14 ARRESTED, 80 PANELS ARE SEIZED
Fourteen foreign nationals — seven from Venezuela and seven from Communist China — are in U. S. custody after a pre-dawn federal raid Tuesday in Nottoway County at what’s being called an illegal “black market” solar farm.
The Courier-Record was met with cries of “Jìn zhi pai zhào!” as it spoke with agents near the site, the location of which we have been asked to not yet disclose. That expression is said to be Chinese for “No photos!” or “No cameras!” We also agreed to the feds’ request to not publish photos of suspects until next week.
The federal operation, which included no local officers, occurred shortly before sunrise early Tuesday morning (March 31st) in a remote area of the county. The Courier-Record at presstime spoke with several local police who said they had no advance knowledge of the operation. Three of the four with whom we spoke said they learned of the raid only after being contacted by this newspaper.
The exact location of the operation is not being published because the property owner has not yet been located, said police. There were some reports that she has fled the country, while others insist she is only on a cruise with her new husband and is returning this week.
Nearby residents for several weeks had reported hearing and seeing truck traffic on their roads late at night but couldn’t tell exactly where those vehicles were going. “They would suddenly cut-off their lights and disappear into the night,” agent P. V. Watts of the Dept. of Interior told the Courier-Record.
According to Agent Watts, 180 solar panels of a planned 5,000-panel farm already had been installed in a 100-acre field surrounded by mature pines and hardwoods. “They were only 50 feet from the road but still impossible to be seen,” Watts told the Courier-Record, due to vegetative buffers.
The secret solar farm sits in close proximity to a transmission line in southwestern Nottoway County. The alleged black market panel dealers went to great lengths to conceal their location. There’s no lane or marked entrance at the site, but in areas near the pavement, there’s enough distance between trees for trucks to maneuver and reach the solar site.
Among several Courier-Record questions that remain unanswered at presstime include, how would one benefit economically from such an illicit operation?
One possible answer is that operators wouldn’t have to pay a local government Siting Agreement fee or go through the public hearing process. Because the panels were so well-screened, they also would have avoided being taxed by the County until perhaps the next appraisal — “but that would require the assessor to really earn his keep and step out of his vehicle,” Agent Watts said.
Also, the Courier-Record asked, if the black market solar farm had become operational, who would get paid for the electricity produced and how?
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