True, but all construction projects and parking lots have to comply with runoff and soil percolation requirements. I doubt these are concerns for any “green” energy plant.
They wiped out almost TWO SQUARE MILES of forest and grassland with total disregard for rainwater concentration and runoff management. They ignored it and let the concentrated runoff flow to neighboring properties and inundate them with mud and silt, ruining their land and ponds. That is gross incompetence. It sounds like you are perfectly happy with that.
Try doing that when you build any other type of commercial project. Tough regulatory standards must be met for any project except “green” energy projects.
In a similar vein, I’m angry about the lack of land remediation bond requirements for windmills. If you want to open a surface mine of any type, you must post up-front bonds to restore the land after mining is completed. Windmills and solar plants will be abandoned, littering our once-beautiful landscape with tens of millions of failing windmill towers, each held up by hundreds of tons of concrete buried in the earth. No surety bonds are posted to make sure those despicable towers will be torn down or remediated. I presume you are fine with that looming environmental catastrophe, too.
Just like everything else in modern America, there are two systems of justice and regulatory law — one for the favored classes and one for everybody else.
Two square miles? How much power was being produced? That sounds like power to supply the grid, which is a horrible use for solar. The grid should be dependable power.
Our solar on our home produces 80% of the power we need in our all electric home, including charging our EV. And it's in Alabama (similar climate to Georgia, where the article is about). Solar shouldn't be forced onto anybody. But if anybody is interested (free market), it's do-able in our climate without using up tons of land. All of mine is on the roof.
But you won't get the kind of efficiency I get if it's done with a large solar farm for the grid. For one, the grid's needs are different from a home's needs and the grid's demand varies a lot more than a home's demand. Simply put: it's hard to engineer to meet a constantly shifting target. Then there's the bureaucratic layer with grid power always mucking things up like bureaucrats do.
Oh MY GOD. They CLEARCUT TWO SQUARE MILES.
If this was a timber harvesting company they would be immediately subject to fines for run off, etc. Especially when it comes to runoff into wetlands/streams any bodies of water.
However, because it is a solar farm it was OKEY DOKEY, with the government.
On Federal lands in the western US you are not allowed to log within 50-100’ of a stream. Especially if that stream is the spawning grounds of salmon.