An alliance of hunters, birdwatchers, and public land advocates in Wisconsin are pushing again in opposition to an enormous photo voltaic undertaking that’s being proposed in Portage County due to the impacts it might have on better prairie rooster habitat and native searching alternatives. These teams have stopped in need of attempting to dam the undertaking being proposed by Doral Renewables, which they are saying is crucial in assembly Wisconsin’s long-term renewable power objectives. As a substitute, they’re asking the state’s regulatory company to scale down the undertaking in a method that may higher safeguard Wisconsin’s final remaining prairie rooster stronghold. The general public remark interval for the undertaking closes Friday.
If accomplished in its present type, the 7,100-acre Vista Sands Photo voltaic undertaking could 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 properties, and it could be a big step towards the state’s bigger purpose of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Doral’s vp of improvement Jon Baker advised Wisconsin Public Radio in July.
The world the place the Vista Sands undertaking stands to be constructed is good for huge arrays of photo voltaic panels. It’s a flat, sparsely populated, and principally treeless panorama that’s used predominantly for agriculture. But it surely’s these identical qualities that additionally make the area one of many final greatest 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 website and is house to two-thirds of the state’s total 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.
Photograph 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 need to be engaged on a better degree,” 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 properly fitted to this place.”
Kamrowski makes it abundantly clear that WWF helps renewable power 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 scale back the scale of the undertaking by 20 to 30 p.c. This discount would embody buffers between the massive 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 massive open landscapes to breed and thrive.
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Though extra analysis is required across the results of renewable power tasks on prairie chickens, previous research have proven that the birds will exit of their strategy to keep away from energy strains, roads, and different indicators of human improvement. Comparable conversations are underway within the West concerning renewable power tasks and sage grouse, a species that’s carefully associated to prairie chickens that’s additionally extraordinarily delicate to human improvement.
“We’ve been getting beat up a bit of bit simply because there are many teams on the market which might be [pushing] renewable power in any respect prices — no matter what the native impacts are,” Kamrowski says. “That’s the actually superb line that we’re attempting to stroll. We assist renewable power and photo voltaic, however we should be conscious of localized wildlife impacts.”
These impacts might (and certain would) lengthen to different species as properly, he says. The Buena Vista Wildlife space and the encompassing public lands in Portage County are house to loads of whitetails, wild turkeys, and coyotes, all of which offer alternatives for native hunters.
Photograph by Jim Hudgins / USFWS
Kamrowski clarifies that the present proposal for Vista Sands doesn’t embody constructing on public land, and nearly all of acreage slated for improvement is privately owned agricultural lands. (Below the present framework, farmers are providing their acreage to Doral as a part of a profitable 25-year lease.) Lots of the massive photo voltaic arrays, nevertheless, could 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 dwell.
Kamrowski voices two major considerations with such an association: Along with chopping 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 buildings round as an alternative of open farm fields, folks aren’t going to be taking pictures in that route,” Kamrowski explains. “So it does devalue the leisure worth of that property to some extent.”
Hunters aren’t alone in pushing again on the scale 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 a number of the greatest 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 searching teams, and you then’ve received non-consumptive birdwatching teams concerned. That basically 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 Assets launched an Environmental Impression Assertion for the Vista Sands Photo voltaic undertaking. The DNR decided that the undertaking, as presently proposed, might negatively influence the native prairie rooster inhabitants, and it gave suggestions for a way the PSC ought to transfer ahead on approval.
The DNR’s major advice is to take away 10 of the proposed major areas for photo voltaic arrays together with 4 alternate websites. The company additionally asks regulators to think about alternate places that will be much less impactful to wildlife, because the firm is presently leasing a further 2,900 acres within the county that’s not included in its present undertaking footprint.
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Kamrowski says the DNR’s advice lined up properly with WWF’s personal request to scale back the undertaking’s footprint by round 20 to 30 p.c 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 advice 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 presently 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 specific their assist for the DNR’s advice to scale down the undertaking.
“It’s all about wildlife-responsible renewable power siting,” Kamrowski says. “And I feel we are able to discover that balancing act.”