Officials downplayed community concerns after area with thousands of acres of solar panels raised alarms about environmental contamination following “hailstorm like we’ve never seen before.”
(Video: Fox 26)
Southwest of Houston, Texas, residents of Fort Bend County were ignored or left waiting as they demanded answers about their community’s risk of chemical exposure following wholly predictable devastation to their energy grid.
As hotly contested races for state legislature set about clearing the Lone Star State’s Austin swamp, the impact of forced green policies hit home for the people in Needville after local solar farms were devastated by a mid-March hailstorm.
Resident Nick Kaminski spoke with Fox 26 Houston near one of the farms covering more than 10,000 combined acres who, after the initial shock wore off, worried for his family’s health.
“It was a hailstorm like we’ve never seen before,” he explained of hail up to 2.5 inches, according to weather reports. The ensuing damage raised alarms about the presence of cadmium telluride in the panels and other “cancer-causing” chemicals. “That’s correct. I was worried about it.”
“My concern is with the hail damage that came through and busted these panels we now have some highly toxic chemicals that could be potentially leaking into our water tables,” Kaminski told Fox 26.
“We’ve asked for the same studies, and we’ve been treated the same way. We got nothing out of them,” explained local Miles Fugua.
Kaminski had reportedly emailed Fort Bend County Commissioners, the Fort Bend Economic Development Council and the owners of Fighting Jays Solar, a 4,000-acre farm, asking for their environmental impact report only to be stonewalled.
“There’s numerous makeup in the chemicals on this thing. The majority of them are cancer-causing,” said Fugua.
As with Fox 26, Fighting Jays opted out of answering questions on the record to ABC13. Rice University physics professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh was willing to go on the record and downplayed concerns of environmental risk to the outlet.
“It’s possible you dented the solar panel, but they have a lot of protection layers on top of that,” he said, though he acknowledged the possibility of a chemical leak. Still, the professor argued it would take time to enter the water supply, “Even if I expose it, it has to get into the groundwater, which means water has to dissolve the cadmium telluride. Cadmium telluride does not dissolve in water.”
Half-hearted assurances did little to abate community concern as Kaminski told Fox 26, “I have a family. I have two children and a wife.”
“My neighbors have kids and a lot of other residents in the area who are on well water are concerned that the chemicals are now leaking into our water tables,” he added.
For their part, county leaders told ABC13 HAZMAT had found no contamination and that the results of an investigation by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality was expected as soon as Friday.
Video from another area solar farm set social media to slamming the so-called environmentalists who pushed their “expensive boondoggle” that left the grid unreliable and posed risks to the local community.
In yet another massive L for ‘green’ energy boondoggles, a massive swathe of solar panels in Damon, Texas were taken out by a hail storm
And not only were the expensive panels rendered useless by the weather, but now they’re leaking a toxic compound, cadmium telluride, into the… pic.twitter.com/vtKqRNxTN4
— Will Tanner (@Will_Tanner_1) March 26, 2024
unrecyclable environmental hazard…
— Anna (@provemewrong411) March 26, 2024
These panels will optimally have a thirty year payback period – even longer given weather conditions.
When they are destroyed in year four it’s a near total loss, a failure on a massive scale.
— Joe^Ram (@Joe__Ram) March 26, 2024
More environmental catastrophes brought to you by the climate change cult! Study geology to understand how old this rock that we live on actually is…
— Ladybearclaw28806 (@Natalie44066053) March 26, 2024
What were they going to do with all those toxic panels when they need replacing in 10 years?
Even without hail storms, this is incredibly wasteful and horrible public policy.
— Islamic Worldview (@Ghazzali_Mind) March 26, 2024
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Author: Kevin Haggerty
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