Impose emergency moratorium to update Klickitat County's ordinances for solar farms
Impose emergency moratorium to update Klickitat County's ordinances for solar farms
Why this petition matters
In 2005, Klickitat County created the Energy Overlay Zone (EOZ) which makes up 2/3 of the county's land to be used for renewable energy. This area is under immediate threats to becoming the home of the largest solar farm in Washington State. The Final Environmental Impact Statement or FEIS contains the framework for how the multi-billion dollar corporations can operate. The document is outdated and fails to address utility scale solar farms. The current ordinances allows these corporations to govern themselves, has no emergency plan for disasters, and is unclear who is responsible for testing and reporting groundwater. This puts our residents and emergency first responders at risk. Several reports have been published recently regarding the risks that utility scale solar farms pose on communities such as: explosions at battery storage facilities, wildfires, contaminated ground water and flooding. In order to address these concerns the residents want the commissioners to impose an emergency moratorium to update the 16 year old ordinances to include how to address these serious risks and to prevent any new permits to be accepted until the ordinances become updated, and relevant to utility scale solar farms.
Decision Makers
- Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners