CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — Just a few steps uphill from his family’s property since the 1990's, Dustin Ferdinand looks over the horizon - ranging a full 180 degree - to nothing but farmland and spring Idaho skies.
But his days of enjoying the former are numbered at the expense of the latter; Savion, a renewable energy company, proposes a 2,385-acre solar farm.
It would claim all he can see up to and past the horizon.
"The landowners trying to do what they want to do with their land, I don't blame them," Ferdinand said. "You definitely lose the small-town aspect that we all enjoy."
The project would power 42,200 Idaho homes, according to Savion. They pitch the project as quiet, clean, renewable, and low-impact. However, neighbors aren't sold.
In fact, some say they were not notified.
"Hearsay from the neighbors. We start kinda diving into it a little bit," Ferdinand said. "We still need help to understand all that."
The farmland sits atop a hill with water runoff into a nearby canal. Their neighbors have fears of groundwater impacts through construction and in the event solar panels are broken or harmed from weather including hail storms.
"This is absolutely the wrong place to build a solar farm on top of this hill surrounded by water and that aquifer underneath," neighbor LeRoy Taylor said. "I would like to figure out a way to let this community know what they're really up against."
A stock letter from Ada County addressed to a neighbor of the site details a county commissioner’s hearing May 8th at 6 p.m. The letter clarifies it is a notification to anyone who lives within 2,640 ft of the site.
"Anyone else won't get notified," Ferdinand said.
The neighbors are hosting a gathering of their own to discuss their concerns and opposition to the proposed project. It takes Place April 13th starting at 6:30 p.m. at the Melba Senior Center.
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