This contentious issue was married with unease over uncertainty surrounding garbage collection on site, ongoing fire hazards from the solar farm, and the impact on deer and migratory birds.

Councilors requested firm answers on which parties would be liable if the project failed.

Mark Feenstra, senior manager for project development with Canadian Solar Solutions, explained that an upcoming report will be delivered to nearby residents focusing on data-based literature that illustrations little evidence to suggest loss of property value.

Despite attempts to mitigate concerns, residents responded to the presentation with a unanimous “Why here?”

Ian Sanchez, managing director with BowMont Capital & Advisory the development and financial firm overseeing the project, said that developers listened to the public’s discomfort with seeing the solar farm and created a revised layout that poses an increased setback and shelter belt to reduce visibility.

Following the council meeting, Feenstra told Lethbridge News Now that the opinions voiced so far in Taber are consistent with the opinions shared during public and private consultations in proposed solar farm sites in Ontario, where there are typically more residents living in close proximity to proposed sites.

Sanchez noted that developers are looking to address all concerns.

“In Alberta none of the other sites have as many directly affected landowners in close proximity; so they haven’t had this level of opposition, but hopefully the benefits of getting off of coal fire and moving to renewable energy generation is clear in terms of environment pollutants.”

Both of the project representatives rehashed the site selection process; whereby, this spring 15 landowners within 5 km with 23 potential plots were considered. Of these potential plots only two landowners with suitable land were interested in discussion. When these negotiations did not pan out, developers expanded their search and notification packages outlining rights were sent out by July to residents within 2000 metres of project.

SO WHY TABER?

According to (C&B) Alberta Solar Development ULC CBS resources CBS is searching for lands in southeast Alberta with some of the following criteria:

– Relatively flat and square lands, which the owner is willing to least or sell at reasonable commercial terms;

– Close proximity to distribution substation (Within 5-10kn) which minimizes transmission infrastructure needs for grid as a whole.

– Minimal environmental constraints such as forests, wetlands and native prairie

– Little to no directly affected neighbours

– Minimal development constrains such as municipal land use bylaws

– Lands clear of structures and

– Minimal oil and gas infrastructure such as pipelines and wells.

It goes without question that the urgency for solar energy development is backed by the NDP’s plans to phase out existing coal-fired power plants by replacing two-thirds of retired coal plants with 5,000 MW of renewable energy, as noted in a previous LethbridgeNewsNow.com story.

Feenstra echoed this sponsorship and championed the proposed project’s ability help reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation spur municipal tax reductions.

“I think that the municipality can talk a bit to what their view on the total tax revenue is. What the tax bills are for these projects are significant and will be a major source of revenue in 20-30 years.”

Grant Hunter, MLA for Cardston-Taber-Warner did not support the claims for municipal revenue and openly opposed the proposed solar farm.

“They will do a contract for 20 years and the cost of electricity is approximately 1.5 cents and this plant can only produce electricity at 15.4 cents per kilowatt hour. This will be subsidized and tax payers will pay for that over the next 20 years.”

Hunter suggested that the province look into revitalizing and scrubbing coal emissions.

“We live in the same world and we are saying we can’t have clean coal here but we can sell coal to china. The technology for solar and wind isn’t there yet so let’s give it time to be comparable to coal. We have lots of coal so if we have a system of renewable energy that isn’t going to gouge the taxpayers I am all in favour of it.”

Ryan Geeraert, a resident on Ash Road adjacent to the proposed site told Lethbridge News Now that he was planning on writing to the Alberta Utilities Comission after feeling like his opinion didn’t matter.

“I feel more informed but I don’t feel like they addressed our concerns and I feel like they are going to try to shove it down our throats. I’m concerend about property values and the impact on wildlife.”

To be located on 191 acres of agricultural land, the proposed project has the potential to generate approximately 43 GWh annually, enough to power 6,000 households.

Sanchez and Feenstra reiterated that those 15 homeowners across the road from the proposed solar farm would not receive any monetary breaks on their electricity bills.

The Town of Taber could see a boost in hospitality and job creation; however many of the jobs will cease to exist post construction.

It is expected the construction of the facility would create local construction jobs (peak of about 270 workers on site during construction, with an average of about 160 workers over the 10-12 month construction period) including general labourers, equipment operators, electricians, other trades, site managers, and engineers.

A development permit application is expected to be put filed with the AUC as soon as possible.

If approved, construction is expected to commence in spring 2018, with the project potentially operational by spring 2019.

More details can be found on the project by visiting Tabersolar.com