By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has signed into law a bill establishing a state-administered wind and solar reclamation bonding program.
Justice signed Senate Bill 492 into law Monday, approving the final version of the legislation that relaxed some of the bonding requirements included in the original version.
The bill was amended in the House of Delegates to eliminate the original bill’s minimum bond value of $150,000 for wind and solar facilities and increase the minimum capacity for facilities to be subject to the bill from 0.5 megawatts to 1 megawatt.
The bill was also amended to create an exemption not in the original bill for facilities already legally bound by a decommissioning agreement or granted a siting certificate by the state Public Service Commission.
Discarding the original $150,000 minimum bond, the amendment requires the state Department of Environmental Protection to determine bond amounts for wind and solar generation facilities based on the total disturbed acreage of land upon which the facilities operate, minus the salvage value, with the required bond amount not exceeding the total future of decommissioning cost, minus the salvage value…