Public outrage has forced the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to “pause” plans to clear cut thousands of acres of state forest for solar development, though a 420-acre lease near Gaylord is moving ahead.

“We just pushed the pause button to any other further considerations until we … bring this one to some sort of conclusion,” Scott Whitcomb, the DNR’s public lands director, told a Forest Management Advisory Committee on Wednesday.

Whitcomb told the advisory committee the DNR is extending a 15-day public comment period for the 420-acre solar lease in Hayes Township to nearly three months following fierce public backlash. In the meantime, DNR officials plan to create siting guidance for utility-scale renewable energy on state forests, MLive reports.

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“While we accept comment on that potential (Hayes Township) project, we are having internal discussion regarding our process for siting solar,” DNR spokesman Ed Golder told the news site.

“Given the fact that there’s so much public concern, we want to get this right,” Whitcomb said Wednesday. “We don’t want to go forward with something that’s going to be against the wishes of the community.”

An MLive investigation into the Hayes Township solar lease sparked immediate outrage from the public and lawmakers, who were unaware of the effort to clear cut state forest to make way for solar developers.

The Hayes Township lease is part of a broader plan to develop solar farms on about 4,000 acres of state forest that’s aimed at bolstering Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s goal of forcing 100% “clean energy” by 2040, while boosting revenues for the DNR.

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The proposed lease, initially published as a public notice with no community input, prompted calls from lawmakers to terminate DNR officials involved in the decision and a promise to probe the department’s efforts to install solar on state forests.

“Projects like this highlight the blatant hypocrisy within the DNR. You’re completely willing to jump into bed with the solar industry and the foreign powers controlling their purse strings but deny other smaller land-lease proposals without a second thought,” 50 state lawmakers wrote in a letter to DNR Director Scott Bowen. “You have a responsibility to be good stewards of public land – replacing forests with solar panels does not live up to that standard.”

The plan was also blasted by environmental and conservation groups, while internal DNR emails obtained by MLive revealed opposition within the department, as well.

Much of the concern centered on the folly of clear-cutting carbon-sequestering forest, and impacts to wildlife.

“The more research I do on deforestation for the sake of solar, especially as you start to scale that up, and for thousands of acres, that seems really short sighted,” Lisha Ramsdell, associate director for Huron Pines, a Gaylord-based conservation group, told MLive.

“Losing the trees is one thing, but you’re losing that biodiversity. You’re losing the habitat connectivity as well,” Ramsdell said. “And as you start to scale these up to into the thousands of acres, there’s potential compromise to our water resources, groundwater recharge areas. Our forest and our soil provide that filter system for our groundwater. And so those are all really important factors to be considered as well.”

“This proposal to cut down a living forest that is sequestering carbon and replace it with solar arrays just doesn’t track very well with the way we manage for sustainability,” said Larry Leefers, retired professor of forestry at Michigan State University.

Documents obtained by MLive show Mike Smalligan, the DNR’s forest stewardship coordinator, was among DNR staff who attempted to dissuade superiors on the solar plan.

“Clean energy is not green energy if it starts with deforestation,” read a presentation Smalligan prepared on “Michigan’s Forests and Climate Change.”

The criticism continued on Wednesday, when members of the DNR’s advisory committee offered their perspective on the proposal.

“Well, if you’re looking for personal feelings, I’d say, ‘Hell no, hell no, this is not what we want to do,’” Bill Botti, a retired state timber manager with Michigan Forest Association, said at the meeting.

Others suggested the DNR frame the debate about solar on state forests with a broader perspective, comparing the 420-acre Hayes Township lease to the 48,000 acres in the next annual timber harvest, MLive reports.

“It seems like the state is testing the waters, right? It’s a good, small start to see what’s going to happen and how beneficial it is,” said James Simino, forest supervisor for the Huron-Manistee National Forest. “And I think that’s one way you can talk about it too, is that from a percentage standpoint, (it’s) such a small percentage of what landscape you manage.”

While the advisory committee adjourned without making any formal recommendations to the DNR about the solar leases, others are demanding more transparency.

Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the state’s largest conservation organization, wants the DNR to make public the metrics used to define “marginal lands” it intends to clear cut for solar.

“Which we understand is very subjective,” MUCC policy and government affairs manager Justin Tomei told MLive.

MUCC is also urging the DNR to publicly list all state land parcels it has ruled out or is considering as a possibility for solar development, Tomei said.

The DNR’s Office of Public Lands is accepting public comment on the Hayes Township solar lease at [email protected].