After four years of investigation and cooperation, the US Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency settled AL Solar, a solar farm in rural Alabama, for Clean Water Act violations.
“The development of solar energy is a key component of this administration’s efforts to combat climate change,” Larry Starfield, EPA acting assistant administrator, said in a statement. “These settlements send an important message to the property owners of solar farm projects that these facilities must be designed and constructed in accordance with all environmental laws, including those preventing the discharge of sediment into local waters during construction.”
The DOJ and EPA also announced settlements with three other solar farms this month.
For the Alabama farm, however, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Jason Ulseth said the announcement was “a long time coming.” His group was the first to investigate AL Solar’s violations and reported them to the EPA and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
In the fall of 2018, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper employee Henry Jacobs carefully flown his drone along the bends in the river. He looked for the red flags of pollution – water spills or anything out of the ordinary. This was part of his routine and just one way he and his team were trying to preserve and protect the Chattahoochee River.
On that October day, Jacobs spotted a substantial plume of muddy water flowing into the Chattahoochee from Oseligee Creek in Chambers County, Alabama. The plume of sediment entered the river just above the town of West Point, Georgia, where there had been reports of problems with drinking water treatment.
“A lot of people don’t realize that sediment, dirt that comes in bulk from our Earth’s surface and construction sites, is one of the most damaging types of pollutants in our river systems,” Ulseth said. “Not only does it cause a lot of environmental damage in terms of damage to ecosystems, fish and invertebrate reproduction, but it also causes a lot of economic damage.”
Using the drone, Jacobs and Ulseth were able to quickly trace the damage back to where it originated in LaFayette.
“We found the huge solar field that was being built in Alabama. That was the source of all this sediment that went into the Chattahoochee River,” Ulseth said.
Driving around the site, Ulseth and his team found a “tremendous amount” of sediment being extracted from the ground and washed into nearby watercourses. This, he said, explains the problems West Point, Georgia has with its drinking water.
“It has actually caused major damage to a drinking water abstraction point in a community that needs to remove all the sludge from the water before they can send that water to their customers,” Ulseth said. “In our conversations with this community, they made an effort to actually shift their drinking water intake.”
Those efforts have continued, including with the agreement earlier this month.
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper reported these findings to the EPA and ADEM, but they also contacted AL Solar’s developers to help them troubleshoot the situation.
“There were avenues of collaboration at the same time,” Ulseth said. “Due to the size of the site and the scale of the breaches and damage caused, it took a very long time for all of this to play out.”
Now the solar park has stabilized and is in compliance with the law.
As part of the settlement, AL Solar will pay a civil penalty of US$250,000 to the United States and a civil penalty of US$250,000 to ADEM. Additionally, both the project contractor and property owner made contributions to support Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s West Point Lake floating classroom to “offset the impact caused by the construction of the solar site.” It is an on-water environmental education program that started in 2015 and has welcomed nearly 17,000 students, teachers and adults.
Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at[email protected]. To support their work subscribe to the advertiser or Donation to Report for America.
