The snakes have come out of the ground to push for solar power with minimal setbacks near homes in Sherman County. Most of the rattlers and moccasins are developers and landowners who don’t live here. They don’t care about our way of life or our fire concerns. Big money has incentivised this fiasco.
The subsidies for renewable energy are lucrative. However, once the projects are in, they aren’t always maintained. All you have to do is look at the PGE Biglow wind project that surrounds our house. Over a third of the towers are not turning, and half are dripping oil. https://projects.oregonlive.com/wind-farms/ The Oregon Department of Energy is mandated by the state to develop wind and solar energy. They seem to lack the teeth needed to guard the henhouse.
Our shop is in the background, across the road.
The Sherman County Court has been working on a measly 1/4 mile—1340 foot setback. Our landlord to the south and east is signed up for solar with Brightnight Power (https://brightnightpower.com/about-us/) and Portland General Electric (https://portlandgeneral.com/). The closest panels were going to be within 300 feet of our home, so I went ballistic. Now, Brightnight Power is setting ours back half a mile and drawing up a hold harmless clause.
This would have been our view at one quarter mile. One half mile puts it over the hill.
However, most developers and landowners don’t want to work with their neighbors. Even citizens who have leased their land to developers don’t want setbacks because solar is so lucrative that every acre they lose costs them $700 a year. Leasing 1400 acres would gross $980,000 each year. In fairness, turning down a million dollars a year is hard.
The county court is still on the fence in terms of setbacks and fire issues. Our head county commissioner, Judge Dabulskis (The judge title is used in eastern Oregon, although they are not lawyers), has worked hard as Chairman of CREA, along with Mike McArthur, to bring solar development to Sherman County for economic development. The other two commissioners are in a quandary. They are all being wooed by developers and strong advocates of green energy. Oregon is pushing its renewable agenda hard.
Farming is not without dangers. On hot summer days, it is easy to start a fire while mowing or harvesting. If we accidentally start a fire and it burns (God forbid) into a solar farm, we would be liable. Our insurance covers up to $5 million, but solar farms are often worth $2 billion.
Our local fire departments (all volunteer) don’t have the expertise to fight solar fires. They say they won’t go into solar facilities or downwind to fight fire unless it’s an emergency (like needing to get someone out of their home).
February 12, 2025
Sherman County Court:
I can’t emphasize enough that you need to take preventative, timely action to keep our residents safe from fire within these solar facilities. This includes setbacks, but primarily, we as a county need to set expectations with solar farm developers and ODOE. The Biglow Wind Farm with falling pieces should be enough of an example of inadequate management by the state.
This is what happened when highly trained firefighters showed up to fight a lithium battery fire in Arizona on a 91-degree day. The firefighters were given 14 weeks of training, and their departments had over 300 employees. Eight were injured, four critically.
As I stated, all of our firemen are volunteers. There is no way they can safely fight a lithium battery fire.
These are the components in solar facilities that our volunteer firefighting force in Sherman County would be dealing with:
A. Lessee desires to obtain from Landlord an exclusive option to lease the Site for purposes of building, owning, operating and maintaining a solar energy generating facility (the “GeneratingFacility”) on the Site,including, without limitation, the installation and maintenance of solar panels, heliostats, energy storage equipment, energy storage facilities, batteries, charging and discharging equipment, substations, undergroundand/or overhead distribution, collection and transmission lines, underground and/or overhead control,communications and radio relay systems and telecommunications equipment, mounting substrates or supports, wiring and connections, cables, wires, fiber, conduit, footings, foundations, towers, poles, crossarms, guy lines and anchors, power inverters, interconnection and/or switching facilities, circuit breakers, transformers, service equipment and associated structures, metering equipment, service roads, utility interconnections and any and all related or associated improvements, fixtures, facilities, appliances, machinery and equipment.
I’ve had continuous firefighting training during my years as an airline pilot. Seventeen of those years were spent on 747 freighters dealing with hazardous cargo, including lithium batteries.
Please don’t listen to "experts" with no knowledge or training like John Soininin (Brookfield Energy) or Ormand Hilderbrand (PATU Wind). They want solar power at all costs.
Sincerely,
Captain Kathryn Mccullough
“Don’t remember the explosion. Don’t remember anything from there,” Clare said.
Both men suffered severe injuries, including brain trauma.
Lopez had a collapsed lung, broken ribs, a broken leg, separated shoulder, laceration of the liver and multiple thermal and chemical burns, according to the report.
Clare suffered an eye injury, spine damage, broken ribs, broken ankles, a broken scapula, internal bleeding and thermal and chemical burns.
Lithium-ion battery cells have been observed to eject molten metal during thermal runaway [19, 22]. These metal droplets are likely to be at a sufficient temperature to act as a competent ignition source for a flammable gas and vapor mixture.
The rhetoric burns me most. It’s all “feel good, look good” with no facts. The site is returned to its original condition? Wish I could take that to the bank. Safe and quiet - unless there is a fire.
