The Solar Facts
An Eyesore To The Community
The picture to the left is what part of 1651 looks like today. This land will be stripped and then filled with solar panels like what you see below. Runoff from this project will flow into the reservoir on CR 2411 and the creeks and stock ponds south of CR 1651 and across Hwy 198.
Cost to the community
Solar power plant developers come into an area and promise tax revenue, jobs, and the satisfaction of "saving the environment". They move quickly, flashing dollar signs while hiding all the negatives of the project. The public never sees most of the details of leases and contracts, and the actual developers are shielded from liability behind a shell company. While they "plan" for a solar power plant to last 30 years - the truth is they don't know. So, 10 years of tax breaks to fill their pockets may be all a project lasts, leaving the county and landowners holding the bag if the project fails before the 30 year "estimate". Actual leases and contracts uncovered in other Texas projects show loopholes and outs for these companies. If they were so sure of their technology - they would be more transparent.
Damage to the environment
Besides destroying active, productive agricultural land, consider these statements:
- The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.”
- “The reality is that there is a problem now, and it’s only going to get larger, expanding as rapidly as the PV industry expanded 10 years ago.”
- “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.”
And who made these statements? A senior Chinese solar official, a 40-year veteran of the U.S. solar industry, and research scientists with the German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics.
Experts in solar technology - admitting the truth. Yet we are being asked to forego our tax dollars so that companies can destroy our land and move on to the next project.