Following trend, St. James nears rules for new solar farms | Business - The Advocate

Following trend, St. James nears rules for new solar farms | Business | theadvocate.com

New restrictions proposed on future large-scale solar farms in St. James Parish would require land buffers tougher than what's been required for industrial plants and tank farms seeking to move into or expand in the Mississippi River parish.

The minimum 500-foot buffer from homes, which is also tougher than what some other river parishes have adopted for solar farms, would be one piece of St. James' first ever solar farm law.

After public hearings this month and some expected final edits, the proposed law is expected for a vote next month in Convent a little more than a year after a moratorium was adopted amid public opposition to a 3,900-acre solar operation proposed for Vacherie.

Solar farms don't have the potentially harmful air emissions or explosion risks many petrochemical facilities do, but the renewable energy facilities have drawn opposition in the rural parish that is home to large oil storage facilities and petrochemical plants that are critical employers and taxpayers.

The concerns have included aesthetics, glare, noise, flying panels during powerful hurricanes, the loss of sugar cane acreage and its impact on Louisiana's largest mill in Gramercy, and low long-term job prospects. Some residents have also objected to putting another facility on west bank farming land.

"Why do y'all want to do this on the west bank? You know, when it comes to the west bank, y'all put everything on our side of the river, and we benefit nothing," Vacherie resident Jeffery Reulet told the council earlier this month. "What's the benefits to our community?"

The new parishwide rules would require decommissioning bonds to restore farmland, charge permit and annual inspection fees, and impose new restrictions on how the operations could be built, including the land buffers, fencing, landscaping and noise limits.

The new ordinance would not explicitly allow the farms in any location, only set the ground rules if allowed. Future farms would still need Planning Commission and Parish Council blessing, but that hasn't stopped solar farm opponent and west bank Councilman Donald Nash from stating his unequivocal opposition to the proposed ordinance that he argues would ease the path for new solar farms.

Others, like Parish Councilman Jason Amato, a recently retired Shell Chemical manager who has helped lead the ordinance effort, has pushed for the rules after saying the state Legislature failed to address the issue. He said other parishes are tracking what St. James is doing.

"We're on the forefront of attempts to control our solar farms," he said.

Kim Marousek, director of planning for the Center for Planning Excellence in Baton Rouge, said parishes across the state are still in the beginning stages of trying to manage this transition to solar, balancing tradeoffs they can represent for their communities' economies and culture.

"I do think that based on the conversations we're having, local communities are still trying to navigate how to best to make these decisions and how to encourage … the development where it makes sense and to allow the community to provide valid feedback in that process," Marousek said.

Her group is close to finishing a planning tool kit on future solar farms, probably by the end of the year.

Over the past three to four years, the pattern has been familiar. Local officials and some residents often are initially taken aback by the size and look of the operations, often over a few thousand acres.

Then they settle into debate over new rules — sometimes preceded by a moratorium — and then often proceeded by new farms. The outcomes haven't always been consistent, however.

While agrarian Pointe Coupee Parish has been more welcoming of the operations and their tax revenue benefits, neighboring Iberville Parish, which has a significant agricultural economy but also a large industrial base, has been less interested.

Facing public opposition to new solar farms, Iberville officials have called the farms' proposed revenue impact "small potatoes" compared with industries like Shintech and Dow. The farms have also faced headwinds in Washington Parish.

In St. James, with its large agricultural tracts on the river, fights over industrial sitings are hardly new, but solar farms initially scrambled the typical political lines.

When D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments came with proposals for 3,900 acres of new solar farms along La. 20 and River Road through a growing residential and potentially future commercial zone in west bank Vacherie, local public opposition flashed.

D.E. Shaw has been planning to sell its power to Entergy Louisiana, which is responding to demands from its industrial customers for renewable power but had already built a 210-acre farm in Vacherie that had rankled nearby homeowners.

Environmental groups, which have fought the petrochemical industry, particularly near minority communities on the west bank, argued for solar farms as a newer, greener industry. Local officials, who have generally been welcoming of the more jobs-heavy petrochemical sector, were hesitant.

Rejecting D.E. Shaw's new solar farms and adopting the moratorium last year, St. James officials faced accusations they were simply trying to kill solar, but they asked their contract planner, the South Central Planning and Development Commission in Houma, to study the issue and make recommendations.

The planners concluded that while D.E. Shaw's proposed solar farms would cut into St. James' already shrinking sugar cane acreage by 13%, the Louisiana Sugar Refining mill in Gramercy could seek other cane sources and St. James would benefit from higher property revenue, even after industrial exemptions.

Pat Gordon, the commission's chief planning officer, said that for the proposed ordinance itself, his group's research examined rules inside and outside the state, as well as CPEX's work.

They also met with D.E. Shaw and Entergy to craft what he believes is a reasonable set of rules. He said there was no intention to lock the door on new facilities in the parish.

"When we put these regulations together, we felt that there were numerous areas in parish that they could put the solar farms and meet the regulations," Gordon said.

Gordon explained that the proposed St. James land buffer for solar farms falls between the 300-foot to 1,000-foot buffers of other ordinances. Washington Parish's ordinance also requires a 500-foot buffer from homes, though, like St. James, a lesser buffer from roads.

CPEX's coming rules won't offer set buffers, nonprofit officials said, but are expected to rely on the principle that solar farms shouldn't be treated any differently than other similar commercial or industrial facilities.

St. James' land use ordinance doesn't have set buffers for industrial development, but they can be considered on a case-by-case basis. In recent history, industrial operations have not had to get minimum buffers or had mandated buffers smaller than what solar farms would need.

The Formosa Chemical complex currently tied up in court and regulatory review would need a 300-foot buffer if built. The now failed South Louisiana Methanol complex would have had a 150-foot buffer.

Victor Franckiewicz Jr., the parish's land use attorney, pointed out that those buffers were adopted with the knowledge that many industrial facilities don't build to their property lines anyway but set back internally by hundreds of feet or more.

Koch Methanol, for which the parish recently granted a capacity expansion, doesn't have a parish-mandated buffer under its initial approval several years ago, but its facilities are 1,800 feet from the property line, Franckiewicz noted.

Laddie Roussel, a Hester resident who has fought the Big Shake dirt operation behind his and his neighbors’ homes, noted that a parish settlement only requires a 100-foot set back between their homes and large borrow pits, while a tougher proposed ordinance hasn't moved forward.

In public hearings this month, officials with solar developer D.E. Shaw told the Parish Council the new rules would make it harder to develop solar farms in the parish but in the end would benefit the community.

They and Entergy officials thanked parish officials for their thoughtful work.