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This is a California Chamber "GreenSeeds"
story that truely earns that description!
The
Hanford Chamber of Commerce is located
in the heart of California's rich San
Joaquin Valley, Kings County is 200 miles
from the greater Los Angeles area to the
south and the San Francisco-Sacramento area
to the north.
This part of California is famous for
farming and the land that crops grow on need
lots of sun and plenty of water.
How that water is delivered to farms in the
area and what happens to the land over time
in terms of productivity has a lot to do
with how well the area econony fares. Salt
build-up affects farmland after years of
irrigation based production and what was
once a source of bountiful harvests
delivering food, agricultural jobs and
support for public services can eventually
lie fallow as "disturbed" unusable land.
Until now.
With all the sunshine available in the
central valley area, one would think it
offers abundant available locations for a
new type of "farm" delivering solar
electricity to California residents.
However, as with many areas in California,
there can be significant resistance to solar
farms because of environmental, wildlife or
other local concerns.
Now "brownfields" are offering growing
opportunities to turn land where existing
contamination means other uses are
prohibited into sites for renewable energy
production. So to can depleted farmland
offer a new life and local income stream
where crop production is no longer possible.
This is where
Hanford Chamber member
Westlands Water District offers hope.
Westlands encompasses more than 600,000
acres of farmland in western Fresno and
Kings counties. The District serves
approximately 600 family-owned farms that
average 900 acres in size.
Thousands of acres of farmland in the San
Joaquin Valley have been removed from
agricultural production, largely because the
once fertile land is contaminated by salt
buildup from years of irrigation.
But large swaths of those dry fields could
have a valuable new use in their future -
making electricity.
Farmers and officials at Westlands Water
District, a public agency that supplies
water to farms in the valley, have agreed to
provide land for what would be one of the
world's largest
solar energy complexes, to be built on
30,000 acres.
At peak output, the proposed
Westlands Solar Park would generate as
much electricity as several big nuclear
power plants.
Unlike some renewable energy projects
blocked by objections that they would
despoil the landscape, this one has the
support of environmentalists.
The San Joaquin initiative is in the
vanguard of a new approach to locating
renewable energy projects: putting them on
polluted or previously used land. The
Westlands project has won the backing of
groups that have opposed building big solar
projects in the Mojave Desert and have
fought Westlands for decades over the
district's water use. Landowners and
regulators are on board, too.
"It's about as perfect a place as you're
going to find in the state of California for
a solar project like this," said Carl
Zichella, who until late July was the
Sierra Club's Western renewable programs
director. "There's virtually zero wildlife
impact here because the land has been farmed
continuously for such a long time and you
have proximity to transmission,
infrastructure and markets."
To join the Hanford
Chamber of Commerce, click
HERE! To other California chambers:
Please let us know about your Clean Energy
successes and Green Members so we can
publish your story in the C of C GreenSheet! |
