Deschutes County staff brief board on Eastern Oregon solar rule choices; mapping and irrigation data noted as critical

Deschutes County staff on Monday briefed the Board of County Commissioners about new state rules for siting solar in Eastern Oregon and presented three paths the county can take: opt out of the state's streamlined process, take no action (and be subject to the state's default opt-in), or undertake a local, mapped-option where the county identifies specific parcels eligible for the streamlined process.

Peter Gutowski, community development director, said the state rule changes were written for sparsely populated eastern counties with large contiguous parcels and that Deschutes County's parcelization, irrigation patterns and transmission constraints make the statewide approach less directly applicable without local tailoring. "They're really written for sparsely populated rural counties," Gutowski said. "In our…