{"id":1191,"date":"2012-11-12T22:55:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T22:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1191"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:05","slug":"epa-releases-a-report-on-its-re-powering-americas-land-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/epa-releases-a-report-on-its-re-powering-americas-land-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA Releases a Report on its RE-Powering America\u2019s Land Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday, November 11, 2012, by Drew Hargrove
\nThe Environmental Protection Agency (\u201cEPA\u201d) recently posted a report<\/a>, documenting an increase in the number of renewable energy projects installed on contaminated land. The report is associated with EPA\u2019s RE-powering America\u2019s Land Initiative<\/a>, which provides incentives for renewable energy on contaminated land, such as landfills, mines, Brownfields, and Superfund sites.\u00a0 The report states:<\/p>\n

While the proportion of renewable energy projects on contaminated lands is relatively small, RE-Powering is seeing a market trend, showing that this land development strategy is gaining momentum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the RE-Powering initiative began in 2008, there were only sixteen renewable energy projects on contaminated land\u2014now, there are sixty.\u00a0 The report indicates that twenty-four of the sites are privately owned.\u00a0 A vast majority of the projects (forty-nine) are solar energy projects.\u00a0\u00a0
\nContaminated lands seem to have tremendous potential as sites for renewable energy projects.\u00a0 EPA estimated<\/a> that there are almost fifteen million acres of contaminated land that could be used for approximately 490,000 renewable energy sites.\u00a0 In furthering its RE-Powering initiative, EPA has provided a Google Earth interactive map<\/a> that shows the location of contaminated areas provides supplemental information for each contaminated site.\u00a0 There are both state and federal incentives for such projects.\u00a0 Information on North Carolina\u2019s incentives can be found here<\/a>.\u00a0 However, according to EPA\u2019s recent report, there are no renewable energy projects on contaminated land in North Carolina.
\nAre contaminated sites the answer to land use issues associated with large renewable energy projects?\u00a0 It would seem that there would be fewer competing interests if the land has little value for other uses.\u00a0 In fact, a recent court case illustrates how valuable contaminated lands may be to large renewable energy projects.\u00a0\u00a0 In Western Watersheds Project v. Salazar<\/a>, a federal court dismissed a challenge to the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s approval of a $2.1 billion solar energy project being constructed in the Mojave Desert.\u00a0 Plaintiff\u2019s brought suit under several environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act.\u00a0 Plaintiff claimed, among other things, that the agency failed to determine and weigh the solar project\u2019s impact on desert tortoises, a threatened species in the area.\u00a0 While the court\u2019s decision signaled a \u201cwin\u201d for the solar project, the case illustrates the range of obstacles that large renewable energy projects face.\u00a0 For example, the owner of the solar project, BrightSource Energy, spent over $56 million<\/a> to protect the desert tortoise.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\nWhile the Endangered Species Act is not a land use law, it certainly has land use implications, which are often controversial<\/a>.\u00a0 But, what makes Salazar<\/em> interesting, in light of the EPA\u2019s recent report, is that land in the desert, at least historically, has been viewed as having little \u201cvalue.\u201d But, the growing interest in the desert as a valuable ecosystem creates an inherent conflict amongst environmental interests\u2014in Salazar<\/em>, the solar project indirectly helps the tortoise by reducing greenhouse gases, yet destroys its habitat at the same time.\u00a0
\nAnother example of the internal conflict between wildlife interests and renewable energy interests can be found here in North Carolina.\u00a0\u00a0 In North Carolina, wind projects have faced stiff opposition, stemming from concern over potential bird collisions.\u00a0 Regarding the Pantego Wind Energy project in eastern North Carolina, some are particularly concerned<\/a> with the projects impact on bald eagles.\u00a0 Recently, a new wind farm project was approved<\/a>, but it is unclear whether this new project will succeed where others have failed.\u00a0\u00a0
\nContaminated land offers great value as a site for renewable energy.\u00a0 But even contaminated land may be subject to competing wildlife protection interests.
\n 
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, November 11, 2012, by Drew Hargrove The Environmental Protection Agency (\u201cEPA\u201d) recently posted a report, documenting an increase in the number of renewable energy projects installed on contaminated land. The report is associated with EPA\u2019s RE-powering America\u2019s Land Initiative, which provides incentives for renewable energy on contaminated land, such as landfills, mines, Brownfields, and …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7663,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191\/revisions\/7663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}