Residents, wildlife officials and council push back on 4,000-acre Drunkard's Wash solar lease; council votes to ask commissioners to oppose further state-land

The Emery County Public Lands Council spent the bulk of its meeting on the proposed Drunkard's Wash solar development — a roughly 4,000-acre project on state trust lands north of Huntington — and on whether the county should push back after the state issued a lease to the developer.

Daniel Wilson of the Utah Division of Wildlife said the project, now under lease to Nadara (which purchased the original developer Novus), would require about 14 miles of perimeter fencing and the removal of roughly 4,000 acres of winter range. "This is a 4,000 acre project," Wilson said, and "once the project goes in, pretty much all the habitat is lost for wildlife inside that project area." He added the area is a crucial mule-deer winter range — some collared animals travel 20 to 30 miles to reach it — and that the region is already "25% below population objective for deer."

Wilson described two paths if the project proceeds: moving the arrays to lower-impact trust parcels (DWR identified alternate polygons), or compensatory mitigation. The statewide mule-deer and elk plans recommend mitigation at a 4-to-1 ratio; Wilson said DWR estimated that a mitigation program to offset the loss here would cost roughly $6.5 million. He said DWR had sent a letter to the lessee recommending relocation and, if relocation is impossible, voluntary mitigation.

County residents, ranchers and hunters pressed multiple concerns. Speakers cited loss of multiple use and grazing access when fenced solar farms displace livestock, worried about long-term damage to forage and water drainage, and questioned vegetation-control methods around arrays and panels. "What are the impacts off-site of that?" one resident asked about the likely herbicide and ground-sterilization practices used to control weeds under arrays. Another attendee highlighted risks associated with large lithium-ion battery banks and questioned plans for disposal or recycling, saying only a fraction of those batteries are recyclable.

A State Trust Lands representative outlined the state's administrative review process: projects are submitted to the Resource Development Coordinating Committee (RDCC), which circulates the proposal to state agencies for comment, and the county receives notice through that process. The representative emphasized that issuing a lease does not automatically permit immediate construction; lessees still must clear various environmental, infrastructure and local-approval hurdles. "Just because we give them a lease does not mean that that will actually happen," the representative said.

After extended public comment and discussion the council asked the State Trust Lands agency and other state actors to return next month with a full presentation of the RDCC/lease history for this site, what environmental analyses were done, and an accounting of how many similar leases exist in Emery County. The council then voted to prepare a formal letter to the County Commissioners expressing opposition to any further solar panel development on state trust lands and to include the minutes and a written position. The chair agreed to draft the letter with assistance from another council member.

What happens next: the council will invite the state trust lands agency and other agencies back for a detailed process briefing and a history of the Drunkard's Wash lease; the council's formal letter will be transmitted to county commissioners and recorded in the council minutes.

The presentation and debate made clear the core disagreements: DWR framed the issue around winter-range impacts and possible mitigation costs, the State Trust Lands representative framed it as a managed lease-and-approval process routed through RDCC, and residents emphasized local grazing, visual and hazardous-waste concerns.