Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Two subjects dominated yesterday’s Wasco County Commission meeting – finding a way to make NORCOR financially self-sustaining. and the proposed new Deschutes Solar and BESS facility. Kathleen Sloan, senior siting analyst for the Oregon Department of Energy. briefed commissioners, who would be sitting as an advisor board through the process, and answered questions. The new solar farm would be located 10 miles southwest of Maupin, with one edge close to the Warm Springs reservation.
This would be a large farm, generating up to 1,000 megawatts, spread over 14,000 acres with a 4,000 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system.
Sloan said this proposal was unusual in that there are 13 properties within the project area that are not taking part and will be surrounded on all sides by solar panels. But Sloan said it won’t help them to complain about the change in the neighborhood:
“One of the common comments that we get is, ‘Well, this is going to affect my property values.’ We don’t have a standard for that. We don’t have a standard for that. Like, we don’t have a standard, that addresses that concern, that issue. So it’ s not something our counsel can weigh in on.”
The project’s application has not yet been deemed complete by Sloan and her agency. When that happens, there will be a public hearing. Those who have an interest in the matter should attend that meeting if at all possible and see that their comments become part of the official record.
The other major presentation yesterday involved NORCOR regional corrections facility, which is owned by Wasco County, but maintained and operated by a board with representatives from Hood River, Sherman and Gilliam counties, all of whom contribute to the operating costs.
Those counties have been studying jail operations, with the goal of making the operation self-sustaining. One suggestion that has been brought up a number of times would be eliminating the juvenile section.
That turns out not to be a solution, as Wasco County Administreator Tyler Stone summed it up:
“If we continue to provide the support at our current level – I mean, we’re going to have to buy juvenile services somewhere, so that’s just shifting the cost to the member counties to be able to fund adult, basically, and we’re going to have to fund juvenile again. That’s a difficult scenario.”
No decision on Norcor was made at yesterday’s meeting.