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California is under a time crunch to rapidly expand green energy production.
In 2018, the state set a mandate to produce 100% of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2045.
The City of San Diego and San Diego Community Power, one of the region’s main energy aggregators, soon one-upped the state, aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2035. San Diego County also has a regionwide plan for achieving zero carbon emissions by 2045.
The threats from human-caused climate change — including extreme heat and catastrophic weather events — is driving this push. And East County has become the region’s epicenter in the renewable energy development boom. County leaders have greenlit a series of wind farms, solar farms, battery storage facilities and transmission lines, which help power local cities.
But the much-championed goal of expanding clean energy is running up against complex realities on the ground — as well as pushback from residents and at least some tribal leaders.
The projects can convert hundreds of acres of open natural land into a sea of panels or turbines. Concerned residents claim the projects can endanger ecosystems, wildlife and cultural sites throughout East County. Plus, much of the energy produced is sent to other, more urbanized parts of the region — far from the rural communities that neighbor the renewable energy sites.
John Bathke, an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at San Diego City College, characterized the trend in East County as “green colonialism.” The term refers to the imposition of renewable energy projects on disadvantaged and Indigenous communities.
“This kind of second wave colonization, green colonization in the name of renewable energy and being friendly to the environment, comes at the expense of destroying, in part, the environment and destroying Native cultural resources,” Bathke said.
Jim Whalen, a land-use consultant who has worked on projects in East County, acknowledges green colonialism as a real and concerning trend. But he believes each renewable energy project is unique and development can be expanded responsibly while protecting the environment and cultural sites.
“It's when somebody is not community-aligned (that) you get these kind of conflicts,” Whalen said. “It falls on the decision makers to try to resolve them.”
A wave of development
Over the last 20 years, renewable energy projects have steadily altered the rural landscape in East County. The California Energy Commission reports the area is one of six regions in the state that concentrate the majority of wind turbines in California.
Wind turbines dot the terrain north of the Interstate 8.
Borrego Springs has multiple solar farms and battery storage facilities.
Near Jacumba and Boulevard, there’s more solar, wind and battery storage, as well as transmission lines and energy substations that regulate the voltage, with additional projects in the pipeline.
A more than 600-acre solar project in Jacumba, for example, is currently under construction. The electricity generated from the solar farm, known as the Jacumba Valley Ranch (JVR) Energy Park, has the potential to power 50,000 homes per year.
While some of this energy powers East County, much of it goes to coastal and central San Diego.
The JVR project broke ground last fall on fallow farmland that had regrown as a natural landscape. The solar and battery facility came before the San Diego County board of supervisors in 2021 after facing public pushback in the community.
Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer acknowledged the tension at play between green energy goals and preserving East County’s character.
“My concern is that this project, while I strongly favor it in principle, as currently designed doesn’t seem fair to the community of Jacumba, in the sense that it imposes enormous costs but does not make the community whole,” Lawson-Remer said at an August 2021 board meeting.
The board of supervisors unanimously approved the project but required the developer to shell out $4 million for a community benefit fund.
Jacumba community members then unsuccessfully sued the developer and county supervisors over its environmental review process.
Since then, the community has been grappling with construction dust, noise and how it should spend the benefit fund.
Syda Stark lives in Boulevard but works in Jacumba. She vividly recalls the day she first heard the construction in Jacumba.
“It felt like getting run over from the very beginning,” Stark said. “It just feels like I haven't consented to that. This is happening to us, not for us, not in relationship with us, not in collaboration with us.”
Brandon Reinhardt, JVR’s Senior Director of Land Entitlement, previously addressed how the company has handled community pushback.
“We worked with them over time to make tweaks here and there, adjust where things were located,” Reinhardt told KPBS in November.
He added that the company gathered a lot of community input before finalizing the project and has “continued to show up and have that dialogue with the community over time.”
Boulevard wary of solar project
Residents in Boulevard have taken note of the situation in Jacumba as they fight their own battle over a solar and battery project.
Starlight Solar is a proposed 588-acre solar and battery storage project in Boulevard that would transform sections of natural space nestled between the Old Highway 80 and the U.S.-Mexico border. The land is owned by Haagen Company, which has an extensive real-estate development portfolio in Southern California, including the polo fields where the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival happens every year.
The two-phase solar project has been in the works for roughly five years. Whalen, the land-use consultant hired by Haagen Company, said the project is currently seeking county permits and they have not yet found a developer.
Whalen said the infrastructure in Boulevard makes it a prime location for this kind of solar.
“We're near SDG & E's substation and their main load center, which is San Diego,” Whalen said. “And there's two transmission lines that go through it, so Boulevard's unique.”
Donna Tisdale was a longtime Boulevard resident and fought a number of proposed projects during her decades-long tenure on the Boulevard Community Planning Group. The planning group is an elected board that represents the community and advises county leadership.
Tisdale tried to fight the nearby substation and transmission lines years ago, hoping that a victory would stymie future projects.
But she said the battle has never been in the backcountry’s favor, and county leaders and developers often disregard their concerns
“They say, ‘Oh, well, that community's already degraded, so let's just go ahead and do some more there,’” Tisdale said. “A lot of people that work out there have to commute and that doesn't give you a whole lot of time to step up and defend yourself.”
Tisdale left Boulevard as the Starlight Solar project came to the planning group a few years ago.
Whalen argues this project is different from past East County projects because of his outreach and engagement with the community. He said he’s attended the majority of the planning group meetings in the last five years.
“We work with the community,” Whalen said. “That doesn't happen with some projects.”
Whalen also emphasized that Haagen Company is not parachuting in all of the sudden — the Haagen family has owned the land in Boulevard for decades. He said they’ve invested in community revitalization efforts in years passed.
He said they’re committed to protecting 448 acres of the natural land and 33 cultural sites on the property.
‘Green Colonialism’
Bathke, the San Diego City College professor, has concerns about the long-lasting impact of disturbing the land for energy projects in East County. Bathke is Diné, from the Navajo Nation.
He was the historical preservation officer for the Quechan Indian Tribe when a wind turbine project was proposed on federal land in Imperial County. The Bureau of Land Management ultimately approved it, despite the tribal leaders’ concerns.
“Every time I drive by there, it just breaks my heart,” Bathke said.
The San Diego region is home to 19 Native American tribes and 18 reservations — more reservations than any other county in the U.S. The majority are located in East County, including the Manzanita Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.
Manzanita Chairwoman Angela Elliott-Santos noted that the history of colonialism in San Diego goes back hundreds of years. East County was the place where her tribe settled to escape it.
“This has been our land for thousands of years, and we used it at different times for different things,” Elliott-Santos said. “One of the things we used it for a couple hundred years ago was as a familiar place to go to, instead of being missionized, instead of being told what to do and taken over completely.”
The chairwoman made it clear she sees the need for sustainable renewable energy development. In fact, she said that for some East County tribes, it’s an opportunity to strategically use their land to generate income for their community. But she believes the tribes should be more involved in the decision-making process.
“I don't think we're where we want to be yet, but I think now, we are being asked to the table sooner than we had been in the past,” Elliott-Santos said.
Manzanita tribal leaders have attended community meetings to voice concerns about the projects located near Jacumba and Boulevard.
San Diego County is typically responsible for reviewing and permitting these projects. Under state law, staff are required to consult with tribal leadership on energy projects that impact culturally historic areas.
For the JVR project in Jacumba, the county consulted the Manzanita tribe and required the developer to hire Kumeyaay monitors to review the project and land. Other local tribes were consulted for Starlight Solar.
Next steps for Boulevard
In November, the Boulevard Community Planning Group approved the Starlight Solar proposal and provided a list of requests for the Haagen Company. The requests included a $7 million community benefit fund, similar to the one awarded to Jacumba, and increased setback distances from properties and roads.
Whalen said the company will refurbish Boulevard’s Backcountry Resource Center and is open to increasing setbacks. However, he said the project does not include a community benefit fund.
“We've already done a lot of the things that they asked for,” Whalen said.
Planning group chair Earl Goodnight said he anticipates the county will approve the project.
“Our intent was to get as much benefits as we can for the community,” Goodnight said. “When a project gets to this point, then there's little that can be done, I guess you can say legally, because it's progressed that far.”
Still, frustration lingers among some community members over potential environmental impacts, water contamination risks and fire hazards.
“To shove all those batteries and solar solar panels out here, it just puts a disproportionate amount of burden on this community,” said planning group member Carl Anderson III.
Since the fall, community members have created an additional list of requests and intend to send it to county leaders. Thomas Wall is one of the community members who has gathered neighbors to voice concerns about the project.
“We are advocating for a legitimate community benefits agreement — one that is direct, enforceable, and formally approved by the County board of supervisors if the project moves forward,” Wall said.
Supervisor Joel Anderson, who represents Boulevard, declined a KPBS interview request about the Starlight Solar proposal.
County spokesperson Donna Durckel responded to questions via email regarding the potential environmental impacts and fire risk concerns.
“The County’s role is to evaluate whether a project is appropriate for a particular site and whether its impacts can be avoided, reduced, or mitigated to an acceptable level under state law,” Durckel wrote.
Durckel said “it’s possible” the project may go to the county’s Planning Commission on May 8.
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