Judge sides with Panoche Valley Solar Project

The fight between environmental groups and the Panoche Valley Solar Project in San Benito County is coming to an end for now. A judge is siding with the project, allowing the process to move ahead toward development.

San Benito County Judge Harry Tobias sided with the Panoche Valley Solar Project, rejecting the latest arguments from the Sierra Club and the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, claiming there were environmental issues with the project.

“The out of town environmental groups should stop telling San Benito County how to make its land use decisions,” said Panoche Valley Solar CEO John Pimentel.

San Benito County Board of Supervisor Margie Barrios calls the ruling a victory for the county.

“It’s a victory in that San Benito County has made a decision as leaders of its county and we were able to uphold our own decision and be able to do what we had planned five years ago,” Barrio said.

The fight over the project started five years ago. Now the 247-megawatt solar farm, east of Hollister, could turn into rows of solar panels, powering 70,000 homes in California. The ruling comes hours after it was announced New York based solar company Con Edison was buying stake in Panoche Valley Solar.

“We see Con Edison’s involvement in the project being very beneficial and proof that the marketplace sees this project as being inevitable and only a matter of time before we get it built,” Pimentel said.

However, environmental groups still have about two months to decide whether to appeal this decision.

“We had some good strong arguments,” attorney Don Mooney said. “Especially about the drought and some recent new information that’s become available that we discussed in our brief and what we discussed in court last week. So we were optimistic but the court issued its ruling and we respect that and we’ll move forward.”

The project isn’t shovel ready just yet. It is still going through the state and federal permit process.