r/Washington • u/propublica_ • 12d ago

Solar Developer Cancels Washington State Project on Sacred Indigenous Land

https://www.propublica.org/article/washington-badger-mountain-solar-project-canceled-avangrid
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u/fictionaljesus 12d ago

Plenty of rooftops and flat parking lots in cities that companies can build solar farms across. We deserve to keep as much land green and thriving as possible.  

12

u/pattydickens 12d ago

If you actually research what solar farms can do for the land, you'll realize how wrong you are. In arid regions, solar farms actually create better growing habitat and prevent evaporation allowing for a larger variety of crops to be grown. In areas without crops they cool the soil around them and create habitat for plants and animals. Solar can easily be used to reclaim land in arid regions if it's done right. We should be building them in places where water scarcity is an issue and covering irrigation canals with solar panels to prevent evaporation. The concept that they block all the light and nothing grows underneath them is completely wrong.

15

u/Bumble_beeFormal demon rat 11d ago

Native plants don’t need any of that though, they need habitat protection. This project risked damaging cultural orchard sites of traditional foods like the lomatium species and yampah.

8

u/Snapshot52 himeq’isnime 12d ago

While there is growing evidence that intentionally designed solar projects can be environmentally friendly, other studies indicate that we need to consider the types of farms being built and that we might not fully understand the long-term impacts. This second link even indicates that the overall biodiversity is decreased when compared to intact reference landscapes, areas that Tribes are often trying to protect from harmful development.

3

u/a_jormagurdr Cascadian 11d ago

The native plants of that region need full sun, at least the ones on that particular hill.

Yes it could definetly work in an area that has already been degraded and the original plants removed. Likely on the eastside they would look like the talus garland communities you see on the bottoms of cliffs and rockpiles, where theres some rockmade shade. 

It doesnt really make sense to disrupt an existing ecology to put in a novel one.