White Tail Solar is finally going to happen. This is a 120 megawatt solar farm project proposed to be established across both sides of the border between York and Augusta Townships. York Township’s Board of Trustees gave the final ok to the project at their September 10 meeting. Augusta Township’s Trustees voted to approve their part of the project as well on September 24.
“The two agreements that were voted on tonight were development and decommissioning agreements, which as the township attorney noted, are really for the benefit of the township, and really are in alignment with our company principles and approach to these projects,” Vice President of Permitting Ranger Power Sergio Trevino said after the final vote. “We want to be responsible members of the community, and these agreements just put that into legal effect, so we’re happy to do that.”
White Tail is divided into two halves by the rail line going from Indiana to Detroit, called Railsplitter 1 and Railsplitter 2. It has been in the works for almost a decade, with multiple stops, starts, a legal challenge and several redesigns to accommodate the wishes of neighbors. Originally under the auspices of another developer, Ranger took over around 2021. This utility scale photovoltaic solar power plant covers the line between York and Augusta Townships – rural communities of fields, rural homes and woods about halfway between Milan to the south of them and the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area to the north of them.
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Rural communities like these have been selected as prime locations for these projects because of their abundant open land and proximity to large urban areas like Detroit. The arguments about the introduction of solar to rural communities has been fueled by both climate change denialism and by concerns by some that solar projects would fundamentally change the nature of rural life.
Indeed, there was still opposition at the Augusta meeting. Augusta Township Trustees Deborah Fuqua-Frey and Chris Ortiz both voted against the measure and both halves of a clean up resolution which provides a security of money to cleanup the site if and when it goes out of use. Some members of the public against the project muttered to each other about her doubts.
“These things are going to be dinosaurs. It’s already a failure,” a community member identifying himself as David Frey said.
A lawsuit against the project, which ultimately failed, claimed that the development of solar would negatively impact the property values of adjacent rural homes. Ranger has been proactive in handling this concern with the use of setbacks from the property line and covering the costs of installing evergreen trees and shrubberies to provide a vegetative screen between the project and any neighbors who don’t want to have to see it.
Ranger Power is a Chicago-based company that develops renewable energy projects, usually on the behalf of regional power utility companies. Ranger claims that the $130 million the project will invest into Washtenaw County will provide 150 temporary construction jobs. Once completed, there will be a handful of further permanent jobs to maintain the system.
The developers are passionate about making utility scale renewable energy the norm in American life. But they are also pitching themselves as a friend to rural communities. The fields this project will sit on is not taken away from the farmers who own it, but it is rather leased from them. This provides them with less area to cultivate and stabilize their finances, which are usually up to the whims of agricultural markets, weather, trade wars and government regulation.
Just how much the landowners are making out of his arrangement is usually confidential. It is also going to be covered with grasslands and pollinator plants, turning the solar farm not only into a renewable source of electricity but a boost for the long term cultivability of neighboring farmland.
“We’ve had a couple of people who’ve expressed concerns, especially about the farmland. However, White Tail Solar’s been very careful, and the [York Township] Planning Commission has been very careful working them,” Chuck Tellas, the supervisor for York Township, said, “The solar panels will be mounted on pylons driven into the ground. There will be no concrete bases or anything like that to remove. Most of the wiring will actually be above ground – it will be suspended from those pylons – underneath the solar panels, say about 24 inches under the ground.”
Michigan’s solar laws also changed recently. Governor Whitmer has signed a law going into effect on November 29 that amended state law to require renewable production changes.
In addition to creating a state level commission to oversee solar projects of 50 megawatts or more, clean energy storage facilities, or wind projects of 100 megawatts or more, the act uses state power to make it easier to get approval for projects like White Tail. It specifically lays out a new set of rules for “certification by this state before the construction of certain wind and solar energy facilities and energy storage facilities; to regulate certain local ordinances; to protect personal property rights;” thereby easing the way for utility scale renewable energy projects to get off the ground.
Victor L. Lillich, the attorney advising Augusta Township, explained to the Trustees Tuesday evening that the policy of whether to allow solar farms or not is not within his purview. It is already permitted under local regulations.
Lillich added, “Do I necessarily like solar projects? I’m not going to necessarily say that I particularly do generally. But the reality is that the ordinance permits it.”
After Ranger Solar got its final permission to begin, the Augusta Township Board of Trustees passed another resolution. This one voiced the township’s opposition to Lansing taking planning permission powers away from local government in planning decisions from them, although it is symbolic as state law trumps local law just like federal law trump state law.
“I appreciate that because I agree with that. But the reality is that the state has already, to a certain extent, taken this out of our hands. And frankly, it’s a little bit better for us to use our own ordinances other than state law. We proceed under our own ordinances and our own ordinances permits this,” Lillich said before that vote.
While the state law does standardize the process for wind and solar projects, it also addresses some of the concerns initially leveled against White Tail. It requires at least 300 feet of setback from the outer wall of a project and must be at least 50 feet from a road or property line, and the solar panels cannot exceed 25 feet off of the ground at full tilt.
Solar farms don’t generally make much noise, but concerns about a pervasive hum or wine from the panels is covered by a regulation that says solar farms can’t “generate a maximum sound in excess of 55 average hourly decibels as modeled at the nearest outer wall of the nearest dwelling located on an adjacent nonparticipating property. Decibel modeling shall use the A-weighted scale as designed by the American National Standards Institute.”
Indeed, a good portion of the agreements between Ranger and the communities they set up involve reassurances about the safety of the panels, and plans for the eventual decommissioning of the site once it runs the course of its usefulness decades from now.
They have also had to debunk misinformation about safety. Solar installations are safe for the farmland that they occupy, and do not harm the soil; a myth perpetuated online.
The panels are arranged in rows – like grape vines but made out of glass and steel. The metal supports that the panels are supported by are placed directly into the soil and can be removed afterwards without damaging the farmland. Ranger has had to emphasize this point of the design repeatedly to counter other misinformation about the panels being cemented into the soil.
They are set up in rows to take advantage of the moving of the sun. As the day progresses, the panels tilt to follow Earth’s star, maximizing solar gain. And they will work all year, even with overcast skies, albeit not as efficiently during cold and cloudy weather. The panels are even designed to take advantage of the reflective quality of snow to absorb sunlight on both sides.
All that Ranger needs to do now is secure the construction permits. Trevino is confident that they will get that.
While a firm timeline isn’t set yet, Trevino said, “before the end of this year, we would be hoping to start construction.”
Renewables contribute the smallest portion of Michigan’s power capacity at 11.8%. Natural gas makes up 43.7% according to the federal Energy Information Agency, followed by coal at 23% and nuclear power at 20.3%.
Trevino said Ranger is hoping to get construction done and for the solar farm “online roughly around this time next year.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
