Shasta County Pushes Back On State’s Involvement In Fountain Wind Decision
Shasta County’s Acting County Counsel says the state agency does not have jurisdiction to consider approving the Fountain Wind Project after it was already denied twice at the local level. We share more.
Photo by Zhang Fengshen on Unsplash
8.16.23 2:10 pm: We have updated the article to correct the spelling of a name and add a link to where the community can provide comment on the Fountain Wind project.
It’s been two years since Shasta County definitively closed the door to the Fountain Wind turbine project — twice. But county staff have once again been spending time on the topic due to a new state law, AB 205, that could allow a California agency to approve the Texas-based ConnectGEN’s mammoth Fountain Wind Project anyway.
As Shasta Scout previously reported, in an effort to fast-track green energy projects, the California Energy Commission (CEC) appears poised to decide whether ConnectGEN will be allowed to erect up to 45 wind turbines on a 4,500 parcel of unincorporated land in the mountain ridges of eastern Shasta County.
The county has just submitted a formal comment in opposition to the CEC’s approval of the Fountain Wind project. In that document, sent by Acting County Counsel Matt McOmber along with outside legal counsel, the county definitively states that the CEC lacks the authority to reconsider Fountain Wind because their approval would “usurp local authority” by seeking to consider a project already denied after an “exhaustive review” by both the Shasta County Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.
Shasta County goes on to inform the CEC that the legislature which approved the new bill allowing green energy bills to be fast-tracked did not intend for it to be used to “circumvent” previous local decisions saying the bill was instead intended to be used as an alternative means of seeking approval for new projects. The county further calls into question whether the bill was properly enacted at all both because it takes control from local governments and because it was passed as a budget trailer bill through an urgent legislation process.
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The county’s letter to the CEC also documents the five-year history of the county’s in-depth examination of the Fountain Wind Project, which was first reviewed by the county in November 2016.
That process, as the county summarizes, included public meetings and hearings, environmental review, submittal of amended applications, and significant opposition from local tribes and community members, all of which led the Planning Commission to deny the application in June 2021. After an appeal, the Board of Supervisors who had access to the same documents and further public comment, also denied the application on October 2021.
The county’s correspondence to the CEC centers the concerns of the “Pit River Tribe, whose Tribal trust and ancestral lands encompass the Project site and (who) were opposed to the Project because it would irrevocably alter mountain ridges that are sacred to the Tribe and where the Tribe would traditionally hold ceremonies and gather food.”
But the Tribe was not alone in its concern, as the county also states, indicating that many other members of the public also expressed concerns including increased wildfire risk, increased construction traffic, rock blasting impacts on wildlife, light and noise pollution, the impact on the aesthetic value of the mountain ridges, among others.
The county has requested the CEC to formally examine whether Fountain Wind falls under the jurisdiction of AB 205 and then, assuming it does not, dismiss ConnectGEN’s Fountain Wind Application.
Community members can also submit comments regarding Fountain Wind to the state. To do so, go to this link and click on “Submit e-Comment” to the right.
Resources:
You can read the County’s full comment to the California Energy Commission here.
Find the CEC Fountain Wind project information here.
And read the rest of Shasta Scout’s ongoing Fountain Wind coverage here.
If you have a correction to this story you can submit it here. Have information to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org
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