Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee hears farmers, towns split over limits on solar on prime soils

The Senate Agriculture Committee on S.3 (section 10) heard testimony Tuesday from Thomas Hand, co-founder of MHG Solar, and Jennifer Blay, selectboard chair of Lowell and a middle-school science teacher, on whether to restrict large-scale solar projects on land mapped as prime agricultural soils.

Hand told the committee his company has developed roughly 60 megawatts of operational solar in Vermont — "about 10% of all in-state solar" — and described lease agreements that he said provide vital income to farm families. "Today, his family has a steady income stream of more than $30,000 a year," Hand said of one example; he said another site would yield about $20,000 a year and a pending project would provide roughly $15,000 a year. He said those agreements typically run 25 years or more.

Hand argued S.3 as drafted would "effectively ban solar projects over a megawatt" by restricting projects that disturb more than five acres, and that the bill would therefore "directly harm farm families." He warned that…