DIA OPALCO Committee Report
To our fellow Decatur Island community members:
Four members of the Decatur Island community have formed a study group to consider the OPALCO proposal to expand the existing 0.4 MW solar array to a total of 1.9 MW. We first met on May 26th and subsequently agreed on a consensus position regarding the OPALCO proposal which we shared with the community at a special meeting of the Decatur Island Alliance on May 31st.
At that meeting, we were encouraged to share our findings with OPALCO management. OPALCO offered us the opportunity to speak with their team on Monday, June 9th. General Manager Foster Hildreth and his staff were very generous with their time and they listened attentively to the ideas we presented.
We made it clear that the positions we were advancing were our own. We did not claim to speak for any organization on the island, and certainly not for the whole community, but we did try to convey as many of the concerns we have heard voiced by members of the Decatur Island community as possible.
The main points we made correspond to those we presented in the May 31st meeting:
1. Because (1) the “Phase I” proposed lease of the 5-acre San Juan Public Works parcel requires the indiscriminate clearing of the entire parcel with no compensatory mitigation, and (2) because Public Works has held no public hearings or provided any opportunity for the Decatur Island community to inquire about the plans Public Works has for development of the parcel, to comment on the idea of encumbering 60% of it for a non-public works purpose for 25 years, or to offer input on ways the parcel could support the current and future infrastructure needs of the island, our group concluded the Phase I proposal is neither environmentally sound nor socially responsible.
We requested that OPALCO permanently abandon their plans to lease this parcel and support our community’s call for Public Works to hold a public hearing on Decatur Island regarding the future of the parcel.
2. We concluded OPALCO has not yet demonstrated clearly to the community that the proposed project on Decatur Island is necessary. There are three parts to this question:
(1) Are solar power arrays necessary to ensure energy security in San Juan County in the near and long term, and
(2) Is the expansion of the solar power array on Decatur Island necessary to address such a County-wide need, and
(3) Does the proposed expansion of solar power on Decatur Island impose a fair and equitable burden on Decatur Island in comparison to other islands?
We requested that OPALCO provide a cogent argument addressing all three points above, supported by the work of subject matter experts.
We consider this a prerequisite for OPALCO to ask the Decatur Island community to consider the solar expansion project on Decatur.
3. Several members of the community have requested that OPALCO explain why alternative sites on Decatur Island that are already clear of trees could not be considered as alternatives to the former Loveless property, which is largely covered with mature forest canopy.
We requested that OPALCO undertake a detailed comparative analysis of all potentially suitable sites on the island and present the results to the Decatur Island community.
We consider this a prerequisite for OPALCO to ask the Decatur Island community to consider the solar expansion project on Decatur.
4. We concluded that if, after having satisfied the three requests above, OPALCO still intends to proceed with its “Phase II” plan for development of the former Loveless property, significant mitigations would be necessary to demonstrate to the community that such a project would be environmentally sound and socially responsible.
We requested that, in addition to the mitigations required by the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) and San Juan County Community Development, OPALCO voluntarily agree to at least the following:
· Significantly reducing the scale of the proposed arrays.
· Providing 150-foot-wide buffers of undisturbed woodlands along all the public roads bordering the site.
· Developing a phased process of protecting all the undisturbed woodlands on the site by providing conservation easements to the San Juan Preservation Trust or other means acceptable to the community.
· Working with the community to develop a detailed, binding Mitigation Plan addressing issues such as wildfire risk, stormwater management and construction-phase impacts management.
· Consideration of offsetting Community Benefits such as no-cost leases of portions of the site for community uses and the authorization for the community to construct pedestrian trails across the site.
· Developing a binding, public Recommissioning Process which would be implemented at the end of the project’s design life.
· Developing a binding, public Decommissioning Plan which would require removal and recycling of photovoltaic components and reforestation of the solar array footprints if OPALCO elects not to recommission the site.
· Development of a binding Community Commitments document that would describe all the commitments OPALCO is willing to undertake over the lifetime of the project.
June 11th, 2025
William Hurley (Study Group Chair)
Charlie Conway
Rob Grant
Andrew Grenville
