Voices of opposition surface as solar farm proposal for South County moves forward.

Solar panel installers pick locations based on where the sun shines. But opponents – which include environmental groups – take issue with where the sun don’t shine: underneath the solar panels.

A draft environmental impact report on a proposed South County solar farm, California Flats Solar, is expected to be released within a few weeks, and will consider the impacts of the 2,000-acre development on habitat for golden eagles, California condors, kit foxes, tiger salamanders and other animals.

Several groups, including the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, have weighed in with letters to the County Planning Department asking wildlife be considered in the environmental analysis.

Solar projects of this scale commonly create tension: Projects provide renewable energy but disrupt habitat.

Last year, an appeals court rejected arguments by environmentalists, allowing a 399-megawatt solar project to proceed near Hollister. California Flats, at 280 megawatts, isn’t quite as big – but neighbors have already filed opposition comments with the county.

“We will be able to see the industrial nature of the solar field from almost everywhere on our ranch,” site neighbor Van Boxtel wrote in a letter last year.

California Flats is owned by First Solar, which bought the project from Portland, Ore.-based Element Power last August. The company is leasing nearly 2,700 acres of land from the Hearst Corporation, the company that owns KSBW and the ranchland around William Randolph Hearst’s castle.

“First Solar is committed to a collaborative outreach process and is meeting with environmental groups to address questions and concerns,” says California Flats spokesperson Laura Abram.

Concern also came from the Shandon Joint Unified School District, which educates 300 students in three schools, including one in Parkfield in Monterey County. Former Superintendent Rod Wallace wrote county planners last year, saying that concern centered around the impact on the school and the community.

Relations have warmed, says the new superintendent Teresa Taylor, thanks to California Flats’ pledge to fund a new library.

If approved, California Flats would be Monterey County’s first utility-scale solar project built primarily to supply the grid rather than a particular building or business. “The state wants to move away from gas and coal,” Senior County Planner Delinda Robinson says. “You’ve got to use something else. Solar is one of those things.”