A Southwest Georgia couple was awarded $135 million last week by a federal jury for damages caused by sediment pollution that spilled onto their property from a massive solar electricity project built next door.
The jury found Silicon Ranch, a Nashville-based solar power developer, and its contractor, Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives, Inc. (IEA), were negligent and acted with “specific intent to cause harm” in constructing the 100-megawatt solar facility in Stewart County, just south of Columbus.
The project, known as the Lumpkin Solar Facility, was installed in 2021 through a partnership between Silicon Ranch and Walton Electric Membership Corp. It provides electricity to a Newton County data center owned by Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
Credit: Chase Gibson
Credit: Chase Gibson
The plaintiffs in the case, Stewart County residents Shaun and Amie Harris, live on a 1,630-acre property located downstream from the solar arrays. Their property, which includes a 21-acre lake, is managed as a wildlife and fishing refuge.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants cleared vegetation and mass-graded nearly 1,000 acres of land uphill from the Harrises without installing adequate erosion controls around the project.
“The result was what one would expect — When it rained, pollution poured downhill and downstream onto the neighbors’ property, inundating wetlands with silt and sediment, and turning a 21-acre trophy fishing lake into a mud hole,” Jim Butler, the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, said in a news release.
In an order issued after the verdict, U.S. District Court Judge Clay D. Land of the Middle District of Georgia wrote that the companies “operated and maintained a nuisance at the Lumpkin Solar Facility that caused sedimentation to pollute Plaintiffs’ wetlands, streams, and lake.” Judge Land added that the “nuisance has continued for approximately two years unabated.”
Photos introduced as evidence in the case show fishermen and women pulling large bass from the lake’s clear waters prior to 2021. But images captured after construction began on the solar project show the lake stained bright red from sediment runoff.
Credit: Scott Badcock
Credit: Scott Badcock
The jury awarded compensatory damages of $10.5 million, plus punitive awards of $125 million against Silicon Ranch, IEA and its subsidiary, IEA Constructors, LLC. The jury assigned $25 million in punitive damages to Silicon Ranch, and $50 million each to IEA and IEA Constructors. The engineering firm Westwood Professional Services Inc., which created the project’s erosion and sedimentation control plan, was cleared of liability.
In a statement, Silicon Ranch said it relied on IEA “to carry out this scope of work in compliance with applicable law and in keeping with industry best management practices, as specified by the appropriate regulatory bodies in the state of Georgia.”
Silicon Ranch added that it regrets “the unintentional damage to our neighbor’s property,” but said it plans to appeal because it “does not believe the verdict in this trial is supported by the facts in this case.”
In a statement, an IEA spokesperson said, “These are important legal issues that we will address with the court at the proper time, and we look forward to the opportunity to do so.”
Earlier this week, Land issued an order stating that despite the significant damages awarded by the jury, the pollution problems from the solar project continue.
To comply with the judge’s order, the plaintiffs shared a draft remediation plan with the defendants on Friday. Silicon Ranch and IEA will have a chance to respond to the proposal and the judge has signaled that he will issue an injunction outlining their clean-up requirements in the coming weeks.
