Stop Coyote

Stop Coyote - Save Thousands of Trees

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The proposed Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch project would be located in eastern Sacramento County between Prairie City SVRA and the Deer Creek Hills Preserve. It proposes to remove 1,357 acres of native habitat for the installation of a large solar farm. It will remove over 3,500 oak trees and fragment and disturb vernal pool and grassland habitats. Impacts to habitat and species are provided in more detail below under Project Impacts.

Please let the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors know that this is the wrong location for solar development! Action needed prior to November 18, 2025.

Call, write, or visit in person to let your supervisor know that you are opposed to this project. The district map is available here, or search by address here.

Also, please join us at the November 18th, 2025 Board of Supervisors meeting to voice your opposition to this project. Even if you are not comfortable speaking, it is important that we pack the room with opposition to this development! Meetings are held at 700 H Street, Suite 1450, beginning at 9:30 AM. Please visit the Board of Supervisors Meetings page for more information, an agenda will be posted on this page ahead of the meeting.

PROJECT IMPACTS

The Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch proposes to remove nearly 3,500 trees and develop 1,357 acres of relatively undisturbed habitat across 2,704 acres of the Barton Ranch Property south of Hwy 50 along Scott Road. Most of these trees would be mature blue oaks, including 1,762 heritage trees (16-inch diameter at breast height (DBH) or greater), and nearly 200 blue oaks with a diameter of three feet or greater. The largest individual trees proposed for removal in the arborists report are a 67-inch blue oak, a 75-inch valley oak, and an 81-inch cottonwood*. The undeveloped areas of the property would be fragmented by the swaths of fenced solar development, separating them from the other undeveloped areas and surrounding habitat. The project is bordered on the south by the Deer Creek Hills Nature Preserve, on the north by Prairie City SVRA (which includes hiking trails and preserved vernal pool habitat), and by Teichert mitigation lands. This project would diminish the quality of and connectivity to these habitats. The majority of the undeveloped land would be narrower than the minimum width for a connectivity corridor recommended by the California Department of Fish and Game, including pinch points much narrower than recommended.

Oak woodland habitats support some of the greatest biodiversity in our state, as many as 300 species of insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Fairy shrimp can be found in vernal pools throughout the grassland habitats intermixed with oak woodlands! This property is home to habitat for sensitive species including western spadefoot, western pond turtle, nesting colonies of tricolored blackbird (state threatened), golden eagle, burrowing owl (state candidate), Swainson’s hawk (state threatened), white-tailed kite, bald eagle (state endangered), loggerhead shrike, Crotch’s bumble bee (state candidate), vernal pool fairy shrimp (federally threatened), valley elderberry longhorn beetle (federally endangered), ringtail (state fully protected), and American badger (state species of special concern). Many of these have been observed on the project site.

This project would impact 25% of known occurrences of spiked western rosin weed (Calycadenia spicata, 1B.3) listed in the California Natural Diversity Database and would be mitigated through the salvage and re-dispersal of topsoil, with no guidelines for the timing or method of salvage, or guidelines for the storage of topsoil. Simply redistributing salvaged soil is unlikely to be effective without explicit protocols and enforceable success standards. Impacts to valley brodiaea (Brodiaea rosea ssp. vallicola, 4.2), which is present within the solar development area, are not disclosed. Populations of the vernal pool associated species pincushion navarretia (Navarretia myersii ssp. myersii, 1B.1) and Ahart’s dwarf rush (Juncus leiospermus var. ahartii, 1B.2) are present immediately adjacent to the development area. No monitoring or mitigation measures for valley brodiaea, pincushion navarretia, or Ahart’s dwarf rush are included in the plan.

The view shed from the Prairie City SVRA to the south would no longer be of California’s iconic rolling hills, but of nearly 500,000 solar panels immediately adjacent to the State Park’s boundary. The electrical lines connecting the solar development to the distribution lines would run through the south end of the park, and the massive switchyard would be located within the park. Glare from the panels would reflect on the kids track. This development would diminish the beauty of the park for hikers, cyclists, and users of the 4×4, motocross, side-by-side, and other OHV trails and courses in the park, all without proper consultation with the OHMVR Commission and OHV interest groups during project development. This project also threatens the work put into the parks Wildlife Habitat Protection Plan to protect resources in and adjacent to the State Park.

This project is not consistent with the Sacramento County General Plan. The placement of energy production and distribution facilities or the siting of large-scale renewable energy development projects are not consistent with the Public Facilities Elements. The mitigation measures for the loss of oaks and other native trees are not consistent with the Conservation Elements.

On October 6th, the Sacramento County Planning Commission voted unanimously (4-0) to recommend the approval of the Coyote Creek Agrivoltaic Ranch Project and the associated Final EIR. We are anticipating that the Board of Supervisors will hear this item during the November 18th meeting.

Check out the video produced by Defenders of Wildlife about the site and impacts associated with the project to see what could be lost!**

* note that the FEIR does not disclose which trees proposed for removal in the DEIR would be within the reduced footprint project proposed in the preface to the FIER, and the number of heritage trees and the sizes of trees proposed for removal in the reduced footprint remains unknown. Without these details there is a distinct possibility that the number of heritage trees and the trees included in this messaging are still proposed for removal.

** note that this video is based on the information presented in the DEIR and does not account for the reduced footprint proposed in the preface to the FIER

GET INVOLVED

Get updates from local activists that are keeping tabs on this project: 

Check out local media coverage:

Sacramento solar site claimed as ‘bare ground,’ yet thousands of trees at risk, The Sacramento Bee