Windsor Township is a community situated in scenic Berks County, Pennsylvania. Imagine moving out to the countryside and building your dream home. You raise your family surrounded by rolling farm fields with a beautiful mountain range in the background. It makes for the perfect photo. You enjoy sitting out on your porch watching the farmers work the fields. You see birds and animals foraging for food. You see hawks gliding across the fields searching for prey. You hear their classic call. On occasion you will see a bald eagle soaring through the air. Now imagine waking up one morning to find the fields being bulldozed for development. Not just a few acres, but hundreds of acres covering 3% of the entire township. Now imagine you had a drought late spring and the dust from construction has been flying for weeks. Summer rolls around and you start getting the classic thunderstorms. One storm dumps two inches of rain in an hour. What happens to the rolling farm fields when they get hit by two inches of rain? The exposed ground gets eroded. Muddy channels flow down the hills into the wetlands and creeks. The riparian areas and creeks are now flooded with muddy water and dirt. Will your well be safe? Will your yard get flooded from the stormwater? Will the roads be covered with mudslides? Imagine listening to construction noise for over a year – hearing the beeping, the drilling for the posts etc. Would you want to still live here? Why we are against large scale development in Windsor Township: - Incompatible Land Use – A large scale solar energy generation facility is not compatible with farming and preserving open space. These farms are actively being farmed. About 50 families live adjacent to these farms. This area is mainly agricultural and residential use. The solar company claims they will return the land to its original state after decommissioning, but how can it be returned if the land is being washed away? This proposed large scale solar energy generation facility is not a good fit for our community. - Windsor Township does not have dedicated emergency services. We rely on neighboring communities for fire protection and EMS. We do not have public water or sewer. Residents use wells and septic systems. Construction will require a lot of water. We don’t know how much water will be required to maintain a solar energy generation facility that will have nearly 100,000 solar panels. - The solar company is out of state and does not have any local connections that we know of. The proposed project will not benefit the residents of Windsor Township directly. The only benefit to the township is tax revenue, which may be offset by having to spend more for fire protection. The county, the state, and school will get a minor increase in tax revenue. The main beneficiaries are the land owners, the solar company, and the few who get the solar company’s hush money. Residents of Windsor Township and Berks County are concerned about the possible environmental and community impacts. We have formed a group, Windsor Berks Concerned Citizens to preserve open space and farms in our township. View our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/wbccitizens We have hired an attorney to help us oppose this project. We need to raise at least $10,000 to cover our attorney’s fees for our upcoming conditional use hearings. If the hearings go longer than expected, we may need to increase our fundraising goal. Help us save Windsor from development! We are asking for your support. Every donation counts, even if it is small. If you are able to give more that is great! All donations are greatly appreciated! Donations go to paying legal expenses and raising awareness about the project. Thank you for your support! The proposed area in Windsor Township currently looks like this: https://youtu.be/HGFAOPJ7aIU Here is a video compilation of drone images of Richmond Township’s construction phase for their solar generation facility (~110 acres of flat farmland), which is about a quarter of the size of the proposed Windsor Township solar energy generation facility (~440 acres of hilly farmland): https://youtu.be/pAC6ZPQdmaU We support solar energy generation on commercial and industrial zoned land. Some good places for solar panels would be warehouse roofs, over large parking lots, and residential roofs. Photos of Windsor Township:
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