A new 650-megawatt solar energy facility will be built in Navajo County. The Cygnus Solar Project is expected to begin construction in 2027 and is estimated to generate $20 million for neighboring communities.
This decision comes after a unanimous vote by the Navajo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. County Manager Bryan Layton said the topography of the region provides the perfect conditions and resources for the project.
“Navajo County's a wonderful place. It has very abundant wind and solar resources. There's existing transmission line infrastructure in place.” Layton said. “The utilities here in the state have expressed an interest for these projects to come in. We'll see today that there's landowners that are willing to participate with those developments.”
Sitting just above the town of Snowflake, the project is expected to bring 400 new construction jobs to the area. Layton said the public impact was a major consideration by board supervisors.
“What we heard from the public was a lot about the visual impact, where these are located, use of previously disturbed, or low habitat or low vegetation land,” Layton said. “Water conservation was very important that we heard from the public and that these projects should provide a level of community benefit.”
According to the county manager, the project will operate its own emergency services and employ environmental protection measures to preserve wildlife in the surrounding areas.
-
The federal government is providing $3 million to support a new mineral processing plant at the University of Arizona. The facility will be connected to an underground mine near the town of Sahuarita. -
A pair of education groups are proposing a ballot initiative to rein in Arizona's universal school voucher program — which has ballooned to a nearly billion-dollar-a-year expense since first approved in 2022. -
The city of Phoenix is trying to tackle its stray shopping cart problem with a new ordinance aimed at retailers. The Show wanted to know: What would the Cart Narc have to say about this? -
Thursday's verdict, reached in Arizona, “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber,” said Sarah London, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff — who said the company has put the "focus on profit over passenger safety.” -
Phoenix has a reputation, fair or not, of a boom town where old buildings often get demolished. Hit songs were recorded in midtown decades ago. In the 1960s, that success led to construction of what was once the top studio between Dallas and LA.
