” to reject the applications.
“We need to keep fighting,” he said.
Have a news tip? Contact Sherry Greenfield at sgreenfield@baltsun.com, 240-315-7029.
from Baltimore Sun https://ift.tt/iNpgyc9
via IFTTT
