An alliance of hunters, birdwatchers, and public land advocates in Wisconsin are pushing back against a massive solar project that’s being proposed in Portage County because of the impacts it could have on greater prairie chicken habitat and local hunting opportunities. These groups have stopped short of trying to block the project being proposed by Doral Renewables, which they say is essential in meeting Wisconsin’s long-term renewable energy goals. Instead, they are asking the state’s regulatory agency to scale down the project in a way that will better safeguard Wisconsin’s last remaining prairie chicken stronghold. The public comment period for the project closes Friday.
If completed in its current form, the 7,100-acre Vista Sands Solar project would be capable of producing around 1,300 megawatts of electricity, making it the largest solar project in Wisconsin by far. That’s enough to power roughly 200,000 homes, and it would be a significant step toward the state’s larger goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Doral’s vice president of development Jon Baker told Wisconsin Public Radio in July.
The area where the Vista Sands project stands to be built is ideal for vast arrays of solar panels. It’s a flat, sparsely populated, and mostly treeless landscape that is used predominantly for agriculture. But it’s these same qualities that also make the region one of the last best places for greater prairie chickens, a native grouse species that’s listed as threatened in Wisconsin and is on the decline throughout the greater Midwest.
The Buena Vista Wildlife Area covers more than 12,000 acres near the proposed development site and is home to two-thirds of the state’s overall prairie chicken population, according to the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. The group filed as an intervener in the state’s ongoing approval process, which is being led by the Public Service Commission.
Photo by Brandon Jones / USFWS
“It’s treated similar to a lawsuit, with testimony, witnesses, and rebuttals. We just have a vested interest in this process and want to be engaged on a higher level,” WWF executive director Cody Kamrowski tells Outdoor Life. He says it’s the first time the group has gotten involved with the PSC. “We filed as an intervener because there wasn’t really another conservation group that was going to step up to the table and we were well suited for this position.”
Kamrowski makes it abundantly clear that WWF supports renewable energy development in Wisconsin, and that includes the Vista Sands solar project. He says the group and its supporters are simply asking the PSC to reduce the size of the project by 20 to 30 percent. This reduction would encompass buffers between the large solar arrays and the neighboring conservation lands that serve as lekking grounds for prairie chickens. Their concern is that the vast solar arrays being built — along with the accompanying fences, roads, and other infrastructure — will harm local populations of the birds, which require large open landscapes to breed and thrive.
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Although more research is needed around the effects of renewable energy projects on prairie chickens, past studies have shown that the birds will go out of their way to avoid power lines, roads, and other signs of human development. Similar conversations are underway in the West regarding renewable energy projects and sage grouse, a species that’s closely related to prairie chickens that’s also extremely sensitive to human development.
“We’ve been getting beat up a little bit just because there are plenty of groups out there that are [pushing] renewable energy at all costs — regardless of what the local impacts are,” Kamrowski says. “That’s the really fine line that we’re trying to walk. We support renewable energy and solar, but we need to be mindful of localized wildlife impacts.”
Those impacts could (and likely would) extend to other species as well, he says. The Buena Vista Wildlife area and the surrounding public lands in Portage County are home to plenty of whitetails, wild turkeys, and coyotes, all of which provide opportunities for local hunters.
Photo by Jim Hudgins / USFWS
Kamrowski clarifies that the current proposal for Vista Sands does not include building on public land, and the majority of acreage slated for development is privately owned agricultural lands. (Under the current framework, farmers are offering their acreage to Doral as part of a lucrative 25-year lease.) Many of the large solar arrays, however, would be built on acreage that abuts the scatter work of conservation lands in Portage County where prairie chickens and other critters are known to live.
Kamrowski voices two primary concerns with such an arrangement: In addition to cutting off migration routes and pushing out wild birds and critters, Kamrowski worries sportsmen and -women might be less likely to hunt among sprawling arrays of solar panels.
“In hunter safety, they teach you to know your target and beyond, and if there are structures around instead of open farm fields, people aren’t going to be shooting in that direction,” Kamrowski explains. “So it does devalue the recreational value of that property to some degree.”
Hunters aren’t alone in pushing back on the size and scale of the solar project, either. Kamrowski says WWF has been supported as intervener by other conservation nonprofits such as the Dane County Conservation League and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology — both of which have acquired and worked to protect some of the best remaining prairie chicken habitat in and around the Buena Vista Wildlife Area.
“That’s what’s really powerful about all this. You’ve got hunting groups, and then you’ve got non-consumptive birdwatching groups involved. That really speaks to the importance of this and the uniform message that everybody has.”
What’s Next for the Project
In July the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources released an Environmental Impact Statement for the Vista Sands Solar project. The DNR determined that the project, as currently proposed, could negatively impact the local prairie chicken population, and it gave recommendations for how the PSC should move forward on approval.
The DNR’s primary recommendation is to remove 10 of the proposed primary areas for solar arrays along with four alternate sites. The agency also asks regulators to consider alternate locations that would be less impactful to wildlife, since the company is currently leasing an additional 2,900 acres in the county that is not included in its current project footprint.
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Kamrowski says the DNR’s recommendation lined up nicely with WWF’s own request to reduce the project’s footprint by around 20 to 30 percent and establish a buffer zone between the solar arrays and their associated infrastructure and neighboring conservation lands.
“We ended up doing a GIS analysis, and [the two] recommendations actually aligned perfectly … the DNR just did [their analysis] by solar arrays and not by miles,” Kamrowski says. “So we’ve just said we’re going to adopt the DNR’s recommendation just to keep it consistent between the two.”
Kamrowski says the PSC has until January 2025 to make a decision on the Vista Sands project. The agency is currently accepting public comment on the project, but that window closes Friday. (Click here to comment.) He says there’s already been a flood of comments, but he hopes that more hunters will speak up and express their support for the DNR’s recommendation to scale down the project.
“It’s all about wildlife-responsible renewable energy siting,” Kamrowski says. “And I think we can find that balancing act.”