Riparian Buffer Analysis

A while ago I wrote about buffer zones, water quality, and agriculture. This is a quick update on that. I've been working on a research project that looked at different types of imagery analysis to determine if there is a good way to identify potential violators for inspection or closer monitoring. The short answer is, not the way I did it but there probably is a way, it just isn't likely worth the extra time and cost. Visual inspection of imagery is relatively easy, fast, and accurate enough (and much cheaper than some of the other program-based alternatives). I've written it up formally, available upon request, but thought I'd post an annotated figure that gives the general idea of the methods and findings.

EarthEngine

This post isn't really about parks, land use, property, or any particular story or issue. Rather, it's just a short entry about one of my favorite sites/internet toys: EarthEngine. This site is a Google production, with government and academic collaborators (I believe), that has taken lots of satellite imagery (and other data as well that you can explore) from the almost forty year history of the global imaging program and stitched them together (with other data fusion techniques to smooth, blend, and remove errors, clouds, and missing data) to create time lapse videos of change on the Earth's surface. It might not show the exact state of the land at any given time, but it clearly shows general trends, and in some cases (it provides some highlights/lowlights) the differences can be striking, alarming, amazing, and/or depressing.

While most people use it out of curiosity, it does have significant research and policy-informing uses as well. With it, it is possible to see rapid deforestation, the progression of coal mining, rapid urbanization, and changes in river flow. It does have some pre-loaded time lapse examples that are particularly striking, but after viewing them it's almost addictive to go looking for more areas of personal interest. I haven't personally used any of the other data features it has, but I am certainly intrigued and thought it would be worth mentioning here for anyone else interested in the things I write about.

Bike Lanes and Parking

I live on the East Side of Saint Paul in a neighborhood that is filled with public parks and has extensive winter ski/summer bike trails. However, these trails are not well connected to Downtown Saint Paul or the rest of the Twin Cities bicycle network. This makes bicycle commuting a challenge and also reduces the amount of recreational cyclists who visit the area. This should be changing. The city Public Works Department has announced that it intends to put in bike lanes on Upper Afton Road this summer as part of a resurfacing project. Because of the proposed changes to the parking set up, a community meeting was held this past Thursday and a public comment period is now open before a hearing and vote by the City Council later this spring.

I made a point to attend this meeting because I am both a bike commuter and recreational cyclist and knew that someone needed to speak for the rest of the neighborhood. Upon arriving at the meeting, it was largely as I had expected: most of the attendees were residents of the affected street and almost all of them were vehemently opposed to bike lanes, to loss of parking, or to both. This was not a particularly rational view because, as someone who bikes and drives that street daily, I have come to the same conclusion as the city parking survey, specifically that there is very little street parking utilization in general, so very little will be "lost" by the residents. Their opposition, therefor, struck me as a product of emotion, entitlement, misunderstanding, prejudice, and irrationality.

Some opposed residents were just not good at logic and listening. They continued to bring up unrelated issues, unrelated streets, or issues that the bike lanes would help resolve (like speeding, bike lanes make a road seem narrower which has been demonstrated to lead to lower speeds). Fortunately the city planning people, neighborhood council members, and City Councilwoman were all very patient and repeatedly explained the benefits for these people.

The less rational, more emotional, and occasionally prejudiced residents were far more difficult to deal with. They tended to have stereotypes about bicyclists. They had unfounded beliefs about level of usage (both of parking and bike lanes). And had a number of other unrelated complaints about how it would be paid for (via wheelage fee, not special assessment) and land values/property taxes (if anything, they should go up with a bike friendly neighborhood). There were also some very weird, barely concealed racist elements, especially when an elderly crank started ranting about how he "paid a lot of taxes" and then the city "stole" one of his parking spots to put a bus stop in and now is taking away the others for bike lanes. His digression on the "whiskey bottles" and major transit center that the buses service was an appallingly low level of discourse that marked him pretty clearly as an entitled, racist, obstructionist who likely sincerely felt that he owned the street in front of his home (despite the fact that it belongs to the city and therefor all of its residents). This belief in ownership of parking is understandable, but wrong, and street planning decisions need to be made with the best interest of an entire community in mind. Indeed, that is why Saint Paul has an extensive and detailed bike plan for developing bicycle infrastructure so that it might someday catch up with Minneapolis and its enviable bike culture. While not everyone is happy, usually bike lanes come to be seen as a benefit and the controversy quickly fades away.

So, yes to bike lanes: better commuting infrastructure, safer way for kids to get to school and playground (both of which are on the proposed path, movement toward a more integrated recreation network, safer streets, better property values. No to excess on street parking which has myriad problems and causes many more. And really, the issue isn't the biking (or the buses, or the racism), it's the weird American relationship with cars and the places we put them.

As some of the anger I witnessed at the meeting shows, people have often irrational beliefs and emotional responses to parking issues. They feel entitled to public space in front of their home, to free parking when they shop and run errands, and are often oblivious to the explicit and latent economic and environmental costs of the excess of, often empty, paved space, much of which is mandated by city building and zoning codes.

In addition to the carbon output of cars in commute, there are additional carbon costs just from circling a block looking for a meter or a space, especially in areas where parking is under priced (a subsidy to businesses at the public expense). Furthermore, parking is the largest land use in a city, and allowing it to be free greatly influences the transportation choices people make (with both economic and carbon costs imposed). As mentioned above, much of it is legally required, even if it sits empty on supposedly huge demand days. Some places are starting to rethink what parking lots can be, either by redesigning them or by adding supplementary secondary uses (as solar farms, drainage areas, or tree-lined grids). For much more on parking lots, I highly recommend this entire series from Sightline (much of which has also appeared on Grist).

As for my local parking issues, Saint Paul has finally moved into the world of thirty years ago and decided that it will start charging for parking at night, begin using event rates in certain areas, and expanding meters to previously free areas that are high traffic. While each is a small step, when put together they will make progress toward rationalizing the use of one of the city's largest public properties (its streets) and generate much needed revenue for infrastructure and other public works projects. If it also encourages people to use more environmentally sound transportation methods or to take advantage of the expanding bicycle infrastructure, even better.

Historic Homes

What makes a home historic? What makes a building historic? What about an entire district of a city? Is it the age of the buildings? A history of constant, consistent use? Some kind of historic event or significance? Did important people do important things there? Maybe there's just a distinctive and well preserved architectural or social record that really can't be matched anywhere else. In many cases its an unclear mix of all these elements, and its never really clear what leads to a grant or denial of designation. The task of sorting all this out in many cities falls to some kind of historical preservation board or heritage preservation committee. Here in the Twin Cities, as in many other areas of the country, we are experiencing a boom in historic property versus redevelopment fights.

I can't say this a job I particularly want or envy. On the one side, you have legitimate neighborhood concerns about developers pushing people out, changing neighborhood characteristics abruptly, gentrification, affordability, and social/racial/economic justice issues. On the other hand, in order to grow cities need to add population and building up is far more environmentally responsible than building out (though many tear downs are actually about building bigger single family homes, which doesn't address that issue, and can cause other problems with setback violations, shading problems, and strange juxtapositions). It's very hard to address housing costs, fight sprawl, preserve historic character, and still provide sufficient options for growing populations, especially as cities strive to attract members of the "creative class." And really, at the end of the day, it comes down to a board of elected or appointed people coming to decisions about what others can or cannot do with their property. It's a challenging thing, that can often lead to anger and defensiveness, with both sides talking past one another. I understand where both are coming from, but from the outside it often appears to be a case of NIMBY versus in the pocket of the developers. What really needs to happen is there needs to be a more collaborative planning process that might be able to address legitimate concerns while still allowing for flexibility.

If properties are worth less than the cost of restoration, they will continue to degrade and eventually require demolition (which can be a big loss for the neighborhood but also for some of the features of these homes, some of which might still be usable and popular on the renovation market). This process also leads to a downward spiral in neighborhood quality, housing stock, and stability. I used to live in a neighborhood like that. It was a once beautiful Arts and Crafts style house with wooden built-ins and wood floors. However, it was located in the Old Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, which was a thriving African American community with many similar homes, until it was bisected by the construction of I-94, gutting it, driving housing values down, and sending the neighborhood into steep decline. The house itself has a lot of potential, but when we were looking to buy, we didn't even consider it because the amount of work required would have been far greater than justified, especially considering our landlord was already underwater on the mortgage. Many other houses in the area were similar, once beautiful with lots of potential, but steadily degrading. Lots of renters cycled through the neighborhood, and several lots were already empty or condemned. There might be a way to stabilize, or even reverse the decline, but it would be a challenge, especially without more owner-occupied housing.

I have also had the good fortune of living in another historic Twin Cities neighborhood: Milwaukee Avenue. For two years I rented the first house on Milwaukee Avenue, a development originally built in the late 1800s as low income housing. By the 1970s the buildings were mostly in disrepair and were scheduled to be demolished, but the street's historic nature (architectural, social, and character (it's a pedestrian and bike only street)) and the work of a number of activists got it listed on the National Register of Historic Places and registered with the City of Minneapolis. Some money was then available to restore the houses, a developer bought most of them, restored them, and then created a common interest community, the Milwaukee Avenue Homeowners Association, to run and manage them and ensure that they kept a consistent, historic character. They are cute houses with interesting layouts on small lots. You can tell they were built in another time for what were likely large families sharing a small space. Kitchens are off the back, the other rooms are all clustered around a central fireplace and chimney that runs up the center of the house (allowing the upstairs to be warmed as well). I'm glad I lived there. Again, I would never have bought that house, but I would have considered others in the neighborhood (that were in nicer condition and not right off Franklin Avenue).

Not all historic building fights are about things quite as attractive. Some are more mundane and about commercial redevelopment. One recent spat was in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Dinkytown where a house and several businesses were proposed for demolition to build a hotel. I highly recommend looking at the pictures in the article. There really isn't anything distinctive or interesting about the buildings (they look like a standard commercial strip in a city business district), but some of the businesses have been present for a while. It sounds like it is not so much a fight about history as a manifestation of worry over a neighborhood's character, with concern that popular businesses will be displaced by newer, more upscale ones. In this case, it seems like the neighborhood has the stronger argument (and prevailed at the hearings), I suspect because a hotel is a vastly different type of business than either apartments or commercial space. Perhaps an apartment building with commercial space set aside would be more appropriate for the neighborhood.

In contrast to the Dinkytown case, where the buildings are unremarkable, it is interesting to look at the ongoing saga of the David and Gladys Wright House in Phoenix, AZ. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is a beautiful property (view the slideshow in this article) that was to be torn down, was bought, saved, and is now the center of a fight with neighbors that object to a limited number of tours being given. That's a fair concern. Residential neighborhoods are not commercial districts, and even limited visitors on a regular basis can be disruptive (see the long running fight in Philadelphia over the Barnes Museum, since relocated (an additional huge fight) over parking in its quiet suburban neighborhood). But back to the original point, the house itself is a premier work by a leading architect. That it was going to be demolished, and now others want it relocated, seems like madness. If any kind of house should be a prime candidate for historic designation, it would be a house like this. As one of its defenders pointed out, Wright designed with the landscape in mind. The idea of "living with the desert" was key to the design and layout. That people would "never consider asking for Falling Water to be relocated" should be a good reference for how to evaluate a house like this.

When dealing with institutions, it can be much easier to handle historic designation issues. Often, the institution wants the designation, as it can lead to financial benefits or access to restoration or preservation funds. At the very least, it can provide status and bragging rights. It is also much less likely for an institutional land owner to face opposition to a designation because it often will own much of, if not all of, the properties to be designated and, in many cases, the surrounding property as well. They still need to go through the formal process, however, including all the proper paperwork and documentation.

In the United States, we seem to have made a big mess of our historical designation system. Perhaps it's because we have "less" history to preserve, or because we are more litigious and competitive, or because we want it all: cute neighborhoods in walkable cities that are also affordable and don't sprawl out (also unicorns). But, whatever the causes, and whatever the solutions and compromises, it's hard to look at American fights without thinking of Europe, "where the history comes from," and marveling at how they manage to do it there. It seems like there are constant stories of discoveries in unexpected places. It seems like the Europeans have found a way to make development, archaeology, and history work together, I can't imagine what Americans would do with those kinds of problems and discoveries. Perhaps we just need more practice living in less space and we'll become less attached to hoarding every little architectural oddity and neighborhood quirk. I am all in favor of preserving character, but I don't want that to come at the expense of sprawling out across the land eating up open space, increasing commutes, and in general amplifying the environmental impact of our urban lifestyle. Accommodation and adaptation, with redevelopment done in concert with communities. That's the way forward if we're going to try to balance these issues because, while a tear down might be one person's property, the choices made will affect everyone around it, potentially for a very long time.

Minneapolis Park Expansions

I'm fortunate to live in the Twin Cities, which by some evaluations have the best public park systems in the country. I certainly appreciate being able to walk across the street to a large dog park surrounded by bike and ski trails. What makes this most impressive is that they not only have a large percentage of city land dedicated to public parks, including waterfront, recreation centers, and playgrounds, but have generally good access to park resources across age and income. There are some limitations to this methodology, it didn't include access to park programming and services, the study defined access as being within a ten minute walk of any designated park property, regardless of condition, amenities, or safety. Things are improving, however, as the Park Board has adopted an explicit racial equity component in some of its planning. It is also true that having designated park land is better than not, and that once it is in the system it can be improved and serve as a gathering point or anchor for the neighborhood. An important piece of this is the ability to add important parcels to the system and obtain enough funding to support effective programming and ongoing maintenance.

In Minneapolis, unlike in many other cities with large or famous park systems, the idea of public parkland was present at the very beginning and an independent park board charged with overseeing and acquiring land for the system was created before the city was even 30 years old. This has led to a much more organized and thoughtful system, much of it planned or engineered (including the lakes and parkways), that is much more evenly distributed throughout the city. Compare it to Boston Common, a green space with roots in colonial custom, or Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, founded to protect the city's drinking water (lots of foresight, but also concentrated along the river, leaving large portions of the city without good access). In Minneapolis, the system was growing from the beginning with, as one writer put it a "get the land and adapt as you go" attitude. After all, as the same writer put it, when tastes and desires and trends change and new uses come into fashion, "people use the land as they want to. There have always been contentions about how parks should be used, but it's nice to fight over land we own."

That it is better to own the land already than need to acquire and repurpose it can be seen in Minneapolis' own history as well as the experience of other cities. Minneapolis has had a steady, planned growth of the system, adding units by purchase, eminent domain, and donation, in a regular and systematic way, including traditional parks, public squares, greenways, community centers, playgrounds, and miles of river and lakefront. This process is continuing to this day with the city set to acquire one of the last remaining parcels of riverfront that is not already part of the system. This would provide an almost uninterrupted stretch of river from one end of the city to the other all under public ownership. It is true that the land will need to be cleared and remediated, it is currently an industrial site, but there should be no problem clearing it eventually and converting it to some kind of appropriate public use. It helps that the Mississippi River is not a working river in Minneapolis. The mills are gone and almost all shipping is done by rail or truck. Barge traffic is present but not necessary (most stops in St. Paul). This allows riverfront property to be given over to desirable public parks (and often closely associated expensive condos), unlike, say Providence, Rhode Island, where the working harbor with alluring waterfront views have created headaches for would-be developers. They have learned that its hard to build a development on land that has current industrial value that supports established industry and a large workforce (this is part of why many parks were initially formed, they were viewed as "wasteland" or had unusuable grades or were otherwise viewed as unsuitable for other uses, but that's a very big digression).

Not all system acquisitions are smooth, or official. While Minneapolis doesn't have a large number of privately owned public spaces (the SkyWay and some indoor plazas might qualify, but I would need to do more research), there is the plaza/park at the new Downtown East development near the new Vikings stadium. Basically, it is a small area that would add some green space to the area, but would also be largely given over to use by the Vikings, NFL, and Stadium Authority. While funded by private funds, those funds are ultimately driven by tax incentives from the city and state as part of the larger redevelopment plan. Time will tell what the ultimate park looks like, with only a few months left before completion it is hard to tell what the final state will be. It does look safe to say that it won't be as good a deal for the city as it could have been though (as is true for almost every aspect of the stadium mess).

Finally, running parks is expensive. They require maintenance and upkeep, land must be acquired, programs must be run, buildings and equipment repaired. They also don't directly generate revenue for the city as they are public, non-taxable, and generate minimal revenues (even program fees often only partially offset the costs). However, they are an amenity that draw people to a city, particularly young professionals and other potential drivers of the tax base and they can also increase property values, another important factor in determining total city revenue. But periodically they must raise additional money, either from a general fund appropriation or from a levy (special or general). This could be related to an acquisition, the need to pay off bonds, or the desire to eliminate a backlog of work. In Minneapolis, the Park Board has sought to place a levy on the ballot for voter approval to raise $300 million dollars. While it seems like a large number, when spread out over the entire population and scaled to property values, it is a relatively small number, less than $28 on a $100,000 house. All to support maintaining the quality of the system. Why not just impose the levy unilaterally? Because the Park Board lacks that authority. Despite being an independent body, it does not control city property taxes and only has one vote on the committee that does. So it is forced to ask the city council for permission to ask the voters for permission. The city council could act without the voters, but it appears that even when it comes to supporting things as popular as parks (the last levy passed easily), the council would prefer to punt the issue to the ballot, unless it can get it to go away completely. I hope it passes. It would be a shame to see the system slip further behind in maintenance and upkeep and potentially endanger the continued expansion and improvement of the system.

Farmland and Conservation

In much of the country, including here in Minnesota, farming is a major economic activity. It is also a  major source of water pollution in the form of nutrient and sediment runoff as well as pesticide contamination. While farming is necessary to feed a nation, and large scale farming is generally more efficient at producing food than small scale production (as is the case with most industrial enterprises), the way it is often undertaken in this country, and in particular the way that it is practiced in the Midwest, South, and California, is highly problematic from environmental, nutritional, and economic perspectives.

The way one usually thinks about farming might go something like this: a farmer owns (or rents) some land, looks at what it can support and what crops or products (meat, eggs, milk, etc.) are in demand in the local or regional market, and then decides what to plant or grow. However, in this country we, with a few exceptions (see New England dairy farmers for example), have a very different system that is much more similar to industrial factories than to small family farms. Many are owned or operated by large land holders or corporations, and instead of producing a variety of crops, tend to produce one or two cash crops, often the big five (corn, soy, wheat, rice, cotton). Not surprisingly, there are subsidies involved, and they often provide the biggest benefit to the "farmers" that are already the largest and most profitable. It really creates a system of perverse incentives where marginal land is put into "production" just so that it can be counted as acreage for subsidy calculation, even if it is inappropriate for planting for ecological, hydrological, soil quality, or nutrient resources reasons. Needless to say, this is often disastrous for the environment, contributes to overproduction of empty calories in our food system, and reduces biological diversity from both habitat loss and the over-use of pesticides.

There is hope, however, at least at the margins. Some organizations are working to change farming practices voluntarily. The US Department of Agriculture works with land grant universities to develop research on agricultural practices, agrinomics, and other best practices that can be shared with farmers to help them learn better, scientifically backed ways of maintaining or improving farm production. Other organizations work to provide economic support or incentives for farmers to switch from traditional "because that's the way my grandfather did it" agricultural practices, some of which are counterproductive and many of which, such as fall application of fertilizer with no cover crop, are both counterproductive (and expensive/wasteful) and environmentally harmful. Falling crop prices have also caused some farmers to take marginal land that they had pulled from the program out of production and re-enroll it in the Conservation Reserve Program, a federally funded system of payments that compensates farmers on a sliding scale for not planting on land. The more productive the land, the higher the payments from the government. This provides an incentive for farmers to set aside areas for wildlife, grasses, trees, and flowers which improves habitat (including pollinator habitat) and provides the valuable ecosystem service of runoff filtration and sediment capture before it reaches waterways. While it is not a large program, it is very successful and has a long history of inducing farmers to set aside at least some lands for non-agricultural purposes. However, unlike a conservation easement, which becomes permanent once created, the program is voluntary and lands can be removed as grain prices change and farmers see more profit to be gained from planting again.

What else can be done besides imposing conservation easements, permanently buying land, making it harder to opt out of the CRP, or providing education on best practices and hoping farmers follow it? In Minnesota, one answer has been to use the state's police power and duty to regulate/provide clean water to create a statewide standard for agricultural buffer zones around bodies of water. The idea is that within a certain distance (50 feet) of public waterways, it will be illegal to plant crops or have other agricultural surface use that is not perennial cover (hay is acceptable). This program builds on existing state restrictions on agricultural property use, but creates a more uniform and enforceable standard and program that can be administered at either the local or state level (if the county is not doing what it is required to do). While this is a more direct control of private land than the education and incentive based methods discussed above, it is also far more wide-reaching and will likely have a substantial impact on the state's water quality and riparian habitat. Many farmers were already complying with these requirements, either by enforcement or because it was not worthwhile to produce on marginal, often wet (if not wetlands) land. This program will provide a way to ensure that the rest will come up to speed as well. While the actual buffer map  has not yet been produced, the theoretical area to be covered will be quite extensive and might result in substantial improvements, especially in the heavily agricultural southwest portion of the state.

There has been one hitch, so far, in the implementation process for the standardized buffer requirement: while the 16 foot requirement for land bordering public ditches is currently under development, the process of assessing equivalent buffers for private ditches has been put on hold after some legislative hostage taking by the GOP in the state legislature. It had supported the initial creation of the program as part of a deal last spring, but is now claiming that this is beyond what was conceived and has threatened various public works projects if it is not stopped. While this is unfortunate, it might be resolved in the future with some deal making or, more likely, with the seating of a new legislature that does not include an obstructionist majority after the next election. At least the argument here is over whether the statute authorizes private ditch buffers and is not focused on the frivolous claim that the state can't regulate behavior on private land that affects public water ways. Under the federal Clean Water Act, Minnesota has a duty to ensure that its waters meet various usability, health, and safety requirements, and under its plenary police power, it has the ability to regulate conduct, including private conduct on private land, to see that its policies are followed and its interests furthered in support of the common good.

I don't know how well, the buffer zone project will work or what the ultimate effect will be (it's possible that it will be minimal if much land was already in compliance, or substantial if not). I suspect that there will be significant regional differences in impact, with heavily agricultural areas seeing the most improvement in water quality, but with some improvements seen throughout the state. I also hope, and am hopeful, that taking some areas out of production will lead to a rebound in birds and pollinator species that are currently struggling. That, however, is a bigger problem that this is only a small piece of. Increased riparian habitat will help, but food access and pesticide use will continue to present challenges. One step at a time, however. And this is a good one.

Solar Works. Even in the North.

One of my primary interests in renewable energy. I'm particularly interested in solar photovoltaic energy (the kind with the panels), at both the residential and commercial scales. Here in Minnesota, we don't really have the kind of sun exposure required for some of the other forms (like those in the California and Arizona deserts that use mirrors to superheat molten salt), so solar panels are what we have.

There are some challenges that the solar industry faces here. We are very far north. The Twin Cities are at 45 degrees north and has a fairly cloudy outlook for much of the winter. It also gets a fair amount of snow. But that is not as big an obstacle as one might think. Germany has a similar cloud problem and is situated even farther north, yet it has used a combination of feed-in tariffs, incentives, and changes in the way energy is regulated and billed. This has led to a substantial growth in the solar sector. While it still relies on lignite coal (a very dirty fuel), it has shown that the proper economic, regulatory, and social conditions can lead to great success with solar in seemingly unlikely places. If they can do it there, we can do it here too. Panels can be cleared, and much snow melts or slips off due to the mounting angle. Increased panel efficiency has also allowed for more generation even on cloudy days. Besides, we have too good of a resource to pass up.

Fortunately, Minnesota's government has been proactive in pushing solar and other renewable energy development, including a strong statutory requirement for energy utilities with generation benchmarks for renewables and a separate solar-specific generation requirement. That, combined with the extension of the federal renewable energy investment tax credit (and the credit's revision to apply to projects begun, not online, by certain dates) mean Minnesota is on track for a big push into the solar photovoltaic realm. In fact, there are already a number of major projects that are getting quite far along in the development process including plans to partially power/offset electric use by Twin Cities Light Rail system and build a large solar farm to supply Xcel Energy.

The Chisago County solar development project is an exciting project in my opinion because it demonstrates several things: that solar can be produced even in the northeastern part of the state, that it is economically viable for the utility, and that it is economically valuable to the community (property taxes and lease income for solar are much higher than the going rates for agriculture in that marginal growing part of the state). Still, not everyone is happy. Some residents that were surrounded by solar leases had their homes bought out by the developers, but others who merely bordered it, or were boxed in on the sides by different developments, have been complaining. They weren't offered buyouts and are concerned about views. I tend to agree that they won't be much affected, especially with the planting and maintenance of a tree buffer, and the arrays are not noisy, polluting, or disruptive, so physical impairment of the use and enjoyment of their land should be minimal to none. It seems to me that this is another case of NIMBY-ism, though slightly more justified than the irrational windmill haters opposed to the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts. Still, they do have some marginal affect on their property interest (in their community's nature and their potential views, they seem to discount how panels can be interesting to watch, especially tracking ones, and the potential for increased birds and insects in the soon to be non-agriculture plant growth surrounding the panels). It is also not even clear that being near a solar project will harm property values because none of the area houses have yet been offered for sale, let alone sold on open market. This would bear watching in the future as a test, but there are lots of other factors that would need to be examined as well to tease out the possible effects of the solar site.

Other anti-solar movements, posing as neighborhood concern, have appeared in Sherburne County, where residents are trying to push a setback for solar arrays to hundreds of feet, essentially rendering the project uneconomical and killing it. While it is reasonable to have larger zoning setbacks when residential and commercial/industrial uses meet, it is not rational to push it to such an extent that a non-invasive, non-harmful, non-polluting use becomes impossible (i.e. it's not like they are building a loud, noisy, dusty, polluting cement factory). I don't know what direction the county zoning board will go, but I do hope that they opt for a number that still enables development of solar projects of sufficient size to be economical for the developer and meaningful for the state's energy needs.

Finally, there is the issue of residential solar development. Some people can't put panels on their home because they rent, have an apartment, or have an unsuitable roof type or orientation. For them, the solution is to buy a share in a community solar garden. This is a Minnesota specific (so far as I can tell) solution whereby a person or entity buys a share of the power from a third party solar development that can then be applied toward his/her/its energy bill. This expands access to solar greatly, helps create a market for solar energy, and provides financing for additional development. For those who do have the financing, site suitability, and space for hosting their own solar, there are many programs and incentives for financing them including tax rebates, exemptions from property tax for the value of solar panels, and other possible incentives that vary by municipality. Financing can also often be achieved using PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) programs, where the cost of the array is added to the property tax assessment and paid off in installments at low interest over a number of years. And, to ensure that changes in the neighborhood don't impede established solar, Minnesota has created a statutory solar easement (there might be a common law one as well, but I'm not sure about Minnesota, other states definitely do) that guarantees a right to the sun for properly described panels, including the right to restrict the use of neighboring land that might impair that right.

As a fun thought experiment, I also pondered whether such a solar easement (express or implied) would be a property right subject to eminent domain. I believe it is because under a line of Supreme Court cases, while there is no longer a right to the sky infinitely, there is a right to as much of the sky as can reasonably be used by the occupant on the ground. This prevents airplanes (except low flying ones) from being trespassers, but it does create a right to build tall buildings, windmills, geothermal plants, gas flares, and other structures and developments that might require large amounts of overhead clearance. It also almost certainly would include a right to unimpeded access to the sun for an existing solar array (of any form) or solar heating element. If a neighbor built in a way that harmed it, that neighbor would be damaging your interest and you could likely enforce your easement (especially if recorded). If the government built in a similar way, it would have to compensate you, though what that compensation would ultimately consist of I couldn't begin to guess. There are so many things that could be considered (value of panels, value of the energy, value of future production, etc.) that it would be quite an interesting fight, one that would surely make it into textbooks, lecture circuits, and conferences around the country. I don't think it's happened yet, but with the amount of growth we are seeing in the solar industry, it's only a matter of time.

So, solar is a growth industry, and it's even growing here, in the seemingly unlikely northern state of Minnesota. We may not have the non-stop desert sun of Arizona and Southern California, but we do have an excellent resource and are only beginning to tap into its potential.

Yet another news roundup

More substantive posts are coming, I promise, now that work is back to a normal level.

This is an interesting development, and one I think is very promising. The federal government is the largest landowner in the nation, and the biggest consumer of energy. Within that, the Department of Defense is by far the biggest, representing 80 percent of all federal energy use and 1 percent of the entire nation's. It has also made clear its desire to move in a more sustainable direction for both economic and security reasons. So it is very promising that they are seriously discussing developing large scale solar installations on DoD lands, many of which are already "disturbed" and therefor unlikely to harbor endangered or threatened wildlife. Whether used to satisfy base needs or sold to the grid (which would require very little new infrastructure as bases already well connected), it would be an excellent way to scale up the idea of the parking lot "solar grove" that has been proposed by other would-be renewables developers. Also, as a massive landowner and supplier/purchaser and research funder, the DoD would be able to leverage a huge gain in solar efficiency and productivity with comparatively small (when looking at private R&D) investment.

Farms (and logging/silviculture) have long been a source of water pollution that is difficult to regulate under the Clean Water Act. CAFOs (feedlots) are generally considered point sources, but the the others generally are not subject to the same permitting and data requirements and so relatively little is known about specific contributions and even less is often done to reduce agricultural runoff, a serious problem that causes huge dead zones at the mouths of major rivers worldwide. While it is only a tentative first step, and doesn't go very far, it is good to see that Minnesota is making a small effort to induce farmers to clean up and reduce their runoff voluntarily. Count me as a skeptic. I hope that it works, I really do, and that it proves to be a wildly successful program that can be a model for other states, but I strongly believe that it will generally be a disappointment for a few reasons. First, the funding is far too low to have any major impact. Second, the funding is uncertain going forward; there really isn't any long-term commitment to keeping this program running. Third, enforcement will be difficult without either more staff to do compliance testing or much better data collection with stiff penalties on those trying to game the system. Good for Minnesota for making a small effort, but it has the ability to do so much more given its position as a 100% headwaters state.

Are you sick of motherfucking snakes in the motherfucking Everglades? (I apologize for that.) If so, you will be happy to learn that the Fish and Wildlife Service is officially listing four species of constrictors as "injurious" and prohibiting their import, export, or transport and/or sale across state lines. While it won't result in the pythons in the Everglades magically dying (though recent cold weather in Florida is certainly a helpful occurrence) it will create a ban with some serious enforcement teeth. From the moment the regulations become active, it will be a crime under the Lacey Act to buy, sell, bring into the US, or transport across a state boundary, any of the four species listed (Burmese python, northern and southern African python, and yellow anaconda). That in and of itself is a positive development. We haven't gotten rid of the invaders yet but we are have now taken real, enforceable steps to stop making the problem worse.