Controversy over San Benito County solar farm proposal heats up

Controversy over a proposed large-scale solar farm southeast of Hollister is reaching the boiling point.

The 420-megawatt Solargen project would plunk up to 4 million pole-mounted photovoltaic panels on almost 5,000 acres in San Benito County's rural Panoche Valley. But the community's small-scale farmers want the land preserved for agricultural use, while environmentalists worry about impacts to threatened species.

Those critical voices are even louder now, during the public comment period on the project's draft environmental report. At a crowded meeting before the county's Planning Commission in July, 30 of 32 speakers opposed the project, according to The Hollister Free Lance.