Oregon City and West Linn support ODOT’s solar highway project, just not in their area.
The idea of the solar highway project – which ODOT calls “the largest solar highway project in the world” – has the support of Oregon City and West Linn residents. They just wish it was being built elsewhere.
Residents almost universally said they were in support of solar power generation; they just didn’t like the location of the project. Some wonder why it can’t be located in a more remote space like eastern Oregon, where there are fewer people and more sunny days.
According to Lynn Frank of of Salem-based Five Stars International, a company hired to help with the Oregon solar highway initiative, there are a few factors that make the West Linn site ideal for the project. For starters, ODOT already owns the land, and the state constitution forbids them from purchasing new land for anything but building, repairing and maintaining highway projects. At the same time, Governor Kulongoski has asked that all state agencies convert to renewable energy.
Read the full story at the Portland Tribune.
