Like many people concerned about the future, I hold our governments partially responsible for the way Pagosa Springs has developed and how it will develop in the future. As part of my exploration of that perspective, I posed a couple of questions to myself last week at the conclusion of Part One, related to one of the 363 “goals” that are included in the Town of Pagosa Springs’ 2017 Comprehensive Plan. That particular goal — actually, an ‘implementation goal’ from page 78, referencing a possible amendment to the Town’s Land Use and Development Code (LUDC) — is written like this:
Amend the LUDC to allow for community-scale solar energy farms within the Town as a conditional use permit.
Would one or more community-scale solar energy farms within the Town limits truly make Pagosa Springs a better place to live? Or is this particular Comprehensive Plan goal related to global warming rather than the quality of life in our own community?
Would the presence of solar farms also attract more people from California, hub of the nation’s renewable energy efforts?
And is that what we want?
To be perfectly clear, I don’t know much about solar farms. And I didn’t pick this particular goal — out of the 363 goals included in the Comprehensive Plan — because I found it to be especially important to Pagosa’s future. It was a totally random selection. I simple opened page 78 and picked the first goal my eyes fell upon. It’s possible that only a few of the 363 goals collected in the Comprehensive Plan will be accomplished during my lifetime, or during the lifetime of my grandchildren, for that matter. But it’s an example of how our governments operate in the early years of the 21st century. Goals are chosen — by some interested person or group — in the belief that we can make Pagosa into a better place by implementing these goals. At some point, tax revenues are directed towards implementation, or else the goals sit on a shelf and gather dust. But the basic assumption remains: that governments ought to be deciding and directing certain important aspects of our future.
Some folks assume the future will turn out badly if the municipal government doesn’t effectively enforce a 276-page land use code, built partially upon the 363 goals in the Comprehensive Plan.
Some might also believe the future will turn out badly if our local government does not encourage the development of “community-scale solar energy farms.” But solar farms pose unique problems.
And speaking of California, we can look at one of the largest solar installations in the US — the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS), constructed in California’s Mojave Desert and using 173,500 slowly-moving giant mirrors to generate electricity.
From the LA Times, September 2016:
An unusual type of solar power plant that concentrates sunlight in California is accidentally killing up to 6,000 birds every year, with staff reporting that the birds keep flying into its concentrated beams of sunlight, and spontaneously bursting into flames.
The problem has been going on since the site opened in 2014, and the team says it’s trying everything to save the birds from a fiery fate. But so far, the perfect solution has eluded them… The sight of a bird being fried to death is so common at the Ivanpah Solar Plant in California’s Mojave Desert, that workers have nicknamed the smouldering birds “streamers”, because they leave tiny wisps of white smoke behind as they burn up in the sky.
…Unlike typical solar farms that use photovoltaic panels on a large scale, the site at Ivanpah is built on entirely different principles. To catch sunlight, the plant uses 5 square miles of giant mirrors that focus beams of concentrated sunlight onto three different 40-storey-tall towers. Once the beams are focused on the towers, their energy can be used to power turbines inside, which generates energy for the power grid.
The problem is that all this concentrated light around the towers makes them a prime location for insects to hang around, and this attracts birds. When the birds cross in front of all that concentrated light to get at the insects, they burn up in seconds. And the situation is made even worse by the fact that the plant sits along the Pacific Flyway — a popular migratory route for many different types of birds, including protected species like varied thrushes and northern goshawks…
…”Ivanpah is a bird sink – and [a] cautionary tale unfolding on public lands,” Garry George from Audubon California — a conservation group that focuses on the Pacific Flyway — told the LA Times. “It continues to operate as though there’s an endless supply of birds to burn.”
From what I can tell, the Ivanpah facility is still operating and still killing birds. The air temperature around the towers reaches 1,000 degrees F. Not a happy situation for innocent birds seeking a simple snack.
(Two similar ‘solar tower’ projects, planned for Nevada and Australia, were canceled last year.)
Supposedly, birds and various other animals are threatened by ‘climate change.’ They might also be threatened by the solutions humans create to address ‘climate change’. We can’t blame people for trying — but did the California government really need to approve five square miles of insect- and bird-killing solar mirrors… without at least doing a small experimental test first?
We are dreaming up clever ways to reduce carbon emissions, but sometimes a clever idea — like, say, a mirror-driven solar farm — turns out to be a bad deal for birds and other animals.
As a new member of the Town Planning Commission, I am — along with the other six commissioners — tasked with the job of helping enforce the Land Use and Development Code. Various commissioners have handled that task in preceding years, and their efforts have, to some degree, made Pagosa into the place it is today. One thing preceding Planning Commissions have not done on a regular basis — based on my occasional attendance at their meetings over the past 15 years — is to conscientiously fulfill a couple of key duties, as described in the LUDC itself on page 82:
The Planning Commission shall have the review and decision-making authorities listed in Table 2.2-1, and in addition shall have the following duties and responsibilities:
1. Develop and recommend to the Town Council new policies, ordinances, administrative procedures, and other means that allow expansion to be accomplished in a coordinated and efficient manner;
2. Conduct studies and recommend to the Town Council, any other new plans, goals, and objectives relating to growth, development, and redevelopment of the Town…
Efficient expansion. Growth. Development. More of those common assumptions I’d like to dig into.
Pagosa’s ‘comprehensive plans’ and ‘land use codes’ have typically been developed with the help of out-of-town experts, who may have considerable knowledge about how other communities are trying to create an ideal future. But what if we want to control our own destiny?
And even more importantly, what if ‘growth’ and ‘expansion’ are the problem, rather than the solution?