Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
By the mid-1980s, interest in solar energy had waned in the United States
and California's SSCA had begun to gather dust. Courts cited its provisions
only a small handful of times during its irst quarter century on the topics. 32
However, when interest in solar energy development finally re-blossomed in
the early 2000s, the statute's aggressive public nuisance provisions quickly
began to take on relevance again. 33
A neighbor dispute arising in 2008 brought national attention to the
SSCA. Richard Treanor and his wife, Carolynn Bissett, owned a home
in a suburban neighborhood in Sunnyvale, California. The couple was
undeniably sustainability-minded: they owned a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle
and took great pride in their backyard trees. 34 Treanor and Bissett had
planted several redwood trees in their yard in the late 1990s, which Bissett
said she hoped “to grow old with.” 35 Unfortunately, the trees soon become
the focal point of a bitter controversy when the couple's neighbor, Mark
Vargas, decided to install solar panels on a trellis over the hot tub behind
his home.
The parties to this dispute have given inconsistent accounts of what
happened next. According to one newspaper article, Vargas claims that he
politely asked Treanor and Bissett to “remove the trees and offered to pay
for removal and replacement.” 36 In contrast, Treanor and Bissett say that
Vargas “brusquely” informed them of the law and told them that they had
to cut back their trees. 37 Regardless, an ugly green-versus-green conflict
between trees and solar panels was born. Treanor and Bissett refused to
prune their trees, so the Santa Clara County District Attorney eventually
filed a criminal public nuisance claim against the couple. 38
After seven years of battling the issue before city officials and eventually
in the courts, Treanor and Bissett were ultimately convicted of one count of
a public nuisance under the SSCA for their refusal to trim their trees. Having
already spent $37,000 in legal fees, this environmentalist couple painfully
watched one of their trees get cut back to comply with the statute. 39 A
barrage of national media covered the story, stirring lively debate over the
California law behind it all. 40 Similar disputes had already begun popping
up elsewhere in the state. 41
Less than one year after the convictions of Treanor and Bissett, California's
legislature amended the SSCA to remove those portions of the statute that
had drawn the most criticism during the highly publicized case. 42 Under
the statute's amended version, landowners can no longer be criminally
convicted for public nuisance for shading a neighbor's solar energy system.
Solar energy system owners now must bring civil suits against neighbors for
shading under a private nuisance theory. 43 The state legislature's amend-
ments also added exemptions for trees planted before a plaintiff's solar
energy system was first installed. 44
Even after the amendments, the SSCA's provisions are arguably an unfair
means of governing solar access conflicts. The statute is clearly a well-
intended policy with a noble goal of promoting solar energy, but it still
 
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