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Dolores County hears update on solar project commissioning and planned cleanup after panel fire
Summary
Commissioners were told construction at the solar site is largely complete and that testing and commissioning will continue; Tri-State connections are expected to energize the substation this week. County environmental staff pressed for soil and water test details after a panel fire; contractors said testing is under way and a cleanup is targeted for the week of the 29th.
Commissioners at the Dolores County Board of County Commissioners meeting on Sept. 15 heard that construction at the county solar site is nearly finished and that crews are now focused on testing and commissioning ahead of energizing the project.
"As of right now, the construction is pretty much complete," a project representative told the board, saying Tri-State completed last connections and the team expects to energize the substation on Friday. The representative and other project staff said on-site personnel will decline over the next month as final commissioning and punch-list work is completed, and the project team hopes to turn the installation over to Tri-State by year-end or early next year.
The meeting shifted to environmental concerns after public-health staff raised questions about contamination following a fire that burned some staged panels. An environmental-health official said the county monitors the potential for hazardous materials, noting that some panel chemistries (cadmium-containing modules) can create harmful compounds if they burn.
"Whenever panels like that burn ... cadmium ... can now turn to cadmium telluride, and that's very harmful in soils and very harmful in water," the environmental-health representative told the board, requesting details about runoff, containment and sampling protocols.
Project staff responded that most panels on-site remain intact and that the modules at this installation are not the cadmium-containing type. They said they had placed silt fences and other controls to limit runoff and had engaged third-party contractors to sample and remediate as needed. The team identified two cleanup contractors by name and said they were targeting the week of the 29th to begin a roughly two-week cleanup, contingent on test results.
Project staff said they have engaged independent testing firms and that the lab requested an additional round of samples after an initial QA review. The board requested that completed testing summaries and a description of sampling locations and protocols be shared with county staff and the public when available.
County officials also thanked local responders and county crews for fire-mitigation work at the site.
What happens next: the county will expect a testing summary and sampling plan from the testing contractor; the cleanup approach and disposal destinations will be dictated by test results and by the contractor selected for remediation. The project team said they will provide the board and public-health staff with the testing results and a cleanup schedule when available.
