The local residents asked some great questions and the Orion representatives are caught lying in response to the questions.
I have included notes with references, to dispute "some" of their lies.
ALL of the notes from the county council meeting are attached in a pdf format, however if anyone wants a copy of this article in a doc format, that you can copy and edit for your own use, please let us know.
Here are a few examples of the content.
• Wolf, an Orion Developer admitted he was working on (signing up farmers willing to delete their farm land from production) the project for 3 years but only gave the local residents 10 days notice to prepare for a meeting where the county council wanted to decide on approval or not of this project.)
• They were going to fence off 2500 acres of farm land so it can not be used for producing crops, but were only going to “plant” solar panels on 800 acres.
• Orion Representatives claimed, “The operations are quiet, no odors, no risk to human or environmental safety.” (While there may not be an odor, we can prove the other two aspects of this statement are lies.)
• No lighting will be installed or operated on the project site other than as needed for safety and operational purposes, including:
• 1) emergency responses,
• 2) within the substation or switch yard parcel footprint,
• 3) inspection/repair purposes,
• 4) internal lighting and external down-lighting of the O & M building,
• 5) security, and
• 6) as otherwise required by applicable law.
• Post-construction, a representative of the operator will conduct training and drills with local emergency responders.
(If there is no risk or danger, why would emergency responders need to be trained and partake in drills and who is going to pay these emergency responders for their time, while undergoing this training?)
• One comment made was: “This is a company that wants to operate their own installations; they do not sell it off to someone else.”
We show you documented proof they have and will sell off their project, even before it is constructed. They will take whatever money they can, then leave town.
• One representative stated, “ he does not think a panel would catch on fire.” (We have shared a long list of documentation in the footnotes to prove that is a lie.”
• They had a “specialist” from Chicago announce their “sample” test did not show any property value decrease. (We have included a variety of references to studies that show an average of 20% decrease in property values, depending on how close a neighbor is to the solar project}
Here is the pdf file.
Orion Rensselaer, Indiana.pdf- (126.69 KiB) Downloaded 160 times