CASPER — A proposed 2,010-acre solar farm and battery storage facility on private ranch land 30 miles west of Casper will not see the light of day.
The Natrona County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 after a 7 1/2-hour meeting to reject the application of EG Haystack Solar LLC that would have allowed it to move forward with a 199-megawatt generating station and battery storage facility capable of storing 100 megawatts of power.
Adam Brown, who owns land near the project, was among the more than a dozen people who spoke against the project. A former Miami firefighter, he said, he had moved to the area to retire, and the project threatened his “dream” for his twilight years.
“Everybody I’ve met worked hard to come out there and build their dream to live in peace, away from the industrial scenario by a town that’s full of great people, and now it’s being kind of threatened,” he said. “All the people who are against it are from here, they live here, and it affects them personally. Your job is to take care of the community, the people who vote for you, and that’s what’s most important.”
Commission Chairman Dave North and Commissioners Casey Coates and Dallas Laird voted against the project, while Commissioners Peter Nicolaysen and James Milne voted for it.
In addition to a parade of residents who stood before the commission voicing their fears and opposition, commissioners heard testimony from the Natrona County Fire District, Natrona County Weed and Pest and Wyoming Game and Fish officials. The project was promoted and defended by EG Haystack spokesman Dale Harris, based in Texas, and their Cheyenne-based attorney Sean Larson.
“This is a well-designed project,” Larson said. “The project is permitted as a matter of right within RAM (Rural, Agricultural, Mining) zoning.”
No Plan, ‘Just a Letter’
But as midnight approached, Coates, Laird and North made clear they thought the application failed to meet the criteria needed for approval, pointing out fire suppression concerns and the lack of a drainage, erosion, dust control, grading and vegetation removal plan prepared by a Wyoming licensed engineer.
“It’s noted that the applicant provided a letter and not a plan,” Coates said.
Laird made it known all night that he was concerned with Haystack’s “limited liability corporation” and repeatedly demanded to know if parent company Enfinity Global was going to make area residents whole if a disaster happened at the site and affected their properties and land values.
“I’d vote ‘no’ five times if I could,” he said.
Harris, Larson and other company-related officials tried to head off concerns that came up during the county planning commission process on fire safety, bonding and decommissioning for the project, setbacks, wildlife corridors and solar glare.
Laird brought up the likelihood the Trump administration will get rid of all subsidies around solar power.
Harris responded that the new administration wanted the U.S. to “be dominant in all technologies.”
“He has Elon Musk, who is going to be guiding some of his policies, he is a big proponent of solar and batteries,” Harris said. “We actually are considering utilizing him possibly on this project. And so, I do not think that this administration is going to prevent the development of energy technologies.”
Natrona County commissioners listen to testimony during a 7 ½-hour hearing on Tuesday. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Shiela Hilts of Kaycee tells the crowd at the Tuesday hearing on a solar farm planned for her property 30 miles west of Casper near Natrona that she believes the project and the company doing it would not be an issue for the area. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
EG Haystack LLC spokesman Dale Harris addresses the Natrona County commission about his company’s 2010-acre solar farm and battery storage facility. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Migration Route
Wyoming Game and Fish Wildlife Management Coordinator Brandon Werner told commissioners that the company was working with Haystack, but that the project was placed in the middle of an essential pronghorn habitat that has a large herd during the winter going around Pine Mountain, up to the northern boundary of U.S. 20/26.
“This is basically a big migration route that they use to go back and forth,” he said. Werner said there would need to be “alleyways” or corridors to the animals to go through the project and not just a 2,000-acre fence.
Natrona County Fire District Chief Brian Oliver testified that the lithium batteries would be contained in several different separated cabinets on the property, not a building. However, if a battery fire occurred at the facility, it would take anywhere from 30-minutes to 45-minutes depending on weather for crews to respond. He said their tactics would be to let any battery fire burn out and protect the land around the facility from any spread.
A bigger issue was resources and staffing for the fire - estimating any lithium fire is at least four to six hours of time. That would stress response to other areas of the county and could draw city fire assistance away from Casper as well.
Natrona County Weed and Pest Supervisor Matt Jolivet testified the company did not have a weed control program and said he met with Haystack officials, and they were willing to produce a plan but that the area is a concern in terms of noxious weed growth. He asked any approval of the project be contingent on Haystack Solar having a weed management plan.
Landowner Support
Landowner for the project Shiela Kilts was the only member of the packed commission chamber to speak in favor of the project. She asked the commission not to treat the company different than any other project. She pointed to the company’s willingness to build a bridge over Casper Creek and fund improvements to Natrona Road as positives.
Issues raised about fire and other environmental impacts should not impede the project, she said.
“These people will be monitored by the DEQ, EPA, and all of those other governing agencies, just like the oil and gas industry,” she said. “To hold them to a different standard is, in my opinion, unfair.”
Kilts said in all of her dealings with the company, they followed through with their promises.
Public comment against the project went on for more than two hours with area residents voicing concerns about a fire safety, the project stirring up selenium in the ground, the company submitting a flawed application, wildlife issues, ground water pollution into Casper Creek and charges that it was a suspect company.
Company Concerns
Neighboring ranch owner Charlie Putnam characterized the project as one with too many red flags and too many plans for “mitigations.”
“My thinking is that this is the wrong location, wrong time, and wrong company to be doing this,” he said. Putnam questioned how the company came up with a $14 million figure for its bond and whether the bond would be for decommissioning or damages the project causes.
Putnam said he agreed with Laird that the company as an “LLC” means Enfinity Global is not liable for potential issues and that Enfinity itself is a Delaware-based “LLC.”
“I see layers of LLCs, red beacons go off, I see red flags waving,” he said. Putnam questioned EG Haystack LLCs and Enfinity Global’s business plans, charging that his math of a $340 million investment to build the plant and $60 million decommissioning cost for Haystack did not compute with its generating capacity, allowing for the company to get a good return on investment.
Rancher Mark Rosenbaum said he was concerned about the project disturbing selenium in the soils and creating a selenium runoff into Casper Creek which runs along land where he pastures his bulls across the highway from the proposed project site.
“We have to watch it pretty close to get our livestock off it at certain times of the year,” he said. “I’m a little concerned as far and the erosion control plan that they’ve got set up or not set up.”
Pine Mountain-area resident Ronda Gregory also questioned the financial viability of the project charging that Enfinity was not “globally sound in any way with much of their operational budget coming from debt financing rounds, which in short, are loans based on promises, not collateral production or results.”
Equipment Questions
Casper businesswoman Stacy Schmid of Range, Solar & Wind LLC challenged much of the information in EG Haystack LLC’s application stating some of the components they listed for the project “do not work together.” She said the project posed potential junction box fires, micro-cracks in the solar panels, and that it would use glass panels that contain lead.
Harris said several of the statements made by the public were false and that the application had been put together by 50 engineers. He conceded it had two typos that referred to “Converse County.” Harris said much of the more detailed technical information for the project would have come in the company’s Industrial Siting Permit application required under state law.
“Two typos is respectable,” he said.
In voting for the project, both Milne and Nicolaysen cited their respect for private property rights and their belief that Haystack had met application requirements.
Nicolaysen called the project different from the controversial Casper Mountain gravel pit denied by the commission because it was on private land and in a zoning that allows solar projects. He said the landowner and Haystack had moved the project further into the property to make it less visible.
“Our primary, our sole determination tonight is, if we are doing our jobs, to look out for the public interest, but it’s also to apply the facts to the law,” he said. “I think they have complied or substantially complied (with zoning requirements) and to the extent that they haven’t, they’ve agreed to perform in a manner that would comply.”
