P&z Meeting - Regular Meeting

Okay, everybody, we're going to get started. All right. Um, Planning and Zoning Commission welcomes you guys to the regular scheduled meeting of the Monizuma County Planning and Zoning Commission. It's being held in the commissioner's meeting room in Monizuma County Administrative offices, 109 West Maine, room 250 in Cortez, Colorado. Um, we're going to open tonight with pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. Want to call the role done? Uh, Commissioner Armstrong here. Commissioner Lynch here. Commissioner Doyle here. Okay. Also present are Don Haley and Jane Duncan, County Planning Department. Absent is John Hernandez, Commissioner Nearguard, and Haley Saunders. All right. Please silence or turn off your cell phones during the meeting. Important calls may be taken outside of the meeting room. All right. So, first up, uh, has the Planning and Zoning Commission reviewed the April meeting minutes? Yes. I'll entertain a motion to approve. I move we approve. A second. Okay. Motion

was seconded by Commissioner Lynch. Commissioner Doyle. Okay. Call the vote. Commissioner Armstrong. I. Commissioner Lynch. I. Commissioner Doyle. I Okay, motion passes. All right. The Man Zuma County Planning Commission welcomes you to this meeting. This board is comp comprised of members who are tasked to make recommendations to the board of county commissioners. We are not the decision makers. We encourage public comment after each permit. Persons speaking during public comment will be limited to three minutes or depending on the number of people wishing to speak, it may be reduced at the discretion of the planning commission to allow all members of the public the opportunity to address their thoughts and concerns. When addressing the commission, please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record prior to providing your comments. Comments to individual applicants are not permitted and participants may not yield their time to others. Okay, let's call the role. Commissioner Armstrong here. Commissioner Lynch here. Commissioner Doyle here. Notice is hereby given that the Monazuma County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing for the purpose of reviewing and determining recommendations to be made to the board of county commissioners regarding a proposed high impact and special use permit application for solar ftoic electricity generation facility submitted by Canyand Solar LLC agent David Kimmit on properties owned by Dennis Hutchinson to Saw Family Trust Goodman Point Farms LLC, Susan Last, John and Robin Foster, James Wilson Bram's Minor Miners Trust, D&J Schaefer Living Trust, and John and Jessica

Chapel. All situated in section 2021, 2729, 3234, Township 37 North, range 17 west of the NE New Mexico Prime Meridian. and located south of Road S, west of Road 18. This is a public hearing. Was the public notice published? Yes, sir. Was evidence of letters to the adjoining neighbors and mineral owners submitted? Yes, sir. Was the sign posted? Yes, sir. Okay. We'll hear planning department findings first. Okay. Um, the applicant proposes to uh construct a solar photo I'll take Can you be nice and say please? The applicant proposes to construct a solar electric generation station of approximately 960 acres. Uh the surrounding properties consist of a agricultural and residential uses. The canyon of the ancients lands are to the west and the south. Um the properties are accessed from roads S 16 17 18 P and N. Um the applicant has been in contact with the road and bridge department for truck routes and bonding. Um no utilities will will be needed for this uh project. Um, wildfire adaptive has said that although the majority of the subject properties are agriculturally used uh and pose low fire risk and evacuation routes shall be cleared even when considering a new building. It is not it does not mean it is free from fire risk

and mitigation efforts are always recommended. um that the no weed uh plan is needed. Um and that's it for that. I do have some uh letters from a couple agencies that I received. Uh let's see one is from the division of water resources and this comes from uh Corey who is the augmentation coordinator for district 7. Applicant is proposing um construction of on a large solar array on 960 acres of mostly agricultural land in Monzuma County. Project application uh implies no water will be necessary for the operation of the array but 700 75 acre feet will be required for construction. The stated source of this water will be via truck deliveries. DWR requires that they source this water from a local uh supply of water. Although it is unclear if there are any existing irrigation ditches or other water rights already existing on the 960 acres. If so, these are to be unaltered and allow for continued use in all capacity by the water right holder. Although also if any storm water detention or retention ponds are to be built, DWR requires that the guidelines be set forth according to um state

bills, Senate bills. This application does not directly state any use from existing water rights or well permits. DWR has no further comment. Um then this one uh comes from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And this one is from Brian McGee. He is a Southwest Region Land View Chief. Um, it says, um, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, CPW, appreciates the opportunity to review and comment on the, uh, Canyon Land Solar LLC high impact and special use application before the Monazuma County Planning and Zoning Commission. CPW's mission is to perpetuate the wildlife resources of Colorado to provide a quality state park system and to provide enjoyable and sustainable outdoor recreation opportunities to educate and inspire current and future generations. Responding to county agency and industry requests for recommendations to avoid, minimize, and mitigate the impacts of various types of land use development activities on wildlife resources in Colorado plays a vital role in our ability to fulfill this mission. CPW has reviewed the materials provided by Monizumi County on April 29, 2025. This proposal involves the installation of a 140 megawatt utility scale solar generation facility on approximately 940 acres of privately

owned land. The total leased lands include approximately 3,700 acres on 15 parcels owned by 10 separate land owners. Canyonland Solar LLC is a subsidiary of UV, Inc. UV first approached CPW for consultation on this project in 2022 when this location and the proposed facility were known as Coyote Gulch Solar. Since then, CPW has provided UV with recommendations to avoid and minimize impacts to wildlife, many of which have been included in the their proposal. The project area consists mostly of dryland agricultural fields. Canyon land canyons of the ancients national monument borders the project area to the west in a series of canyons. These western canyons are dominated by pin uh pinion pine juniper trees and other native vegetation. Many life many wildlife species utilize these natural habitats including elk, mu deer, bear, coyote, mountain lion, bobcat, migratory birds, reptiles, and various species of raptors. The project area is mapped by CPW as mule deer wild concentration area high priority habitat or HPH and elk HPH is within a mile to the northwest. Approximately 940 acres of agricultural land will be impacted for wildlife species. However, agricultural lands have somewhat diminished habitat value con um compared to undisturbed natural

habitats. Indirect impacts on wildlife occur over time from the functional habitat loss associated with fragmentation modifi modified habitat use in response to changes in land use. CPW anticipates that the construction and operation of the facility will alter and change the b the behavior of animals that historically would have used the project area and surrounding lands. However, there are very few u scientific studies on which to rely on to inform what these displacement distances may be. The following recommendations were made by CPW in early consultations and included with within the application. CPW recommends modeling the fence after the wildlife exclusion fencing used by the Colorado Department of Transportation which is which uses 8 foot high woven wire. They also recommend altering the facility layout design to remove panels that are near canyon edges. The purpose of this suggestion was to allow continued movement within and near the canyons. CPW also recommended altering the facility layout design to have more separation between fenced panel arrays and provide greater potential for big game movements throughout the facility. The distance to make these gaps um is still unknown and further research is needed. Um then in conclusion, Colorado Parks and Wildlife appreciates the opportunity to provide input on the

Canyon Land Solar Project. We appreciate the UB to has been willing to meet with us and listen to our suggestions. If you have any further questions regarding these comments and he gave his phone number to call. Thanks. That's it. Okay. All right. Um, applicants are here. Uh, anything you want to present to us? Uh, yes. Yes, Chair Armstrong. Thank you. Um, I have a presentation to give a small presentation if you'd like. Sure. That at this time. Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, and is it customary to provide an introduction of who we are at this time? Please. Yeah. Turn on your microphone. Um, so thank you. Thank you, Chair Armstrong and Commissioner Doyle and Commissioner Lynch. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. Um, I appreciate everyone here in the audience tonight and I know there's a lot of um, passion involved in people's opinions um, in both directions on the proposal. Um, it's been many years in the making to get to this point. I first reached out to planning director Don Haley in 2020 um with the concept which at that time was called Coyote Gulch Solar. Um and subsequent to that there was other meetings. Uh we presented to the board of county commissioners in public hearing in 2021. Um, last year was I I held two uh neighbor meetings with residents of the Goodman Point area that are neighbors to the project. Held another one last month. Um, and it all culminates in the application before you tonight. So, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Dave Kimmit. I'm the manager of planning for UV. We are a solar uh development, engineering, construction and operations and

maintenance company based in Boulder, Colorado. Um my address is 9536 Saggel Street, Longmont, Colorado. Um with me tonight is my colleague Nick Miller who is the director of development for Eevee. Good evening. It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Um Mr. Doyle, Armstrong, and Lynch. And really appreciate the opportunity to be in front of you. And um yeah, my name is Nick Miller. I'm the director of development at UV. Um Dave and I have been working together for a long time and really look forward to uh the conversation tonight. So really appreciate you having us. Thanks. Okay. Um, so I have the presentation ready and then director Haley will wave a magic wand and make it come on the screen. There it is. Okay. Um, so the name of the project is uh Canyon Land Solar. It was at one point called Coyote Gulch Solar. Um, the name didn't seem quite as appropriate, so we decided roughly a year ago to change the name. Um, and it's considered under the Monizuma County Land Use Code as a major facility of a public or private utility. Um, and the permit type is, as has been mentioned, a high impact permit, special use permit. Uh, project overview overview slide. So uh 140 megawws of solar photovoltaics only. Um that means it's just a solar energy producing plant. There's not a battery energy storage system component. Um batteries are not a part of our proposal. 140 megawws

roughly equates to the power um power needs of 30,000 average Colorado households. If you want to think of it in a quantifiable way, um it it the project as proposed will connect to the existing tri-state transmission grid which is in the southwest corner. Um see if my I guess my cursor does not show up on the screen, but if you look at the southwestern corner of the project map that's on the screen right now, that's where the main switch substation is. It's an existing tri-state substation that um helps to deliver take and deliver electricity into the tri-state system including uh tri-state member co-op Empire Electric here in Monizuma County and Dolores County. Um the estimated revenue and this is a uniform method that the state of Colorado conveniently uses for all jurisdictions across the state. Um it's a schedule and uh the estimated revenue for the project uh in increased property tax value for the current land um which right now is it it's zoned agriculturally um different agricultural type zone district designations. Um would be 9.8 $9.8 8 million in property tax revenue increase over 35 years, which roughly equates to $280,000 in increased property tax revenue for the county per year. Um 57% of which the the largest share goes to Monizuma Cortez School District RE1. Um they're the biggest mill levy recipient. Um, so you know, you could think of it as $160,000 roughly um would go per year to Monizuma Cortez School District.

Um, this is a vicinity map just to give an overview of where this is relative to Cortez and Areola. So, west of US 491 um and it to the east immediately to the east of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. Uh here's the site access routes that are proposed. So, the county has an existing trucking route um system that is um designated by uh the board of county commissioners and uh well proposed by uh now former road and bridge superintendent uh Rob Englehart. I did read that he retired um but um as adopted by the board of county commissioners and so that's the green lines on that. So access for hauling would be via county road U, county road 20, road S, road 17. Um, and then if necessary on the very south side of the map, you can see uh that's road P. Uh for passenger vehicles, passenger vehicles could access the project site uh directly on County Road S from US 491, but u hauling vehicles could not. So within the application, the application um uh I think it was 574 pages long. Um there are uh several sub plans and probably the three highlight sub plans that um each of you have seen uh are the decommissioning plan, dust mitigation plan and the fire protection plan. Um these are within these are sub plans within the overall uh sight specific development plan that um each of you have received. And these photos um that are on this slide and subsequent slides

and the previous slides um generally come from the uh the project area site. These are photos that either I have taken or others at UV have taken over the years since we've been going through this proposal process. Um the decommissioning plan is um really important. Um you know we understand the sentiments of what's happened in the county. Um I you know I've read about the Ironwood development um in near Dolores and problems with that and we have you know we've been a company just to backtrack a little bit before I talk about the decommissioning plan a little bit more in depth. We've been building solar energy facilities across America for 17 years now. We started in 2008. So this this is not our first rodeo. And we've um as a part of that and as the industry has matured um UV as a company and others who are involved in um similar pursuits within utility scale solar um realize that decommissioning plans are an important component so that jurisdictions don't feel like they could be left holding the bag should a project go bankrupt. Um, and you know, the most recent example we have of a decommissioning plan um, successfully negotiated is with Dolores County to the north for uh, the Dolores Canyon Solar Project north of Coahone. And um, we have a similar plan um, proposed for Canyon Canyon Land uh, solar um, dust mitigation plan. Uh just an important thing to consider in the you know the arid west arid and some arid west um were cognizant of um dust considerations. the roads accessing the

project are all paved um which is helpful um but nonetheless during construction there's dust and so there is a dust mitigation plan um and then finally fire protection plan um which was reviewed and and approved by uh Lewis Areola fire chief George Stevers and uh that's a component part as well um some other plans that are a little bit um on a lower threshold but nonetheless important contained with the within the application. We have a noxious weed management plan recognizing that there certainly are noxious weeds um and the the um Colorado weed advisory board uh lists um weeds in list A, B and C categories. There are no list A weeds found. We have conducted site studies on site already. Um there are some list B and C weeds and so we have a mitigation plan for those a management plan for those. This picture in the um upper left corner shows uh some Canadian thistle late stage Canadian thistle and salt cedar. Um we have a reveation plan. um you know post construction it's important that any solar project is receded obviously and um our model that has been successful throughout the west most of our projects are built in the west I mean we are based in Colorado um and we understand the very unique needs of a project here as opposed to one say built in Georgia um and um we've had great luck with reveation and as a part of that um we source local seeds when possible. So for the Dolores Canyon Solar Project as as an example um we've been working uh with

Southwest Seed Company in the town of Dolores for um a seed mix for that and um we think we'll probably be working with them for a proposed Canyon Solar Revitation uh seed mix. The seed mix that we want to utilize here um as with uh all of our projects going forward and a few going backward would be sheep palatable. Um we find that um aggravaics that third um bullet point there um has proven immensely successful. we've that that uh that the photo in the lower left side is from a project in the desert of western Utah that we built called Pavant Solar. So uh aside from building projects, we also operate and maintain projects and our maintenance protocols um you know historically were using mowers and um herbicides when necessary. We found uh that sheep grazing, you know, brings in the agricultural element, helps to um keep that agricultural momentum going uh forward even though the project itself is potentially displacing agricultural lands that um grow crops. This is a a new type of opportunity. And although the environment is uh semi-arid to arid, we've had great success. Um the panels create shading and uh creates a microclimate beneath them that is conducive to growing grasses that are um delicious to sheep. And um so we've we've really had uh good luck with that and we look forward to hopefully using sheep on a Canyon Land Solar project. Um so collaboration is key in um any successful project. This has not been uh a shortterm event. Um we didn't

just show up a couple weeks ago with an idea. Um as I mentioned, we first started in 2020 um with Don, you know, a conversation with Don Haley, a board of county commissioners hearing in on I think it was November 16th, 2021. Um we were on the agenda of the board of county commissioners. Um there was a bit of a hiatus in 2023, but 2022 was our year of essentially designing, going into site studies, um trying to understand the land better before we got to the point where we were ready to kind of go public with this. Um 2024 is when that happened. So, the pre-application conference with um planning director Don Haley and other staff members um and area agencies was in April of 2024 and that led to some further understanding of the project. Um the first public meeting that I held was August 15, 2024 at the Louiswis Areola Community Center. Um you know, and it goes forward from there. Anyway, um Don Haley uh was introduced to this in 2020, Board of County Commissioners 2021. Rob Angelhart and I had um some really good discussions to prepare a road use agreement. There is not a road use agreement component to the project yet because he wasn't ready um understandably to um go into that until uh to to see what the outcome was from planning and zoning commission hearing. And that's very similar as to what happened in Dolores County as well with the Dolores Canyon Solar Project. Um we had a planning commission hearing there. From that point, um the charge was let's start discussing before board of county commissioners hearing a road use agreement. So we're happy to do that with whoever the um interim or um nominated new uh road and bridge

superintendent is for Monizuma County to replace Rob Angelhart. uh working with local leadership. So, uh I've had multiple conversations with Lewis Era uh fire protection district chief George Dvers on just the best practices for fire. He helped shape the project um and informed us of the need to back away from draws um in the area by 100 ft minimum. And so that changed our design around um which is great. Um that's part of the collaborative spirit that we always engage in. Um there's a community benefit concept that I'll talk about um with Lewis Aerola Fire Protection District in a second um after I go through the other two. So uh CSU extension agent Em Em Emily Lockard um she and I have discussed the idea of agrovoltaics as a vegetation management concept. Um and uh she acknowledges and that there aren't a lot of largecale sheep ranchers in the area. Um but there are some small ones and um there's others beyond the Monizuma County confines that um could potentially be brought in if necessary, but um we look forward to further discussions with her on that. And then uh finally, the Monizuma Cortez School District Superintendent Tom Burus. Um Tom and I have had numerous uh discussions about um collaboration with uh Monizuma Cortez School District RE1 on a uh potential community benefit. So um I I would like to go a bit further into the community benefits concept for the three uh listed um agencies here. So, going from bottom

to top with uh Monizuma Cortez School District, um Tom and I have discussed a potential uh teaching tool array at Monizuma Cortez High School. This is not a part of the application. This is just a community benefit that UV um would like to offer. All of these community benefit concepts are things we'd like to offer. They are not um part and parcel of the application. It's just an extension of our realization that we do have impacts and we want to try to help offset and mitigate some of those with um bringing things to the county um that could be helpful. So Tom came up with the idea of hey how about an array at the high school that could be a teaching tool. And so we've had actually had um a uh solar energy consultant from Durango, Shaw Solar, come in and take a look at a um solar canopy type of array at the high school that would be in part built by the high school students themselves. Um they would build the support system in the metal shop. Um and um the arrays uh would be installed by Shaw Solar and um this would be something that UV of course would be paying for. Um but as a part of that we would also um in a kind of career day sort of format talk to students about the potential of careers in solar energy. So Tom um himself said to me yesterday, please bring this up at the hearing. He can't be here tonight. He's traveling. Um but um it's really important to him. He's passionate about this idea and you know this could be something that could happen um if the uh it will happen not if should the project go forward this will happen. Um UV will be paying for that with Emily Lockachard. Um we've had great

conversations conversations with her about 4. Um there's probably many people in here who either have family in 4 or been a part of 4. my family's been in for in my part of Colorado and it's um great learning experience for kids and um we will continue that discussion and a potential donation to um some of the various 4 chapters that are in Monizuma County. Finally, um to the top, uh listed item with um Lewis Aerial Fire Protection District. Um Chief Divers and I have been talking about the idea of UV um underwriting the cost of a new defibrillator for um their ambulance um to assist. They they have one that has um I guess gone under and he is the county coroner. So that um has been declared dead and we might uh be able to help pay for a new one of those. Excuse me. Uh everybody uh we're going to ask that everybody maintain and and let the applicant speak and you'll get your opportunity to speak uh during public comment. Thank you. Um so agencies have uh given input as um planning assistant Duncan read the letter from Brian McGee the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Southwest energy leaison. He helped uh inform us of areas where we really should stay away from building our design and we did. Um we took that to heart and um one area in particular was the northwestern most portion of the project where we were planning on building um had a good conversation with Ray O'Neal the manager of um BLM's Kenyans of the Ancients National Monument um and um met with in person state senator Cleave Simpson and state representative Larry Don Sukla um to

talk about the project as well uh collaboration with the community. So this these are the three public meetings that uh we held with uh neighbors. So um I sent out invitations for a meeting with project area neighbors for the first one on August 15th. That input at a really intense but important three and a half hour meeting really gave us food for thought to um on some of our design concepts and that changed our design. Um for the people who have worked with me who some of whom are here tonight um at these meetings they know that the the design has changed. It is not the same design now that it was August 15th. Um subsequent to that back in December held another one at the uh Cortez Cultural Center. Same thing happened. And I sat there for 7 hours and took in comments from people who came in and that gave us more design changes that we just didn't realize. And that's why we host these things. They're not required. We just do it. um last month ago um had a three-hour meeting at the uh Cortez Chamber of Commerce um and shared the final design um as was submitted to um the county in our high impact permit special use permit application. Um this is the current project design. This is what's in the application. Um, and this is a product of all of the various types of input we've received over time, whether it be public comment, agency input, or uh, professional third-party studies. This is what the design looked like back in 2021 um, at the board of county commissioners meeting on November 16th. Um, this whole area in the very northwesternmost portion of the proposed project at that time is what CPW said.

Yeah, you need to back a couple hundred feet away from the canyon rim there. We did and eventually we were like, "Ah, let's just cut this out." So, that changed. Um, other parts changed and that was no longer the design. This was the design that we came forward with um at the August meeting in at the Lewis Areola Community Center. Um, so at that time there was a lot more in the northeastern portion that's no longer there. Um we got feedback from that. Uh the lease area that we have so as has been mentioned the project is cited on 960 acres but we have under option agreement um 3500 acres. That's how we were able to move project pieces around to try to best site. We optioned more land than we ever needed. The project has always been 140 megawws. The output of the project never has changed. It's always been 140 megawws. It's finding the right places for that. And the product of all those meetings equated to design changes um meetings, professional site studies, agency consultations. Um so this was in August. After the August meeting, we changed it again. And this is what I came to the December um 10th uh Cortez Cultural Center meeting with. and I received more input and that changed the design um and eventually that led to what um has been seen which was what we um submitted in our application. So this is um one that is um interesting. So this design shows what this is the design as proposed. When we started the process um we backed away from any house that was in the

vicinity of our design by 500 ft. That was our own internal goal. Okay, we're going to have this design be a minimum of 500 feet from any house. Um that's what we came to the August meeting with. We came to the December meeting with okay we are now 600 feet away from any house and after that we ended up with 800 feet from any house and that's the final design. So there is no house closer than 800 ft. Um there is a new neighbor uh potentially who has purchased land that um might um I think is here this evening and might speak um to where they might um want to build a house and that's something that um I guess we'll hear more of if if that does happen this evening. But as we knew of houses, every home is a minimum of 800 ft and now significantly more um for many because of design changes in public input. Like everything people told us has helped us immensely understand things and that's where we ended up. Um these are the planning documents that are part of it. So we don't rely upon like oh yeah we're experts on every single thing. We just know how to do it all because we don't. Um, so the best practice is to hire professional consultants to help guide us. Um, we hired a phase 1 environmental site assessment consultant from Durango. We hired locally here in Cortez uh, Woods Canyon archaeological consultants to conduct class one, class 2, class 3 archaeological studies and reports um, for most of the land. Um, we're we're we have more to go still. Um, but that's been done. Um, our wildlife, uh, aquatic resources, noxious weed management and revitation plans were conducted by West, a company based out of Cheyenne. And then, um, you know, all of these, as mentioned, helped

us to formulate the, uh, the project design that we have now. Um, back to economic benefits. Um, I mentioned this so I don't need to say it again. That's the exact number. I think I said 9.8 million. It's $9,883,629. Um and then that's um you know the each year on average um there's a lot of potential for local construction jobs. Um our Dolores Canyon Solar Project in Dolores County has hired locally heavily and we do that wherever we go. Um a lot of jobs um can be hired locally. Some are special jobs that require special certifications or knowledge that we bring um you know being a general contractor ourselves that we bring to the table. But a lot of jobs are local and a lot of materials purchased are local. Um that's where the whole sales and property taxes um or the sales taxes comes in is during the the purchasing of so much during that roughly 18th month construction period. And that helps increase money for schools. Um everything that um public relies upon um during the both the construction period for the short-term quite large injection of of monies and then the long-term um property tax revenue. And it's, you know, it's it's it's one of the energies on the table in a place that's very sunny for American energy independence. Um, we want to produce our own energy and this is being produced right here in Monzuma County potentially. Um, there's great sunlight in this part of the state, some of the best in the country and it works well for um producing solar energy. Um, interview uh you know there's a clip the upper left of Monizuma County's land use code. uh lower left that's Main Street and um

you know it the application as um up as submitted to the county meets the intents and standards of Monumi's Monizuma Countyy's land use code of a major facility of a public or private utility um and the high impact special high impact permit special use permit portion under section 21101.7 Um there's certainly landowner rights considerations on both sides and you know there's the side of um the land that we would be leasing. Um we we don't purchase the the land where the project is, we lease the land. Um there's the rights of those land owners and there's also the rights of um people who probably speak tonight as residents and those are both important obviously. Um there's a large increase in short-term project construction jobs as mentioned and uh the regional tax revenue um is immense during that time period. But then there's the long-term property tax revenue that the county can rely upon for the 35 year estimated life of the project. And then uh as I already mentioned the um community benefits opportunities and um yeah it's the last slide um we you know we've valued this time working with the planning department with various agencies and especially myself as a professional planner. Um, I don't mind getting in the weeds with the public and as a lot of people here tonight know, um, I've met them where they are, literally met them where they are. And, um, I've felt their passion about this and I understand their concerns. Um, it's it is a very complex set of parameters that you have

to um, consider and you know, we appreciate that it's it's not easy. Um, we feel that this will pay dividends for generations to come, but we also understand all the things that you as a commission have to contemplate as well. Um, I really have I haven't spent much time in this part of the state until this project and I love this part of the state. It's beautiful. I've been fortunate to get to know some people and um, you know, I'm a sixth generation Colorado myself. My family came here in 1862 and my own family is torn about me being in what I do as you know my job. So I get the I get the idea of why people are for or against a solar energy project. Um so in the end, thank you. Thanks for thanks for um allowing us to be here this evening. Thanks. All right. Um I'll open it up to the commissioners for discussion. have anything? Yeah, I've got a few uh questions. In the proposal, um you mentioned a generation tideline or a gent uh could you tell us what that is? Yeah. Um good question, Commissioner Lynch. So, a genie line is just short for generation tie line. Um that is what connects a the solar energy facility. I can go back a couple slides if if you want to put it back on, Don, so it can be seen. Um, okay. Um, I might just stand up if if I may. So, the generation tie line is in the southwestern portion of the project. I wish I was as tall as my son. My son's 6'4, which is hard to believe, but um,

he would actually be able to do it. The generation line goes from the project substation which will be in the southwestern portion of the project and connects it to the existing main switch substation. So that would be a um a transmission line carrying the voltage of the existing transmission line there which is 115 and that's roughly about 300 ft from here to here. That's the generation. Um, in the documents you speak of a BES in your write up, a battery energy storage system, uh, and that it would be a possible future add-on. And I heard you say just a minute ago that you have no plans for doing that on this project. There are there are none. Um the only possibility for a best for a battery energy storage system would be if someone else wanted to do that. Our project as proposed is what it is. It's a solar photovoltaic project. If we if we as a company which we don't build standalone battery energy solar battery energy storage systems some companies do that. There are some companies who just build buses. Um we don't do that. But let's just say theoretically we did. We'd have to go through a whole another a whole another permitting process. We have no intention to do that. That would be maybe someone else would. And that could be anywhere. Um you know some company could say yeah we want to build a bass here or tri-state could say that or they could say we want to build it in Cortez or we want to build it wherever in this that makes sense to them in their grid or in the Empire electric grid. There is no BES as a part of this project.

What I think I hear you saying is that a BES is a standalone um facility that is kind of like a backup for electricity, not necessarily a backup for this um project. It could be both. Now, there are projects that's a it's it's a good question. There are projects that have besses as a part of the proposal. Um and so that that take energy directly from the solar photovoltaic system. So you can have a bass accompanying the solar system. Yeah. And the the the intent of a BES is essentially to take the power generated, save it for the time of day when it's needed when the sun goes down. Yeah. Or if it happens to be extraordinarily cloudy for a period of time or whatever. Um, and so they can accompany a project, but there's also some that can just be built standalone and they can be put anywhere on a grid. Um, they could be built at at, you know, just on any transmission line where a a given utility feels this is an important location for this sort of battery storage. Yeah. So, um, to help clarify, I think I know what you're telling me, but are there any conditions that would absolutely require a BES so that it is no longer just a simple choice for or against it on this project? Any any requirement, anything that would demand that you put this in? Gotcha. Yeah. No. So um we submitted this to um tri-state RFP and it was not submitted with a BES um and there is so there's no requirement um you know it's possible that Tri-State will select this project

they may not select this project um and we have again if this project is approved as it is it wouldn't matter if a different opportunity came about and they said, "Oh, we would like a BES." By that time, it's too late because we're applying now with the project as it is. So, so the verbiage in the document says that it could possibly be a future add-on and that is I apologize for that um that that made it through in that way. You can you can literally cross that off. It it is not something you you can uh you can literally cross that off. We would not be adding we we would not be permitted to build a BES if the project is approved by the board of county commissioners ultimately. Um it would be approved as you see it. It wouldn't there is no BES part. So we could not build a BES. Um, so it would be something not. And so my apologies that that is in the way it is. I I guess my my thought at the time when I was writing the the narrative was, oh, could there possibly be a best someday for this project? There could potentially be, but it's not it's not something that we would do and we can't do it. So, um, that could be stricken and it could even be a condition imposed. Um, just to back that up if the if it's the will of the planning and zoning commission, a condition of no best. Could you run through for me how you calculate the tax benefits to the county? Sure. The 9.8 million, the 282,000. Yeah. What's the base number? How do you calculate that? Yeah. Uh that's a great uh great question, Commissioner Doyle. So the state of

Colorado um makes it rather easy for developers to determine that there's a schedule and so that schedule essentially has it um it's a spreadsheet schedule. You input the parameters of your project and it spits out a number and that will be uniform across any county in the state. So, inputting the the proposal that we have under a 29% um tax assessment rate equals $9.8 million. Uh and then you divide that by 35. That's where the $260,000 comes from per year. got more. So, um this project is for a 140 megawatt uh solar farm, which means it is a utility scale project. The current solar installations in our county are typically uh much smaller. Um and uh for example, 10 acres for generating one megawatt. Your project is 960 acres to generate 140 megawws. That's more than one megawatt per 10 acres, which is what we're familiar to see. Um, or about one megawatt per seven, or if you look at it a different way, 1.5 megawatts per 10 acres. Is it the utility scale size of this project that allows you to get another 50% more megawatts per 10 acres than some of the smaller projects we have in our county? Yeah, that's exactly right. So, the nature of the project, I can't say what um there's a couple of factors here. One is the wattage of the panels themselves. So, I don't know what wattage other projects used. The wattage that we propose for this project is 590 watts per panel. Um, and so, um, that's

and that goes up and up over the years. When I first started with UV, um, solar panels were at roughly like 375 watts per panel. Yeah. So over time the efficiency increases in that um you know now we have this proposal at this juncture with 590 watt panels. The other part of it is it's on a tracking system. So because of that you can maximize the utility of the facility itself because the panels will slowly follow the sun over the course of the day. You know the angle is that south. So, you know, the the angle of the racks is to the south and they will rotate from east to west over the course of the day. Um, and that leads to exactly the math that you talked about. Okay. Yeah. Don't want to step in. Um, I have a question about the setbacks. So, um, on the application for the high impact permit, um, you indicated that, uh, the project's going to maintain a minimum of 50 ft from county roads and residential lot lines and a minimum of 25 ft from non-residential lot lines, which is county code. Um, and then in your proposal, you're talking about 800 ft. So just wanted you to just confirm that uh the setbacks for the residential are going to be 800 ft. Is that what you're committing to? Right. 800 ft minimum distance from a residence. From a residence. Yeah. Okay. That's from just existing residence. Existing residences. Yeah. Houses as we know of them at this time. Okay. Yeah. Also in your write up you mentioned active agriculture in the form of grazing and solar energy production and it is called agravtaics. You mentioned

it in your presentation. Are you planning to do that aggravaics on these 960 acres? That would be the desire. Um first we have to establish the vegetation. It's the in the industry it's it's becoming a best practice. Um you know we can't at this time promise that there will be agics. We we hope to do so because it works out the best in in multiple facets. um our operations and maintenance director who's not here um has used sheep on a couple of our projects with such success that he wants to bring this forward as the essentially the MMO for how we operate facilities and that's increasingly becoming something that other um competitors in the industry are doing too because there when you use mowers a lot of times um they'll nick things or damage things just be just by virtue of human error. Um, and sheep tend to go underneath and take care of things and and they fertilize the land. Um, it really helps to enrich the soil, especially over a long period of time. Um, and there's actually um an industry association called the American Solar Grazing Association. It is a thing. Um I uh brought it uh to the attention of the uh Monizuma County GOP last night when I um gave a presentation and um it's surprising that there is such an organization but there's enough of uh a momentum behind the idea across America now that this it's becoming its own industry um literally grazing sheep underneath um solar arrays and it works out well um for multiple reasons. If you were to pursue that then would that be something you'd be farming, no pun

intended, farming out to somebody on a subcontract basis or is that something you guys would run? No, we would subcontract that out. Yeah, we'd subcontract that out. We typically um so when we go to sell a project um we we tend to put in a um we we put in not tend to we put in um the component of we will be the operations and maintenance organization for this project because we have an operations and maintenance division. We built the project. We understand how it works well. Um and so we would we wouldn't own sheep but we would contract with sheep grazers. So um the two projects that we've worked on that in one is near Fountain Colorado um and then another one is um near Millard Utah in western Utah. Um and it's um we find local sheep grazers for those. Yeah. Could you describe the timeline if you were to be approved? I mean, what are we looking at here? You go to the board of county commissioners and say they do approve it, you know, uh, as you've proposed. How long, when would you start? How long does it run? How many people are employed? Mhm. During construction and then after. Yeah. Uh, good question. So, um, the very earliest construction could potentially begin would be later this year. The likelihood of that happening is probably not super high, but it could it could potentially begin this year. Um, it depends um if we end up being selected by Tri-State or not. Um, and you know, if we're not, then we'll look for other opportunities for offtake potential and then that would push back construction time um into 2026 as a beginning. We estimate construction

would take roughly 18 months for a project of this size. Um and as far as employment goes um I had mentioned you know roughly at peak um about 250 jobs at peak um and that would be varying types of jobs over the course of the project. you know, there's um as an example, um the Dolores Canyon Solar Project that we're building right now in Dolores County, um the civil um contractor, so the contract the subcontractor who we use for grading purposes and for um civil type work uh comes from Ignasio and um the uh trenching work that we have to do for trenching in um cables comes from Salida. um and they hire locally to help them do things. And so we we a lot of times go through um local labor force um organizations to help hire um those temporary construction jobs. long term, um you're looking at the equivalent of just a job basically. Um especially if if this is approved um in Monizuma County coupled with the project which will um finish later this year in in uh Dolores County. Um that would necess necessitate someone likely to be living here. Um, yeah. Okay. So, um, I'm curious. In your presentation, you showed two, um, densities of panels in color photos. In one density, they were very wide apart and there were sheep grazing and there was plenty of sun on the ground and and then there were panels. And then on the

other photo, you showed the paneling quite a bit closer together. There was very little sun between each panel and there were no sheep. So is the spacing between the rows of panels is that part of the intent to graze between the panels? Part of it is I can go back to that slide. Um let's see that slide. Um so part of it has to do with the angle that the panels are at at that particular time. if um because the angle does change. So um that can change the spacing but it's also the rowto row spacing as the project is built. So different projects we change the rowto row spacing. Um my colleague um Nick Miller can probably speak a little bit better to that. Yeah, absolutely. So as we were looking at the site, one effort that we made to be able to consolidate the site footprint to uh incorporate all the comments we received from the community was to shrink that roto spacing to have a lesser ultimate uh footprint and impact on the greater area. So, um, to speak to to Dave's comment, the rotoro spacing has shrank over time to be able to accommodate just a a lesser overall site footprint. And and as you had discussed as well, the some of the the beauty of that as well is the fact that there's more shaded area to allow for better growth of of vegetative purposes that help support the agic potential as well. And so, uh, I think what I'm hearing you say is that for this particular project, um, uh, it's going to be designed for a tighter spacing than, um, uh, in order to accommodate some of the distances that you're having to deal with, uh, for

um, close to the canyon, close to residents and such. Is that correct? That's exactly right. Okay. And in in regard to this sheep thing, um I was thinking that you were uh using uh the sheep uh 30 all all the time continuously, but it sounds like it's a convenient way to mow underneath the solar panels. So you would have the sheep move through and graze and then they would go off site when they're done and then come back when it got high enough to be mowed again. That's correct. Yeah. it would go through rotational grazing and they and um depending on the area of the project. So if you look at um let's look at a map um you know a bigger area like the one in the middle um they can be and we have um done this you know essentially penned within a certain area to keep them focused on one zone and then they would migrate through different zones. a smaller portion like in the southwestern part of the project that's probably small enough that you wouldn't need to have separate pens. Yeah. Yeah. I'll add Go ahead. My apologies. I'll add to for for a site of this size, it's it's likely that there's going to be a pretty continuous process. So once they are pinned and and move to their final location, it's going to be about time to start back at the initial location. So it's it's going to be relatively continuous. Okay. I think that helps me understand a lot better. Um, in the threshold standard pages of your application, the maximum building height standard of 35 ft. Uh, you marked that it would not be exceeded. Um, I've learned in previous PNZ discussions and hearings that this limit not only applies to buildings, but any structure

and would include things like towers or signs or power lines and supports. And in your application, you have not um stated anything about the overhead lines. And I think I read in the documents that those will be 65 feet high. You're talking about the gentile the gentile line portion. Yeah. Yes. So gentile line would definitely exceed 35 ft. Yeah. Okay. So that probably ought to be edited in your application. Um, another question. In those threshold standards, you indicate the traffic will exceed 15 vehicle round trips per day. And depending on the phase of the project, there will be different levels of traffic to and from the project. at the highest uh I think I read that there could be 25 tractor trailer uh trips per day and round trips per day and 175 to 200 light vehicle trips per day. Um the uh high impact permit application only deals with direct access requirements. So that's right at the project site. Um, however, it there looks to be like there's only two roads that you plan on um using that go west from Highway 49 to the project. Road S is one and I saw on one presentation road U and on the other on the documents I think I saw road T. I'm not sure which one is the actual one that would be

used, but anyway. Mhm. I'll get um that's only two roads. So with this amount of traffic and I realize this isn't for the entire 18 months. This is like the at the height of construction. So somewhere in the middle or end I don't some some part of that time. And I was just curious and it's not a requirement here apparently but I'm just curious does C do DOT require any mitigation for short-term high volume traffic like this? Um because the 491 speed limit at those two roads is 65 miles per hour and I live on one of those roads and I can imagine the traffic is going to back up on that road at least in order to get out. I don't know about getting in. Mhm. Um so C DOT does not require that and they as an example um you know a bit further north on 491 for the Dolores Canyon Solar Project. Um that was not a requirement of C dot as well. All right. Yeah. I got a question. Um as you can imagine um there's some concerns around uh viewshed impacts. I just wanted you guys to weigh in a little bit more. um in detail for the benefit of everybody here about how um the light diffusing surfaces and how that's gonna how that's going to work, right? Um yeah, so most certainly um views have been something that's been mentioned to me multiple times and that's understandable and um that's part of you know our backing away as much as we possibly could from u people's residences as a distance buffer. Um but coupled with that um you have to think of a solar panel as something that um first of all

the bas the premise of it is to collect as much light as possible. Um you know light that is not taken in is essentially wasted potential energy. So it takes in as much as possible. That said um some is certainly refracted off. Um the glass that is the surface of the panel um is a um essentially um has a modeled type surface that makes it it makes the light diffuse um as opposed to like a it's it's not a mirror. Yeah. in U part 6.11 of your writeup, what is a dedicated concrete cleanout area? Uh so concrete cleanouts are for when you in the very limited concrete that we need for the project. Um I so I should clarify because this is something that um is frequently asked. So what holds up the racks? The rack posts themselves are not put into concrete. They're pile driven. So they just are driven straight into the ground um typically to a depth of about 6 ft. So there's no concrete involved in that. The concrete um that is used is for the floor of the utility shed that has concrete. The transformer has concrete. The inverters have concrete. So these pads essentially for these units. Um so it's very limited but the concrete cleanout area is a is a discrete area where um you know a vehicle that is involved in um the concrete preparation um cleaned itself out. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then uh how much of the 960 acres that are um in the project, how much of those acres

are productive agriculture acreage? It's roughly um 3/4 is um dryland a um about a quarter of it roughly is um just uh open land. None of it, none of the land that we're leasing right now is under CRP. Um, some of it was formerly under CRP, but none of it currently is under CRP. Um, we've talked to the land owners about that and and um they they informed us, yeah, they they took their land out of CRP years ago. Um, so it's essentially land. Yeah. Um, something I I thought I heard you say as well is uh uh you said the the documents that you submitted were like 570 pages and 75 pages and mine was only 547. Is there another version out there? Uh Dixexia. Um so, uh yeah, sorry. 547. Sorry. No, 574. Okay, I'm good then. damage. One of the other things that was mentioned is uh you're going to need the the water not for the continuous operation but for I believe during the construction in order to mitigate the problems with the dust. Is that correct? That's right. We use water for dust control. And what is the water source going to be? Uh the we would acquire water from a water delivery company like we have in um Dolores Canyon Solar for the Dolores Canyon Solar Project and hire um that you know a company that company or company like that company to provide the same service. So you rely on them to choose the source or do you choose the source and use the company to get it from there to you? No, we don't

choose the source um of water. We um we had contemplated for the Dolores Canyon solar project um using Dolores um the um Dove Creek Canal for a water source and we're um engaging with um the Dolores Water Conservancy District on that. Um but it ends up that they're um it's called commercial industrial CNI water. Um they essentially decided they didn't have the it wasn't the quantity of water, but the some some legal component of it was not going to be able to work. So, we just decided let's just not go through that pursuit. So, we just worked with a a local water hauler of non-potable water. Yeah. Yeah. So, in in our county, water is a big deal. Yep. And I don't know how many times you've been um in conversations about water, but uh it's really important. This year, at least in my case, I've only been out allocated 3/4 of a total year's worth of water, which is mean I'm I'm going to be short. And so there are other people in the similar condition. we um uh buy we or we own shares to get that water and if somebody comes in and is going to take that water it's a big concern. So the source of your water is um pretty pretty important in our county. Yeah. And I'm not sure how how to resolve that. And uh um so that there's no angst among the county or or even elected officials in where that's going to come from. I don't know how to solve that

problem, but it seems like if you knew where the source was and everybody was good to go with that, that would be an a good thing, a benefit. Yeah. Um I I could um so we have uh project managers that are in charge of the various projects we build. Um the project manager for the Dolores Canyon Solar Project, I can speak to him um prior to if you know should we proceed beyond tonight into a board of county commissioners hearing. um speak to him about the water sourcing that was used for the Dolores Canyon Solar Project and um ask him to uh find where that source was, where the company that he hired, where their water source was and um bring that to the table prior to the board hearing even so that the board would know this ahead of time. It would be nice to have that answer. Yep, I can do that. Okay. Yeah. Water water delivery companies cannot use allocated irrigation water. It's potable water from Monizuma water. Okay, that's all you got. Anything? Okay, so we're going to go ahead and open it up for public comment. So, show of hands. How many in this room want to do public comment? Great. Okay. So, um just as a reminder, uh everybody's going to come up to the podium. You're going to state your name and your address. We're going to give you three minutes to speak. Um we'll go ahead and do that for first half hour, 45 minutes or so. um at which point um we may take a step back um determine if there's any uh new comments or we may want to uh shorten the time frame just so we're not here

all night. So anyway, if you guys want to go ahead and form a line um start coming on up. Yeah, it's Yeah, please make sure you speak into the microphone, too. How's this? It's on. Even more. Oh, there we go. Okay, everybody, let's quiet down just a little bit. Thank you. I'm Melanor McFarland, 18405 Road P.2 and Cortez. I'm hoping that you have seen this article in the newspaper today or yesterday because I'd like to talk about the water situation at Goodman Point. Yeah. Everybody, please, please, please, if you need to have a conversation, please step outside. Thank you. Okay, go ahead. I'm hoping that everybody has seen the article in the newspaper yesterday, pardon me, regarding the big dry in Cortez and parts of Monizuma County. I'd like to talk about the water situation at Goodman Point specifically. Water and wildlife concerns at Goodman Point are equal to those everywhere in our county. The depiction of wildfire hazard potential shown on page 21 and page 29 of HIPP 3 20225 is good marketing. The reality is that it's from 2023, the year that we had 85 and a quarter inches of snow at Goodman Point. The US drought monitor now shows more than serious conditions of moderate to severe drought as of May 13, 2025.

We all know what that means for the current wildfire hazard potential. Goodman Point has its own microclimates. They are far different from anywhere else in the county. We have a weather station at our home with saved records from the past 10 years to support my statements. Here's the real data you need to consider. If you exclude year 2023, the 5-year period ending in 2024 yields an average snowfall of 28 and a half inches annually. That's actual data from a site within a onem radius of the entire Canyon Land Solar Project. 2025 year-to-ate snowfall is only 10 and a quarter inches. Rainfall for the same five years was dismal. The 5-year period ending in 2024 yielded an average rainfall of 9.6 in annually. That is reality. The average figure reflects rain, snow melt, frost melt, and hail melt. Until May 1, year to date, we had less than one inch of rain. Recent rains last week measured less than a half an inch. We have a total of 1.4 inches of rain year to date 2025. reality is that moisture stats are far lower than any general area maps will ever indicate. Apply the above above information to our wildfire potential or to aggravaics and realize just how fragile Goodman Point is. Putting a utility facility in the middle of this environment defies logic. Thank you. [Applause] Hello. Uh Elise Goagan uh 13545 Road 32.4. Um I am going to keep this quick because I know there's a long line of people. Over the last year, I've made myself very familiar with our land use

code. I think land use codes are very important. I live in the county. I want to know what my rights are. Um I've reviewed a large portion of this proposal, not 547 pages, but a good portion of them. And uh based on my understanding um it meets all of our threshold standards which I think our threshold standards are um very thorough. I've looked at a lot of other land use codes in Colorado and uh in in my understanding of how this all works. I feel like this proposal has gone above and beyond meets or exceeds our standards. I think the company has gone above and beyond as well in coordination coordinating with the community um with the county um and all the folks in this region and overall I think the benefits to the the county as a whole uh far outweigh um the impacts the short-term impacts during construction. Um so I would recommend that you guys recommend acceptance of this proposal. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Emily Waldrin 13545 road 32.4. Um I have spent the last 15 years of my professional life working in um energy production and regulation and the last six years of my personal life serving on planning commissions um in the various towns on the western slope that I've lived in. And like the person who spoke before me um I've looked through this proposal. I familiarized myself with the code and I think it's really impressive that the first utility scale solar um proposal in the county is one that is this thorough and considerate and I would urge you to recommend to the board of county commissioners to approve this project. Thank you. My name is Brad Mto. I live at 17250

Road P. As a fourth generation farmer on Goodman Point with the fifth and sixth generations on the land with me, I have a few things to say about any any large-scale industrial solar facilities in this area. I don't believe that my great-grandfather's family and my grandfather's family and their generations carved this ground from the wilderness for some late comers to forever remove it from the use that it was intended for. farming the conservation reserve program and fellow farming practices have been preserving this land for the future. There a few things in the permit application that uh concern me. Um I'm going to cut some of this out uh for time. On uh line seven, the threshold standard says that there will be no significant adverse impacts on normal agricultural operations. This project will directly take 960 acres out of agriculture, plus possibly render many more acres too small or inaccessible to farm. How can this not be considered adverse impact? On line 32 is other significant adverse impacts pertaining to the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Monizuma County. Mryiam Webster dictionary defines welfare as the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, happiness, well-being or prosperity. Let me tell you the people I have been talking with are not happy. There is a sense of dread that we are going to be overrun by big business because they see this as a little used bit of farm ground that no one will mind losing. We want to still be able to look out our windows at the views we have always enjoyed. We want to be able to see the deer and elk that live on this land continue to do so in peace. We want our future generations to have the possibility of farming this land. We don't want to lose value in our property and lose money if we can't bear

to live near this monstrosity. Has the potential for expansion been considered? Once one facility goes, who knows where it'll stop? So, I call on you to examine this application with a critical eye and the land use that it will change and protect the people and lifestyle of Monizuma County. Thank you, folks. Yeah, folks, please. Um, if you could refrain from reacting after the speakers, that'd be great. Thank you. Beth Hal, 17557 County Road P. Beth Hal 17557 Road PC Cortez. Thank you. You're welcome. Think how much money will leave the community. UV is a multi-million dollar corporation backed by corporate tree consisting of many, many branches. They are capable of making payments to each land owner under agreement based on acreage and the handful of workers hired from the area and the tax revenue and the extra contributions to schools or fire departments or community centers, etc., etc. without hesitation. Those are all incentives to make a project that is dist distasteful to many look more inviting and inviting and influence those who do not see the invasiveness of the big picture. The ability to pay out that much money before and after a project project is built should give you a clue as how much money will leave the community. The b the basis of this project is about money for UV. It's not really about benefits for Monizuma County as they keep trying to make everyone believe. If this project is approved, try calculating the income and profit expected by UV in the eventual sale of the project or the sale of produced electricity or in the tax credits recovered in the future. Maybe

that will help you see this isn't about Monzuma County welfare at all. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Carrie. Can you hear me? My name is Carrie Must. I live at 17250 Caner Road P. Um, my family is generational out there on Goodman Point. I am against the solar project on Aland. I'm not against solar projects, but I am against it on a land because what we're doing is we're taking a production out and putting in solar and mon and southwest Colorado is known for pinnob beans and for the wheat that we grow and the wheat that we grow goes down to our flower mill and goes out to all over with our bluebird, our red rose and valley queen flowers that are raised and those produces are raised on Goodman point as well as some of the um agricultural lands that were taken out in Coahone for the project that was done out there in Coahone as well. So, I'm against taking out a land for high high commercial use because we're losing a piece of who we are and who what Monizuma and Southwest Colorado stands for and we are known for this stuff and the more we lose the more we lose a piece of who we are and that's why I'm against it. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Don Howal. I live at 17557 and wrote P and Cortez. I am and always will be a strong supporter of property rights. I will always defend my rights to the best my ability. At the core of the arguments over whether to allow a solar facility to be built at Goodman Point, it is easy for people to say a landowner can do

whatever he wants with his property and stop there. I believe you cannot stop there. The legal definition of property rights and even our own land use code 3101.2 subp part A goes further. I'd like you to remember that there is a second part to property rights. And I quote, "Ajoining landowners carry certain mutual rights, duties, and liabilities. Landowners are expected to use their property reasonably without injuring the rights of adjoining landowners. The enjoyment should not be unreasonably interfere or disturb the rights of adjoining landold landholders or create a private nuisance." Look close closely at the contiguous lands that make up the total acreage tied to this project. The size and use of it for a utility scale solar facility clearly violates the rights of the neighboring and adjacent property owners. I am one of those adjacent property owners. Please consider my rights and those of the neighboring and adjacent property owners as you make your decision that could destroy this country neighborhood we love and know. Please don't turn it into a high fenced industrial wasteland. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening uh commissioners, county people. My name is Audrey Royham. I live in Minkus 114 East Monizuma. I stand here today as a mother and as a consultant, a fourth generation Colorado, someone who cares deeply about this area. Um, I don't have to remind you that Monizuma County is amongst the poorest counties in Colorado with a poverty rate of 13.2%, unemployment rate of over six. Our community faces significant challenges. Our farmers and ranchers, the backbone of Monizuma County, are struggling under rising costs, water

scarcity, and a tangle of outdated regulations. In fact, our comprehensive land use code has not been updated since 1997. This is a time before internet, a time that was nearly a is nearly a generation away. This outdated code, I believe, reflects a world that no longer exists. So, while our farmers are navigating new realities, climate change, rising expenses, and shifting market demands, um even well-intentioned opportunities like solar development can feel like one more complication for this for this group. Um I don't believe that a community is necessarily opposed to solar. I believe they're just stretched very thin. Um, continually getting the short end of the stick compared to tourism and other industries because I do believe that solar on the right land makes sense. Um, I have solar panels on my house and they help self they help offset my costs. Um I know that larger solar fields can help provide community with cleaner, more efficient energy. Considering um it's out of sight, out of mind. Um the Comanche 3, one of our main sources of electricity, is a coal plant which faces frequent outages, higher than expected maintenance costs, and is the most expensive coal plant in the Excel's Energy's fleet. Um as and that's it being uh one of the newest plants. It consumes 9.4 million gallons of water per day. So when we consider solar, it seems like a wonderful opportunity. Again, I just want to reiterate that solar in the right locations, uh dry, unused areas, not

lush farmland, can diversify income, bring skilled jobs, generate local tax revenue, and support educational programs. Um, I thank you for your consideration. Thanks. Jeff Spanderro, live at 23545 Caner Road 12, Pleasant View. Bear with me. I'm not the uh best public speaker here. Um, I strongly oppose industrial scale solar, especially that on Aland. Um, I believe solar belongs on existing structures out in Pleasant View. We are a stones throw away from the Dolores Canyon project. That's the uh Dolores Canyon 800 acre solar project. Um, the proposed UV project uh today is 960 acres and some of you have probably seen some videos on social media people driving past the uh Dolores Can Solar Project. Um but uh I would like to urge the audience listening tonight, the planning and zoning committee and especially the commissioners. I know it's a little bit of a drive out there, but um I urge you guys to take the time, drive out, stand toe-to-toe at the edge of the 8ft tall habitat fencing and take in the sheer magnitude and scale of 800 acres. Take in what it's like to be neighbors to something like this. taking what the land used to be. My final point and question is this. At what point, once we've devastated migration patterns, devastated thousands of acres of a land, plummeted neighboring property values, broken the hearts of your neighbors and community members that have built their lives and homes, and raised their children alongside these lands, at what point is it enough? After how many high impact

special usees permits? At what point does the county say, "All right, now we have enough solar." Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Danette Spandrio, 23905 Road 12, Pleasant View, Monizuma County. And I just want to put my name on the record of saying I am totally against largecale solar. I love our egg land. I love driving down BB and looking at all the everything that's in bloom right now and all the fields that are turning green and all the deer that are coming through and the turkeys and everything else. So, I'm against solar. Good evening. My name is Jamie Cowan. I live at 1812 Rampart Street here in Cortez. really appreciate your time and this discussion. I come here tonight as a parent of two kids, one in Lewis Areola, one down in Battle Rock, and a concern about the uh state of the budget for our county. Knowing that we had a $ 1.7 million deficit last year and that that's likely going to get worse with revenues from uh gas and oil, I really need this county to have a budget that can continue support education and other critical services. My youngest son has some special needs and I'm concerned that without adequate support, he will struggle in school systems. I uh look at projects like this and I think there there are a lot of strongly held views here. Um but at the end of the day looking at our land use code I support the right of the land owners to lease their land. Um I believe that this project does abide by our current land use codes and some of the

best practices for projects like this uh that we've seen um in this area and in this country. I also care about local energy generation and the fact that this could support energy for over 30,000 homes and that this could be generated here in in our county. Um there are three critical areas for me as part of this project. The initial build, the potential sale of this project and the decommissioning. I've really tried to focus my review of the application in those areas. I feel feel that the application is strong in these areas is reasonable um and meets many of meets the best practices uh which makes me reassured given their this company's history in this area and what they're doing in Dolores uh that this could really benefit our community. I really feel that this proposal meets the intent and standards of our Monizuma County land use codes. I appreciate your time and I'd ask that you uh take a close look at this, but please consider moving forward with this proposal and recommending it to the board of county commissioners for approval. Thanks for your time. Thank you. My name is David Robersonson, 15329 County Road 31, Manus, and I'm here to speak to the utter insanity of solar power. He's talking about 140 megawws. One unit of the Craig Power Plant produces 10 times that much. We have been painted into a corner by the politicians in Denver. They have slated all of these coal fired power plants to be closed by 2030. They've already closed Nucla. They've already closed two units of the Craig power plant. They they're going to close the other two by

2028. They've closed the Hayden power plant. They're decommissioning the Panee power plant. There's and they've paint us painted us into this corner to do this and it's ruining America. I my first job as an operating engineer was for Neielson's which used to be a big contractor here in Cortez on the Craig doing the groundwork for the Craig power plant and that was in 1977 and that power plant is still in operation today. These guys are talking about a 35 year lifespan and it's going to go away. And how many of these facilities are they going to have to build? How much property are they going to have to cover up to to replace the lost energy from clo closing these coal fired power plants? Not to mention the fact that with coal when demand goes up you produce more electricity. With this, when demand goes up, you got to be dependent on whether the sun is shining or not. And if the sun ain't shining, it ain't producing. And you got to turn your thermostat down to to compensate for it. It It's insanity. That's what it is. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Joy Cochran, 16789 Road S. I want everyone to understand the gift nature has given us out here in Goodman Point. Our dryland soil is comprised of weatherill lom that is superior for growing and has been contributing to our food supply for generations. My family started farming this land in the 1930s, producing our beloved pinto beans and wheat. It's a fact that food grown subjected to

nature's stress is superior in nutrition and taste. And that's exactly what our dryland provides. A decision to allow this insult to the land has the potential to turn it into a wasteland. Farmers I have spoken to find it difficult to believe that back adding back 2 in of top soil over 960 acres will return us to where we started. According to AI, depending on if herbicides were used or and if no care is taken to preserve the top soil, it can take up to 10 years to successfully farm again. UV knows exactly how egregious this project is to neighboring properties. That is why they have a built-in non-disclosure agreement in every contract that is signed. They know that high impact largecale means exactly that. The impact is so high. They know there is not a single person in this room who would choose to live across from, near, or alongside a project of this scale. They know our property values will go down along with our quality of life in almost every way. So, they came in the back door. My property is directly west of the proposed footprint. This means as the sun heads west each day, I will experience the glint and glare of the tracking panels that UV states is minimized but not imperceptible. This does not meet the land use code requirement of being imperceptible. Just one example I have time to tell you about. If our health, safety, and welfare remain a priority for this county, I don't see how this can be approved. Thank you. [Applause] Kelly Belt, 2726 Fairway Drive. Um, I have a comment and a question. This is quite an application for you guys to

review with half the planning and zoning commission absent. Um, so we're relying on three. And my other question is decommissioning the decommissioning plan. I didn't really hear much about that. So, possibly some clarification going forward on the decommissioning plan. Thank [Applause] you. My name is Gary Folks. I live at 67365 Sunshine Road, Montrose, Colorado. I have property at 140 146 where it is on this road. And and basically I'm here to get a little different slant. In 30 years, you seen the picture of all the circles. That's an 800T diameter, a 1,600T diameter. How many more diameters are going to be if you deny this? That's my question to you folks. And how many more people are going to want to live on beautiful part of government point in 35 years? All these people that live here that live out there will have an opportunity to do that. This land will end up going into a civil bank for 35 years, which is absolutely imperatively good for our future. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Neva Connelly. I'm at 28264 Road P Dellores. Um I have 20 years of natural resource and land use planning. Um, I think this project is clear that um, while it may meet the county standards, um, this county land use code is not prepared to deal with the impacts of projects of this size. From the proposal presented, the corporation financial benefits will far exceed the benefits to the county and its residents. Um the county

um excuse me, excuse me. You guys want to talk? Please step outside. Thank you. Sorry. Continue. All right. I'd like to see the county look at um decreasing revenue um due to impacts property value impacts for the surrounding properties um as well as potential uh decrease in tourism revenue for this project. Um, this project will be visible from many, many points in the county, including Mesa Birdie National Park. Um, I'd like to see the county request firm and solid um, commitments from this corporation. Um, including dedication to employing local county residents during the construction phase. Um, firm financial commitments to our Monizuma County schools. Firm firm commitments to dust control and weed mitigation. um commitments if they're going to continue with aggro voltaics commitments to grazing throughout the life of the project and not just you know the first year the project's in place I'd like to see um the county recommend uh receding with native species um and consultation with local natural resource agencies on how to do that. Uh, I'd like to see the county request um information about erosion control. Um, there's going to be a lot of panels on a flat surface uh with very disturbed soil. Um, so I'd like to make sure that that is considered. Uh, I think as a community we should really request that they use not our um very valuable, you know, municipally treated water, but non-potable um, however that goes around.

Um, I think there's a lot that the county can do uh to to request firm um commitments from this company and not vague promises and you know discussions based on discussions with um local sources. Um, I'd also like to see that the county request that these commitments um are followed through in the case of sales or transfers from one company to another because I think that we all know that that happens quite frequently um in this in this type of business. Um uh and I'd like to see um visual mitigation for the neighbors. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Hello there. My name is Jessica Greenberg Cow and I live on Rampart Street in Cortez. I was born and raised in the four corners, specifically in Grand County. So when I was a kid, the mill closed. And that means that when I was growing up, I know what it was like to be in a county where the economy fell out of the bottom of the community and the ways in which that impacted schools and people's jobs and whether you could buy things and how much people drank. And I guess I just want to say that this year our commission has had to borrow $1.7 million from reserves. And I hear the pain of the neighbors of this project. I hear the pain over the traffic for the few months of that construction. And I hear the worries about the viewhed in that beautiful part of this county. But you know what? We don't have at Louis Areola right now, a math specialist. We used to, but now we don't have the money. I came here from the soccer field watching the U12 um girls league play and I will say that those parents are not in this meeting because

they are home feeding their children. But the people not in this room have young children in this county and they need revenue for our schools. And I guess I just want to say that as the planning and zoning commission evaluates this proposal, we need to remember our county's bottom line. And that is that we need to learn to live with some new industry because Kinder Morgan is going away. So the $1.7 million that we don't have this year is more money that we do not have next year. And as destructive as new industry can feel, it is really destructive to leave our economy in freef fall. And so I guess I'm asking both the commission and the planning and zoning commission to really think about the practicalities of what it is going to take to keep this county alive and to keep our young families here in a school system that works because it requires some money. And yes, UV is a for-profit company and we should not trust them, right? Because Atlas Tailings, let me tell you, we should not have trusted them. So we need to make sure that the decommissioning plan is rock solid. I didn't read the 547 pages in total. It looks solid. That's the job of the planning and zoning commission. Is that a full commitment? Can we sink our teeth into it? Is it transferable? I believe it is. It's your job to confirm that. But the beauty of solar is that it's temporary. So, in 35 years, there are a couple of concrete slabs. And yes, maybe the top soil needs some time to regenerate, but what we don't have there is a strip mall or a subdivision. it goes back to the land. So when you think super long term, think about the tax revenue and the longer time horizon. I uh urge you to look very carefully at the proposal, but to um vote yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Someone left their phone here. Is anyone's Is this your phone? Um, Landon Wilson, 25227 Road 14, Pleasant View, Colorado. Um, I first want to encourage the planning and zoning board to uh, look into some of the details of this project. You had mentioned there's a 35- ft height um, maximum. There is a 140 tower that they are proposing. Um, as well um, there was a mention that non-potable water was being used. Well, I know that is not true. Um the Dolores Canyon project, they are using portable water from Monizuma Water Company. Um I know that because I see them and I drive, I see them filling up at the station. So they are not using portable water, they're using drinking water for this construction. Um, in section 3106.1, the Monizuma County land use states that a zone land is defined as cultivating the soil to produce and harvest crops or raise livestock in the preparation, sale, and transportation of these products to the public market. Solar energy production is not included in the land use code under the use for agriculture. According to Environment America, since 1992, Colorado has lost approximately 2.89 89 million acres of a land averaging about 690 acres per day. Colorado, if current trends continue, Colorado could lose an additional 400 to 500,000 acres of farmland and ranch land by 2040. The loss of a land in Colorado poses several challenges. The first one is economic impact. A con agriculture contributes significantly to Colorado's economy. Its decline affects jobs and local economies. Environmental concerns. Conversion of farmland to developed areas can lead to habitat loss, increased runoff, and decreased biodiversity. If the solar does get

approved, it needs to be heavy industrialzoned property, not a land or not a zoned property. I ask that you consider protecting a land for what it is meant for, for the production of crops and livestock. Um, oh gosh, I just lost my place. Uh, if the solar does get approved, it does need to it needs to be heavy industrial zoned. Oh, I already said that. Anyways, farms grow food, not solar. Say no to solar on a land. Thank [Applause] you. Hello, my name is Fred Porter. I guess I'm a little atypical here. I'm actually from Carbondale, Colorado. here as a tourist and as someone who's been involved in energy efficiency in big commercial buildings for better part of my life. Um I also dabbled in solar. I saw my first photo voltaics at Bell Labs in New Jersey in 1980 and it's pretty amazing the uh progress that has led to us being able to put up glass bfacial solar panels for a dollar a watt. Now, um I've recently visited a bunch of the uh other solar projects in Colorado. uh Delta, the Garnet Mesa project in Delta, uh the Axial Basin project in uh south of Craig, which I believe this company was uh involved in also. Um I do not have a problem with solar on a land. It's um really a good place to build solar

because the of the soils and um around here I I visited your the project up north here. Uh that's Dolores Canyon and this one also are both close to power lines and existing infrastructure that's been around for in the gas industry. So, um I actually as a tourist I find uh looking at solar panels going across the rolling hills quite beautiful. Um I really do just wait until they're I I like you know once they're built any construction project any project under construction is going to look a lot worse than after two or three years. We've got a little project in Carbondale near the high school where um the grass grows greener under the solar panels and just last year they did start grazing sheep even though that had not been planned as part of the project and it worked out great. Um, so I just uh I think these projects are uh are really very useful and forward thinking and um it's really the way of the future. I think you should be trying to be the solar capital of the four corners. So that's a tourist perspective. Okay, folks. Give it a little Good evening. My name is Kelsey Black. Um, I live at 1348 Road 16 at Goodman Point. Um, I'm here in voice of opposition of

the proposed Canyon Land Solar. A little nervous. Sorry. Um, I'm not against renewable energy, but it is my belief that this proposal is wrong, the wrong fit for Monizuma County. Our community is being asked to sacrifice a huge swath of our agricultural landscape. We bear a local burden while electricity would serve Tri-State. I would like to highlight a few points why this proposal should be rejected. This project would permanently displace farmland. The developer says a way to mitigate weeds in his proposal would be to clean all vehicles entering the site. During the peak of construction, they propose 25 daily truck vehicles and 200 work vehicles. Will they be getting 225 car washes per day? It's highly unlikely. but say they were willing to do so. Where is the water going to come from? The proposal anticipates crossing county roads at three points, underground cables, and generating substantial construction traffic. UV will coordinate with Monizuma County Road and bridge for road maintenance and after construction, all in good faith. Most counties require road impact bonds for large-scale infrastructure projects. Llata County requires financial assurance for energy development that impacts their roads. Also, the proposal has a shity bond that will begin at year 16 for the decommissioning process of the solar project. What happens if the company goes under at year 1 through 15? the land owners or the county will bear the burden of decommissioning the project. Many counties require shity bonds

upfront or within a few months of the project starting. Why isn't Monizuma? Our community is sacrificing agricultural land, degradation of roads, wildlife and habitat concerns, visual and aesthetic impacts, disturbance to cultural remains, etc. the limit little benefit Monizuma gets and many risks. I urge you all to recommend denial for this proposal. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Alexia Hudson. Before you get started, how many more folks want to do public comment that are not in the line? Okay, I'll try to. Okay. My name is Alexia Hudson. I'm at 16427 uh County Road 18 in Cortez. Um I just wanted to um first start off with that um I like many other people um are not I'm not opposed to solar energy at all. My husband and I are actually purchasing a property that's entirely solar dependent. I am against large um scale solar projects on a land and uh in residential areas. Um uh coincidentally the place we're buying is also fighting a largecale solar project. Um I wanted to speak specifically to the CPW report. Um uh I where my property is located. We are actually a canyon that goes into Yellow Jacket Canyon. So it's a natural drainage. We also have um two springs on our property. Um, and a, as you can imagine, a lot of wildlife coming through because of the water. Um, I have never had anyone from CPW contact me or come to our property to um, actually witness wildlife crossing. Um, and I'm

not talking about someone sitting up on County Road S looking. Um, no one has actually ever come. We have significant wildlife movement through our canyon, up and out. And I know that um the company did make uh sort of a throughway for uh deer to pass through um but where are they going to go to the road to the next front? And so I really would like to see that report. I feel like we've um uh people concerned citizens have asked a lot of questions um at some of the committee meeting or the meetings that um this company has put on and we've received coupon answers. Um, oh, we'll get back to you. Um, and I don't hear back from them. Um, so I would like uh to find that report somewhere. Please give it to us. Um, or for the county to do a more indepth um CPW report um in the areas that are impacted. The other thing that I wanted to talk to and I see that I'm losing um time is that the archaeological impact um I know and across our canyon also that there are two large kas um and I am just curious if whenever the archaeological um impact surveys were done if the these companies knew that these were going to go six feet into the ground. Um bodies have been uncovered every year pottery is uncovered and this system is also connected to a PBLO that sits on my property. Um, and so those are two significant pieces that I would like to have addressed and I would really like if the county um could take some time to uh look into those issues more deeply. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Joshua Grounds. I live at

211078 Road 20 in Lewis. Um, I'm here because I'm a certified residential appraiser and this is very scary for many reasons. Um, not only for the people that are adjacent to the actual project, the industrial electrical project. It's not a farm. It is called external obsolescence. That is the verbiage that we use on our reports when referring to something such as this. External obsolescence also include airports, trains, schools, churches, things of that nature where there's high traffic. It has its own name because it lowers your property value. There's no way around it. Um, it strikes me that people have the audacity to stand up here and say, "I feel for the people that are adjacent to this project." Because you don't. For most people, their home is their largest investment. I cannot tell you how many appraisals I do for people that are re trying to refinance their home, to gain money, to pay medical bills, to put their children through college, to help out a loved one, that's their only avenue. And for those people, and I'm not even talking about the people that are just adjacent to the project, this will have a negative effect on property values in Monizuma County, especially if this continues and we see more and more of these installations. My friend from Carbondale that thinks Monizuma County should be

the solar capital of Colorado. I'm from Glennwood Springs. When I was a kid, I didn't drive up to Aspen, Colorado, and see thousands and thousands of solar panels. I don't drive into Telluride, Colorado, seeing thousands and thousands of solar panels. I don't drive into Veil blinding my, you know, shielding my eyes from glare off the solar panels. I also have three young children for the woman that came here from the soccer field. I've lived in Durango for 30 years. We recently moved here two years ago for a reason and that's agriculture. It makes me nervous for our children and it makes me sick to my stomach that certain people would take away money out of people's pockets. Who's going to pay them? It's all for money. Where do they get theirs? Thank you. [Applause] How's it going? My name is Chris Black. I'm 1348 Road 16. Um, uh, I think it's awfully easy for people who are maybe from Manus, from Manus, from Carbondale to come up here and say, "Oh, yeah, it'll be great." No, no, it's I don't even need to get I don't even need to go there. Whatever. I think that's some George Soros stuff getting paid in here, but whatever. That's for another time. My name's Chris Black. I'm here to urge you to reconsider allowing industrialcale solar farms on farmland in Monzuma

County, especially land that holds irres irreplaceable ancestral PBloan ruins and artifacts. This isn't just about energy. This is about preserving the cultural and historical fabric of our county. Monzuma County is home to sacred sites that predate the founding of this nation. Once that land is scraped, graded, and covered in solar panels, those cultural resources will be gone forever. We must also consider the poor return on land use. Solar energy, while well-intentioned, I believe, is incredibly inefficient per acre. A solar farm needs 5 to 10 acres to produce a single megawatt from what I've been hearing. Meanwhile, a Kinder Morgan CO2 well sitting on just a few acres can produce the energy equivalent of thousands of megawws over time, generating tax revenue, supporting local jobs, and using a fraction of the land. I just want to stop right there to the Carbondale dude that saw the prettiest thing he's ever seen wherever. Go out to give him a point right now. Look at the wheat fields out there. Some of the most beautiful rolling hills you've ever seen in your life. Please refrain from addressing people. They know it's true. We're not anti-renewable. We're pro common sense. Put solar panels where it makes sense. On rooftops, brownfields, marginal land, Nevada, not on some of the most fertile, culturally significant ground in the four corners. Please protect what makes

Monizuma County special. Say no to this f say no to this solar farm proposal. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Curtis Duncan. I live at 16323 Road 20. That's a Cortez address. I'm a local contractor and also an egg producer. Um, I'd like to address this meeting and inform everybody here that I am not anti-solar. I'm anti-solar on a zone farm ground in Monizuma County. There are literally hundreds of thousands of acres across the western United States that are uninhabitable that solar panels can be installed on with no immediate adverse effects such as this proposed project. I would like to bring up two things that I feel are quite important. The first one is having some way to hold the contracting company accountable for the removal and cleanup of these projects upon their completion. It has happened countless times across the country over decades with gas and oil companies along with green energy and mining companies that take piles of money for these projects. And when it comes time to put the ground back to its original form, quote unquote, the company has bankrupted and is no longer held accountable. I feel like the only leverage that Monizuma County and its citizens have to ensure these projects are correctly decommissioned at their completion, if they are approved, is for the contract company to purchase a shity bond immediately for the amount of an estimated cost to remove and dispose of the solar array, also compensating for inflation over the next 35 years. The second thing I'd like to bring up is Monzuma County Planning and Zoning Department by recommending this for approval to the commissioners is open

yourselves up to legal litigation by not following and enforcing the current adopted land use code. As I read it regarding a zone property, there is literally nothing about installation of commercial solar as an approved use of the land. What is the purpose of an adapted land use code if there is no enforcement? That is your entire purpose within the county. If the land owners want to use their land for commercial solar, sir, we're you're at time. Thank you. You never started it. Oh, you never started it. I've two and a half minutes, man. Sorry about that. Well, you lost my place now. Sorry about that. If the land owners want to use their land for commercial solar, that ground all needs to go through a reszoning process. You know what? You want to know what is literal green energy? A growing field of wheat that provides calories that are consumable to animals and humans. Energy that is literally grown in the color green. Thanks for your time. Thank you. My name is Darlene Clemish. I live at 12737 Highway 491 and I am the new property owner right in the middle of this solar project. Um, we have been looking at this property for two years. If you drive out there, it is the most beautiful country I have ever seen. We've lived in New Mexico and we have moved up here. We want to homestead this property for us, for our grandchildren, and it's an it's going to be an eyes sore. It's going to be all around us. We will have to drive through it every single day. Um the construction, you know, people that don't live around there, people that don't live out there

are not they're not going to be affected by this. So, yeah, they want they want that the um revenue. We don't get that solar. it goes on a big grid. We don't get that. I don't believe that um the tax breaks and the stuff that we will get for the community is going to be enough to offset everything that's going to be destroyed out there. Um water um fortunately we have a well out there so we will have water for our livestock um that we are going to put out there. Um I just yeah it's it's going to be an eyesore for us and um I I vote no absolutely for everybody out there. Thank you. Thank you. Shorten this up. Yeah. Um we're going to shorten up the time to two minutes a person. Um there's still a lot of people that want to make public comment. We want to make sure everybody has time. So go ahead. All right. I'm speaking here on behalf of my sister Liz Wilson. Address 13690. And I would like to also put my name on there as well. Mike Buckolds. I'm at 13644. Road 18. I'm sorry. I don't think I put her road address on there. So, what is that? Road 18. Cortez. Born and raised here in Goodman Point. Her and myself. I'm 54 years of age. Both of our parents are buried there in Goodman Point Cemetery. and her late husband three years ago, 47 years old, died of a heart attack. So, we're very close to here. UV has mentioned the $1 million already spent on this project and the length of time put in. You really shouldn't have any sympathy. Hopefully, you'll recognize that for the tactic it is and will not let that this influence your decision. Please remember this. That amount is the cost of doing business to a large corporation. This is not your problem. This is not the neighbor's problem. This is not the county's problem. It's UV's problem.

For as s much as UV makes it appear as if they've done us a favor by proposing this project in our county, consider this. They are a big corporation expects to make money for their invest investors from a commercial industrial project. For as much as they will tell you they've worked closely with the neighbors, I've never heard from you. I'm only down the road half a mile. Don't know your faces. Please. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. That was not made clear to me. made every consideration to them and have used their input to design this project. And there has never been anyone who said, "Wow, I can't wait to have this next door." Now, it's not right on my property, but I'm a half mile from it. The narrative and documents presented in HIPPO3 2025 do not reflect the neighbors positions accurately in any way or in any form. You will present, you will be presented with numerous discrepancies found in HIPPO3 2025. I'm sorry, I'm reading someone else's letter here by people who have the actual experience of real life at Goodman Point. Telling us is a good telling us this is good for us and for the county is not enough. The residents of Goodman Point readily recognize good marketing. They're innovative, resilient, and astute. They're not people who should be grateful. Sir, please finish up. You're at time. I got three more. They're not people who should be grateful for a perceived opportunity to understand a solar farm certainly represents a change of land use from what you are accustomed to. In the words of David Kimmit, I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. If you be really understood, we wouldn't be here this evening. Listen to those lives that could be significantly changed for the next 35 years. Thank you. Thank you. Want to thank the uh commission for entertaining us tonight. My name is Jack Tanner. I live at 20978 County Road U.

Uh that's one of the main roads that's going to go through and that's uh that's going to have a big impact on our our little farming neighborhood there. And I I farm some 400 acres right there. Uh I I give this in conjunction with a a neighbor that lives on road SN17. driving to Goodman Point and park at the intersection of road S and 17. Arrive about sunrise or sunset. Stay for 15 minutes. Then compare that experience with what you see before you in HF HIP 03 2025 which and to which I refer. Do you know the sound of silence that 8.4 4 million over 35 years mentioned in the journal on March 19th quoted by Mr. Kemet regarding projected revenues must be examined further or you could use the new number 9.8 million the actual amount of revenue will be determined every oddnumbered year. The Dolores town hall meeting in April someone asked what 8.4 million is per month. Anybody can do the math. That's $20,000 a month. For 9.8 8 million that's $23,333 per month. Would you really use that pentance as a basis to approve this kind of a project? Ask your current car colleagues in Delores County, which I have business in Dolores County who inherited the Dolores Canyon project, whether it is worth it. I guarantee you a lot of the residents I visit with and the farmers are are not really pleased to have that in their neighborhood. whether it's worth it. Relying solely on the letter of recommendation known as appendix 5B 543 signed by officials who approve that project would be in gross error. Ask your current colleagues what their

thoughts are during this present phase. Time is up. Thank you. Uh could I close just by saying um please be I heard about sheep. Please be aware of a wolf coming in sheep's clothing. [Applause] My name is uh Joseph Clemish. I live at 12737 Highway 491. Uh we are the new neighbor that has purchased land. Um I think about anybody in this room, we are the most impacted. Um if you pulled up the map, we are the little square right in the center of all of this project. Um I've worked in the construction business for 15 plus years. Um my biggest concern is the construction hiccups that will come with this project. You said something about pounding posts. Um, I wish you luck. There's a lot of rock out there. So, if we do hit rock, what are the mitigations for construction changes? Are those in the project? Are we going to have to change to drilling to concreting these posts? Um, the dust control, again, I've worked in the business for a long time. The dust control is a load of baloney. Uh, using water just to spray down surface dust does not work. There needs to be a better mitigation for the dust controls during these constructions. I've seen it firsthand and I've been on the contracting side of all of that. Uh, since we are the new residents, are we going to have an adjusted residence setback? I know this this was put in before we established our residence. Uh, want to consider that from our home that is going to be right in that property. Um, another thing to consider is the purchase agreement to whether it be tri-state or not. We need to look at those standards of how they will be held after the project is sold to that company. Um there's a lot of gray areas in the verbiage used throughout this um proposing. Um I would like to see every promise be put in writing. And also the thing um I want to bring up next is the actual $280,000 that's going to be profited to the schools. How much is that actually going to benefit our schools? A lot of the

other meetings I've seen, the the the amounts of $200,000 is pennies in these guys' pockets that they can actually give back to this community. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Jerry Goodall. I live on 16245 County Road 24 right off of S. Um I was raised on Goodman Point. Um and my concern is that this is not isolated. These are not new things. Other countries have done this around the world. Um beginning of this month, Italy has stopped all their ground mounted photovoltaic projects due to the impact on egg land that is on agricultural projects on a land. So they have stopped everything on their eggland due to the impact on the agricultural communities and on the fisheries. So we're not isolated. We need to look outside what has happened elsewhere. And I would s strongly suggest that when you look at a country such as Italy that is very impactful with its agricultural land that we need to think of our own agricultural land. We don't have the water. We grow dry land but it takes a lot more acres in dryland to grow food but it grows food for our country and we need to keep that in mind. It goes beyond just our community and we need not to think that this is an isolated project. We're planning on shipping solar energy out, but what about what we currently ship out or are capable of shipping out that will support us here. And so we need to look the impacts are far beyond what you can even imagine. Far beyond. And if other countries are willing to put a stop to all groundmounted photo photovoltaic issues and projects, we need to stop and say, is this something we want to be putting in

here? Just keep that in mind. And I say absolutely not. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Bonnie McGuire, 16413 County Road 18. Something that actually has not been talked about too much. um health, safety, and welfare. Citing large-scale utility projects in rural areas make them an easy target away from urban surveillance. Higher crime rates can occur due to the increasing price of sc copper and high scrap value of potential solar panels, theft of equipment, tools, and other materials. Criminal activities, even at the local level, can often target these facilities. Not to mention vandalism, potential for arson in the dry grass around the project, and for illegal dumping areas to occur. Increased traffic and activity in the area may create opportunities for criminals to target local residences. Speaking of traffic, the safety of our roads to with the extreme amount of traffic that will go out to the project area will increase the likeliness of farm equipment collisions, loose livestock, wildlife collisions, and traffic collisions with the local residents. especially with two blind hills going down road s on 18 north and 18 south and two other dangerous intersections on roads 21 and 491 and also welfare. It is no secret that being out in nature is therapeutic. It can reduce stress, anxiety and depression. The quality and characteristics of the setting we inhabit, the places we live and work influences our mental health and wellbeing. The thought of being surrounded by fences, metal, and glass will and it has already affected mental health and the overall community residents. Keep in mind, 10 property owners, 15 parcels directly affect 57 properties and so

many more. Please say no. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Zach Friian 12130 Road 20 Cortez. Um, I'll be short. I just want to remind you that if you approve this, you're setting precedent. Okay. For the next and the next and the next. So, Dolores already did it. This one's going in pretty close to the close to that one. Thankfully, it's out in a different jurisdiction. So, just remember you you let this one go, there's going to be the next because the property owners next to them, why wouldn't they lease it to the next solar company and get their money, right? I know for a fact this commission has turned down the use of a home for a wedding venue in the past, but yet we're considering 900 acres to turn it into solar. Seems pretty ridiculous. or maybe it's just a money threshold. So, I urge you very much to say no to this. Thank you. Hi. Um I'm Olivia, 20978 Roadu. That was my grandfather. Um so, one of the biggest concerning things for me I there's a lot of things that I'm against. I also wasn't prepared to speak, but one of the things that caught my eye was a tro being down uh County Road U. That's the road I've grown up on. That's the road my mother grown grew up on. And subsequently, it's the road we farm on. That child's lives. There's an elementary school on the other side of the highway. There's children crossing the street going to and from school. There's been children that my mom has picked up to take from crossing that highway. If we allow these these trucks to go in regardless of the time, that won't elementary school is nine out of nine months of the year. If they move

during the summer, then you affect all the the farmers, the four-wheelers, the cows, the horses, the life, my dogs, my pets, me taking a run on my county road. You're going there's going to be so much impact that regardless if it's for a short amount of time, if it's going to help proposed, no, no promise. They have not made any commitments to helping our community, helping our school. They would like to, they want to send money here and there. Lewis Elementary didn't have a math tutor when I was there. That was the school I went to. There was no math teacher and I'm finishing college. So, please understand that if we're moving forward to have these this solar panel benefit our community, make it promised or don't allow it at all because this community this this subsequent town Lewis Lewis Areola is not built for solar panels. We're built to farm and we're built to produce for our community. So, please understand that and take that into consideration moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Susie Switzer and I live at uh Road 21.5 in Lewis. And by the way, this was the first meeting I ever got notice of, which I'm not sure why, but I never got anything to the post office or anything. Um, I'm not especially prepared right now, but I wanted to ask you about best use. I'd always heard of the terms best use for land. This is a land. I see my neighbors, my friends in this place, people that farm, that ranch, that grow hay. And believe me, we have a wonderful area out there for growing grass. You can't stop it. It's great. pasture is great. We have some of the best cattle

in this entire country grazing on our pastures and we're very proud of that. This is not the use for a land. Good agricultural land is hard to come by and this is wrong to put solar panels on a land. And I think that's the way most all of us feel. All of my neighbors, everyone I've talked to. We don't want this project. It's an aberration. And I would like to mention one other thing. If you've been watching the news, you know what happened just recently in Spain and Portugal and the southern France. because of the reliance on intermittent energy that the UA has I mean the UEE has forced on Europe. They had terrible terrible blackouts. It is not reliable energy. It should be done smaller scale. It's fine for your barn that you want to have some electricity in. It is not in this scale. 960 aglet acres. Don't please don't do this. Thank you. Thank you. Megan Murfield, uh, address 17022, County Road 30, Dolores, Colorado. I am a working fifth generation farmer in yellow jacket. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said. With no disrespect and I'm not targeting anyone direct person, but for anyone who is for this, I'd like to welcome them welcome them to come work a day on our farm and then tell us how easily the land affected by the aftermath of this project will go back into farmable land. I'd like to

reiterate the statement, farms grow food, not solar. Say no to solar on a land. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Colleen Edwards, 25109 Road L.4 Cortez. And um the solar panels uh according to the internet only last uh 25 to 30 years. And they can be recycled, but it's very costly at 20 to $30 per panel. And however, the landfill prices are approximately$1 to5 dollars per panel. So guess where all those solar panels are going to end up is in our landfill. And 950 acres of solar panels. And you know, I'm not a used car salesman, but boy, have I got a deal for you. So you know how when you drive your car off the lot, it devalues right away. or if you buy a computer and you get it home and it's already deval out of out of date. So the W D WAVJA is developing a photon energy system PES orbs that are 60 times more powerful and 200 times more efficient than a solar panel have a self-contained battery and have 7.5 times more output and is 30 times smaller than a solar pan panel. They are the size of a baseball. They are clean, efficient, small, and powerful. They can harness LED light or sunlight. And they are clean, renewable energy. They have plans to have them power cars. Also, we don't we why why don't we wait until these products are similar or available instead of flooding our land with unsightly solar panels as far as the eye can see and disrupt the

animal habitat? And who wants to visit canyon lands, canyons of the ancients, and see miles and miles of solar panels. Thank you. Katie Murfield, 17022 Road 30. I work on a um 1500 irrigated acre farm in Yellow Jacket. And the reason I'm here is because we were confronted by um a solar company and proposed to lease our land. And as farmers, yes, we don't make a lot of money and we don't even own a lot of our land. So, um, when they confront us that one of the hardest things about farming is actually finding people to work because you don't make a lot of money and it's hard work and you don't usually a lot of times even can't afford the land payment. So, you don't you're leasing it from someone that does. So, what happens when these companies come and lease this land out? Not only are they threatening our lifestyle, which is what we do it for, um it takes away that land that we need to survive to farm and be farmers. And that is one of the farmers are one of the most diminished occupations in the n in the world at this point in time. The more farmland you take away from us and the harder it is to get people to farm, the it you're just killing us. You're killing us as farmers. It's it's making it very difficult. It's just another threat. It's another threat to the farm. The farmer. Thank you. Thank you. I'm My name is Samantha Sanchez and I live on road uh 16277 Road 20 and S. I'm

right on the corner. I moved here a year and a half ago from Phoenix to get away from all the noise, all the dust, all the traffic. And I can tell you now on my property, there's anywhere from 40 to 60 deer every day that cross my property. And just north of me during the winter, it's elk going across there. North of me, okay? I'm totally against this solar. And I can say in Arizona, solar panels everywhere and nobody has nothing but problems. They spend thousands of dollars on them. They never follow through with what they say they're going to give you. They're upside down on house payments because they had to take out loans to pay for solar panels. And they don't work as good as they say they do. And another concern of mine is they have no study here on the EMFs that these solar panels are going to put out. Electromagnetic frequency. Everybody knows that everything is energy and all mankind is made of energy and they're affected by the electromagnetic frequencies that are put out by the huge towers. They're going to be collecting this energy from these solar panels and the frequency that these solar panels emit. They cause cancer. They've been hiding it from everybody. We're having all kinds of people in Arizona that have been having all kinds of problems. They have no study on the EMFs that are put off by these big towers and these solar panels. I'm totally against them. Right on the corner of SN20 is a bus stop. We had problems a while back when the city was working. Trucks were going 65 miles an hour past my house and they weren't stopping on the quarter where the bus stop is. They were running the stop

sign. You know, are we going to have problems like this with all this traffic? You know, my blood pressure was 197 over 98 until I moved up here. I came up here to get away from all of this. You know, that's all I'm saying. But my biggest problem is is these EMFs. Thank you. There's no study. They haven't brought us any study on that. Totally against it. Causes cancer. Thank you. Steve Wilderson, 13955 Road 31, Mus. I went by the rec center today in Cortez and there used to be a little display on the wall that showed the output of the solar panels on that roof. I said, "Where are those?" They said, "Well, they they unplugged those a couple years ago. They don't know why. I think the stat statistic I came up with is that 50% of solar companies go out of business. If solar is so great, why is it 25% of it subsidized by the government? Why can't it stand on its own two feet? There's a thing called a solar heat island. And when when you put up a solar array, it raises the temperature of the surrounding area around that solar by about 36 degrees. So what's that going to do to that land in that area? So think about those things when you consider it. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Jerry Spandrio, 23905 Road 12 in Pleasant View. Uh my first comment is I think most of us here have heard at a pre seen a presentation like this

before. My first concern is they just dangle the carrot of tax revenue. So my question to you is are you willing to sacrifice our a land for a couple hundred,000 of tax revenue? Also, are you willing to impact the quality of life of all of those residents around that solar project for a couple hundred,000 of tax revenue? The other point is they put up the graphic 250 to 300 jobs and you go, "Wow, that's a bunch." Realistically, how many of those jobs do you think are going to come short-term jobs are going to be filled locally? They talked about the Dolores project. Did they tell Dolores County that they were going to have 300 jobs? Yet, they themselves said that they contracted some somebody from La from Ignosio, which is Llata County. So I just um the other the other item is that they said they're you know they're feeding that substation the tri-state substation. Realistically we have no way of knowing if one kilowatt of that energy is even going to be distributed to the local counties. Anyway, I urge you not to approve this. Thank you. Thank you. Kirstston Howell, 16715 Road 22. I want to thank the commissioners for their attention tonight. You guys have been very attentive and the active listening is impre impressive. Thank you for taking the time. I oppose um the development of the Canyon Land Solar Utility on Goodman Point for a number of reasons. And I would start by

saying that nobody lives in Monizuma County because they want to be rich. First and foremost, they're building this development in the midst of a community. Just because there's big pieces of big pieces of land between houses doesn't mean that it's not a community and it doesn't mean that it's not usable land. You can't, a lady said, you can't farm on dry land in the intensity that you can on irrigated land. And that's very true. This land has a purpose and it's not for a utility photovoltaic array. I think that the impact on the residents needs to be the first and foremost consideration. 800 ft from your house. Are you kidding me? Do you want to look out your window and see a photo array 800 feet from your house? That's ridiculous. It's also unclear based on the conversations tonight that this development will meet the land use codes as outlined. Considering health, safety, welfare, nuisance items, and other standards, there's multiple things that aren't to code. Additional concerns have been brought up. Wildlife habitat impact, soil erosion. It's a huge issue. You take the top soil off and the native vegetation and what happens? We all know what happens. We see it all the time. That's how you get a royos. It goes away. It runs downhill with the water. archaeological impacts are enormous and then the microclimate impacts that other people have spoken of, those are a very real concern. Goodman Point has a very extreme climate and that was spoken to as well. The weather out there is like nothing that happens anywhere else in the county. I've seen things that should not be off the ground lifted up by wind. It's impressive. and there, you know, feet and feet of snow. I don't have much more to say that

hasn't already been said, but solar on Aland is a no-go. Thank you, [Applause] Dan Jenkins, 318 South Ash, Cortez, Colorado. Um, I don't want to specifically speak towards what's being talked about here tonight, but I understand that right now is there a sixmonth moratorum on putting solar projects into place in Monizuma County? Is that my understanding? Because I heard something along those lines. We're not responding. Just please present your Okay. Well, so that being said that right now the county is in a position where they're trying to figure out how to create code and create requirements around solar projects like this. And I've heard a lot of ambiguity throughout this. What we're talking about is Colorado solar regulations. That's the only three words you need to compile together for anybody in this room. County commissioners, this board, anybody who's interested in this in the state of Colorado, but specifically Monizuma County, you go to that and that site will be the only place you need to visit on the internet to be able to get to the next place. Right? That is NRA's government website. These guys drove by it on the way up here from Longmont. They don't drive by it on the way home. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has a very clear specific 2024 up-to-date ledger that compiles every single Please address the commission for sir. Could you please address us? Thank you. The application in the state of Colorado for a solar regulation 64 pages. There's more information than you

will be able to comprehend in several cities. That's where Monizuma County needs to go to say half the counties in Colorado have that square circled. Monizuma County is in the yellow zone, not in the green zone. Need to know that. We need to be able to support you in enforcing that. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Mitch Risenhoover. I live at 51653 Highway 491. I grew up here. I've lived here all my life off and on. I've worked all over the country overseas. I've done lots of inspections and stuff. Uh I would love to be able to go out and actually check the top soil and stuff, what's been done with it out on the Doris County one. I uh also am a wildlife photographer. So I document the wildlife in this area and I can tell you right now this is going to impact our wildlife. It's going to impact our farms, our ranches. This land was for farming and for ranching. the lake that we have out here that everybody gripes about the water flow. This was built built for the farmers and the ranchers because that's what this place does for generations. I out here in Dolores County, that's my great-grandfathers on both sides of my family, my grandfathers, my dad where they used to farm. This is going to impact everything. And this ain't just the Dolores County and Monizuma County. This is a world problem. If you look at the information out there, this this is affecting the whole world. These solar farms, these wind farms that they h that they have and they're causing lots of

issues and problems. There's health issues that's been brought up. Uh my research I'm finding out that there's not a lot of information. There's, you know, but but the but they're saying that there's health problems, mental health problems that's being caused by these the setbacks. The reason why those setbacks are is because of the health concerns. Uh the smart meters that they have out on these, they do the EMF and that's why why they have them setbacks. And uh thank you, sir. I got one last thing. I've got a page that I I've been documenting the updates out here in Dolores County. Just go to that page and look at it and read the comments on it and you guys will see what people think of these solar farms in this area. Thank you. [Applause] Hi there. My name is Cara Lynch. I live at 21200 County Roadu, just neighbor of Jack and Olivia. and just want to say that um the impact that the amount of traffic traffic first of all that is going to be happening in our little rural community um is going to be impacted tremendously. I mean you won't even be able to go out and walk a dog or walk walk with your kids and feel safe. Um I'm glad Olivia brought up the fact that yeah Louiswis Areola school is right there. There's so many blind hills um from County Road U to 20 all the way around. people already drive too fast. Um and and just our way of life, the safety of our kids and families, dogs, livestock, they're going to be infected, affected. Um also, I'm not a scientist or meteorologist, don't claim to be, but I watch the storms. I like I said, live on you. You can watch the storms come from the Ute Goodman point come towards

our area. It seems like the temperature um increase from that solar the solar panels seems like that is going to be affecting the weather coming towards our area. We we already um don't get moisture like we used to. Um I'm not a big believer in climate change, but there are something's happening and I do think that weather patterns will be affected from the solar panels. Um also um yeah, just don't take away any more farmland. Um, and I just want to go on the record not in support of of the solar farms. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Susan Kim. That's 511 South Cedar Street. Um, I have an a really problem with the mitigation, the actual decommission of this project. Um, somebody kind of mentioned this about the fact that um, it's it doesn't kick in until 15 years, the 100%. But my problem with this is that if you're so if you think this is such a great project and it's going to be so good, why don't you say that you're going to do whatever it takes to get rid of this at the end? Because when you look at it, they've done an estimate on how much it will cost to decommission it and then they added a little bit to it and made it sound like that's great. But here's my issue. In 35 years, you have no idea how much that's going to cost to get rip that out of

there. You have no idea. And so even if you're adding some kind of you know interest or whatever to that that shity and even if you get something upfront it's not going to pay for it. But my biggest issue here is that you know if you really believe in this project why would you come in here and talk about it? you're supposed to be presenting the project and talk about how, oh, we're going to give some money to this person or that person. That's a damn bribe. So, I'm sorry. I'm very against this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners, for hearing this. I appreciate it very much. My name is Alan Maize, 21693 County Road 21. I live a long way from this project, but I do look straight down at the Ute Mountain every morning drinking coffee. It's changing and it will change. There's no doubt about it. But this project is going to change my viewscape. It's going to change wildlife patterns and the the project is going to kill that land. We talk a little bit about what happens underneath those panels. We know that those microorganisms aren't going to come back in 10 years after this project is decommissioned. There have to be conditions that this committee looks at if they uh consider moving it to the commissioners. If they decide to do that, there need to be lots of conditions. One of them is that the plan, the proposal needs to be cleaned up. There needs to be wording that makes it clear that this is what they promised to do and they will do. the security bond needs to be uh put up front and it

needs to be sufficient and um I don't think that whether those things are uh recyclable or not our land landfill cannot accept those and so where are they going to go and what's going to happen there has been in this area for a long time we have farmed this land the precipitation that I get at my place is different than Goodman Point and so I'm glad that they're saying there won't be any sheep under those panels because it won't grow the feed that they need to have in something like that. But because of that preip, the land is going to be lost no matter what. 35 years under those panels, it will be lost. So, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it. Oh, and I do not approve of of this moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening, Teresa Carlson, 16295 Road N. I'm here tonight with my neighbors and I just want to say I'm a no for the Canyon Land Solar Project, Goodman Points. Um, a beautiful place and I'd like for it to stay that way. I think you all had some excellent questions for these two gentlemen. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I think we're done with public comment. So, um I guess we can ask the applicants if they have any additional information they want to provide based on the comments. Um and then we can open up to commissioners for additional questioning if that's warranted. Chair, can I uh confer with my colleague just for one second just to ask if he has any question? Sure. Yeah.

Okay. Um yeah. Uh thank you chair and thank you commissioners. Um at this time we don't have anything else to to state. We are very much interested in uh additional questions from the commission. Um want to thank everyone for being here tonight. There's excellent comment made. Um and I know it's a um challenging decision you have to make. So um yeah, if if there are further questions from the commission, we're happy to entertain those. Thank you, commissioners. Yeah, there were some things brought up in public comment that I think um you could probably address uh pretty easily. One was uh the decommissioning plan. Someone uh wanted to see that. I think you can address that. Yeah, happy to do so. Um so the decommissioning plan is a component. It's one of the sub plans of the project and as was um mentioned in different ways by um different area residents the estimated value of the project um to the cost I should say the estimated cost um to decommission the project and by decommissioning that means removing the materials from the site and bringing the land back to a state as it is currently. um is $7.8 million if I recall um in the plan and um as was mentioned um UV has proposed at year 16 um to fully fund a decommissioning um either bond or letter of credit or parent guarantee um with for $10 million. Um and so uh that would be the

year 16 comes in because for the first 20 years of a potential power purchase agreement with the utility um the project is under contract to deliver power. So, um the incentive to deliver um regardless, let's just say in theory, um whoever purchases Canyon Land Solar as a project goes bankrupt, um say 5 years or 10 years beforehand, there will be a sale of that project immediately because the value of the project is so great. There is so much value inherent in that and there's a guaranteed contract to deliver that power for 20 years. So at year we're dialing that back to year at year 16 funding $10 million. So roughly a couple million dollars over the decommissioning cost that's estimated um to do so at this time. And understandably there is inflation and that was mentioned. you know, there's an inflationary component. Um, no one knows in 16 years from now what um what that inflation rate could possibly be. Um, so tying it to um the the CPI could be a means to address that inflationary aspect. So, another comment had to do with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife report. Um, can you confirm that that report was also included in your application? Um, so Colorado Parks and Wildlife reviewed our project and essentially shared advice on how to best through best practices, their best practices for um avoiding wildlife migration corridors

as much as possible and breaking up, as was mentioned in the letter that um um planning assistant Duncan read, um breaking up the project into component parts separately fenced to allow for uh potential wildlife migration corridors. So, um there's that. They reviewed what CPW has done is reviewed the um third-party consultant wildlife report that is a part of the project. So, that was one of the appendices in the um in the application was the wildlife um wildlife. I'm trying to I'm drawing a blank on the name, but um conducted by West Inc. the Cheyenne Wyoming based consultant that um produced the wildlife report. And then uh last among the comments, there was a question about an archae archaeological survey and whether that um report is included in the application. Yes, that's one of the components of um of the project. Um the there are portions of um the work done by Woods Canyon um that are um cannot be revealed to the to the public for under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Um but yeah, I've got more if you guys do not. Yeah. I want to thank everybody too for taking all the time and sharing your thoughts on this project. You you gentlemen as well. Uh question I have is you have potential leases with people for this acreage that we're talking about. Were any of those people here speaking tonight? Do you know? Uh on the

option land. Yeah. So we yeah we have options on land that could potentially go under lease. Okay. And [Music] um that truth be told many of those um land owners do not live locally. Um I did see they're still they're still local land owners. Favor let them speak. They didn't they weren't making comments, but you guys were talking. Sorry. Uh there was one individual who spoke uh this evening who we have an option agreement with. Um but the project is not cited on that um individual. Do you know uh Okay, I appreciate that. Do you know one of the speakers commented that a lot of the farmers uh actually farm my land as well, but some of the farmers lease land. Are farmers leasing the land that the remote owners where you have the lease options on? Um in part, yes. Yeah, in part. What part? Uh percentage wise, I mean is it half? Is it is it 80%? Is it 5%. What would your best guess be? Yeah. Yeah. 70 75%. Okay. Question. Uh I'm just curious on the on the sort of the business model as it would progress with Tri-State. So, you're hoping to have a deal with Tri-State, if am I understanding that right? If you were to have this project approved by the county commissioners that you would then potentially have an agreement with Tri-State or No. So, the project uh has been entered into a

tri-state RFP, a request for proposals, and there's a potential that it would be selected by Tri-State. There's also a potential it will not be selected by Tri-State. Um, and so if it is not in the final selection process, uh, selected by Tri-State, then it would we would bid it into potentially other RFPs. Um, and it's there's a possibility that it would never meet success. There would it would never be picked up. We would have a land use permit and um, a project would not be built. Is that something that Tri-State is looking at other people to bid to supply energy to them for? Yes. From different areas or how does that work? Right. Yeah. So, it was a 2024 RFP um and um it's a competitive RFP and so it like all of them are and so they should be. Yeah. And so, um, different projects, um, across, uh, across Colorado, New Mexico, um, you know, tri-states service area, um, bid into the project or bid into the RFP, sorry, and, um, are right now um, going through the process of the final selection and then that has to go before the public utilities commission. Okay. any timing on that? Yeah. So, their decision or the public utility commission's review will be complete by the end of May and shortly thereafter Tri-State um you know would be working with counterparties on contracting actual projects to integrate into their system.

It's not an easy not an easy situation. I personally lived in South Carolina once about six miles from a nuclear plant which if you think solar sounds bad to you, I can promise you living near a nuclear plant is a little frightening as well. I would say more frightening. Not that well I don't know if we have any proposals coming down the road for nuclear here. It has come up. Seriously. Uh just question for Don really quick. Um in terms of shity bonds is that something that the county can do typically does? Is that Yeah, it's it's it's a stipulation in the land use code. Um, and as far as the bond with the road and bridge department, that would be uh consistent with what we've done with Kinder Morgan. So, they post a bond at the end of the construction period. Then the evaluations done on any damage, repairs, upgrades to roads, and um that bond would cover that work. um the shity um that would be stipulated by the commissioners. Um I'm sure there would probably be evaluation periods. Um you know costs go up every 5 year might be a review increase the shity with the cost of living cost of expenses something to that effect. But that's that's strictly the commissioner's purview. Thank you for clarifying that everybody. So, is it back to the board or are we still asking questions? Um, if you want to if you have any more questions, ma'am, I'm ready. Okay. I think we're

ready to entertain a motion then. No, no, I'm ready to discuss them. I'm Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Sorry. You're ready to make a motion? No. Okay. So um in chapter 1 section two of the land use code says in the first section 1201 general quote one of the major objectives of the comprehensive land use plan is to protect the rural character of the county through the enactment of development regulations appropriate for rural areas. This objective is addressed by a zoning system and a complementaryary high impact commercial or industrial permitting system which are combined in this land use code. Close quote. Therefore, the zoning system is a fundamental part of the land use code and the HIPP high impact permit is complimentary to zoning. Chapter three of the land use code is the zoning section, pages 15 through 36. There's 22 pages there. The land use code, not including the recent addition for variances, is about 80 pages long. So over 25% of the land use code involves zoning. My understanding is that the zoning section of the land use code should not be bypassed or skipped when an high impact permit is applied for. It should be the first stopping point in the land use code whenever a change of use is under consideration. The high impact permit is complementaryary to the zoning system, not the other way around. Most most of the parcels and acreage in this project are zoned agriculture. They appear to be properly zoned for the current use. In part 6.6.1 6.1 of the project documentation. It states, quote, "Unquestionably, the

project represents a change in land use from what has been historically active agricultural lands across a pastoral landscape." Close quote. In a board of county commissioner meeting in August 8th, 2023, Commissioner Copenhafer said something to the effect that he was on the committee that developed the land use code and he thinks commercial use should be zone commercial. Notice he is implying that the zoning should match the use for this project. The zoning that would match its use is found in part 3312 which is on page 29 under uses by right 3312.3 part A number 16. quote renewable energy, hydroelect electric, solar or wind farms close quote quote. That zoning designation is heavy industrial zone. Furthermore, public or private utility is not a use by right on a land per the land use code. It is a use by right under the zoning designation of heavy industrial zone. And for that reason, I believe this application should not be approved because there is no reasonzoning application included. That's not a motion. Okay. I agree. You agree? Yeah, I agree too. You can do it. Make it

short. I need the right word first. Mr. Mr. Chair, I move to recommend to the board of county commissioners to deny a proposed high impact and special use permit application for a solar votic electricity generation facility submitted by Canyand Solar LLC agent David Kimmit on properties owned by Dennis Hutcherson to Family Trust, Goodman Point Farms LLC, Susan Lass, John and Robin Foster, James Wilson and Baxram Miners Trust, D&J Schaer Living Trust, and John and Jessica Chapel based on the following. The proposed use is not in conformity with the code. Second. I'll second. All right. It's been motioned and seconded. Now, I made this mistake before. The motion is to deny. Correct. So, we the vote of I is to deny. I made this mistake before. I don't want to make it again. Okay. I remember that. Okay. All right. Call the vote. Commissioner Armstrong. I. Commissioner Lynch. Hi. Commissioner Doyle. Hi. All right. Um the uh motion has been uh denied for uh recommendation. So, um, appreciate your time. Um, Don can talk to you guys about next steps. [Applause]

Yeah. Can I make a statement? Can I make a statement? Um, just off the record, the hearing's closed. I just off the record statement. Um, I just want to I do sincerely want to thank everyone for being here and for your passion in this. I've appreciated the time I've got to spend. Um, and I can't say if we'll be back again or not, but thank you for your dedication to your people and your land. I appreciate it. [Applause] Yeah. Yeah. Is there any further discuss? Yeah. Let's wait till everybody clears out. See if we have any more further discussion.

put us back on broadcast. Ready? Yeah. Me then. Is there any additional discussion tonight? Anybody want to bring up? Okay. Motion to make a motion that we adjourn. Second. We got a vote. Commissioner, you're probably tired. Yeah, I've been traveling. Motion to adjourn at this morning. Motion to adjourn at 9:16. Sure.