STOP SHAFTSBURY SOLAR

ecocide : destruction of the natural environment by deliberate human action.

“their crime is nothing less than attempted ecocide”

Join Us to Protect Our Neighbors and Town from a Connecticut Commodities Trading Company Building One of the Largest Industrial Solar Fields in Vermont Across 87-Football-Fields-Worth of Prime Agricultural Land in Shaftsbury

your town’s Food security, farmland, wildlife, home values, views, roads, businesses, water sheds and more are all threatened for the sake of out-of-state power & profits

“Solar PV as ethical green products are not subject to enough critical examination. Consumers, the public, and even environmentally conscious minds may produce a commodity fetish with photovoltaics that mask socioeconomic relations, crowning them with a green halo.” Dustin Mulvaney

PV area required for US power =10,000 sq miles. Degraded area suitable for PV (brown fields, parking lots, rooftops etc) = 300,000 sq miles

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On December 20, 2022, the Town of Shaftsbury, Vermont received notice from a commodities trading company from Stamford, Connecticut known as Freepoint Commodities LLC (working as Freepoint Solar LLC working as VT Real Estate Holdings 1 LLC working as Shaftsbury Solar LLC) that they intend to build one of Vermont’s largest industrial solar power plants across 187 acres of our town’s prime agricultural land and rolling hilltops.

This industrial solar development will blanket our beloved hillsides with 87 football-fields-worth of solar panels—degrading land, disrupting wildlife, ruining views, polluting our watershed, widening roads, damaging home values, harming tourism, damaging local businesses, and more. Freepoint Commodities LLC plans to build new roads, substations, and powerlines.

This project will provide Shaftsbury with no power, no profits, and no jobs.

We stand strongly opposed this proposal and are committed to fighting this project respectfully—but every single step of the way. We will not compromise when it comes to the well-being of our neighbors, the natural resources of our town, and our right to protect our homes.

We hope you will join our fight.

Stay tuned to this page for more resources.

“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” (Wendell Berry)

Freepoint Petition Documents

Case #23-1447-PET

  1. Contextual Site Plan
  2. Site Plan Details
  3. Site Xsections
  4. Equipment Specs
  5. Prime Ag Soils
  6. Decomissioning Plan
  7. Sound Assesment
  8. Substation Plans
  9. Natural Resources Assesment
  10. Natural Communities Map
  11. Pollinator Plan
  12. Historic Resources Assesment
  13. Aesthetic & Orderly Dev Analysis
  14. Need & Economic Benifits

Important Documents

Important Links

Important Dates

  • Shaftsbury Select Board Meeting – Monday, 1/16/23 – 6:30pm
  • Stop Shaftsbury Solar Meeting – Tuesday, 1/17/23 – 12:30pm – contact us for location
  • Shaftsbury Development Review Board Meeting – Wednesday, 1/18/23 – 5:45pm
  • Shaftsbury Planning Commission – Tuesday, 1/24/23 – 6pm
  • Special Select Board Meeting – Monday, 1/30/23 – 6pm – Agenda
  • Vermont Public Utility Commission Public Comment – 2/3/23
  • Shaftsbury Planning Commission Special Meeting on Solar Project – Wednesday, 2/8/23 – 6pm – Shaftsbury Elementary School

News Coverage