  |
|
 |
|
|
|
'Evening News' Showcases Green Lunacy: Trees Violate Solar Law Jeff Poor It’s an epic debate for the environmentally conscious – the tree versus the solar panel. Which does more for the environment? The debate found a battleground in California, and the April 7 “CBS Evening News” highlighted the legal conflict between environmentalist neighbors – one who prefers shade trees and the other who prefers solar panels. “Richard Treanor lives across the fence, drives a hybrid car,” CBS correspondent Ben Tracy said. “Ten years ago he planted these redwoods to provide privacy. Now they had his neighbor seeing red.”
“He called us over to the fence one day and said ‘I am going to be installing solar panels and therefore you have to take your trees down,’” Treanor explained. Treanor ended up having to remove his trees thanks to an obscure California law. “As it turns out, the law was on the side of the sun,” said Tracy. “The California Solar Shade Act requires homeowners to keep their trees from shading more than 10 percent of their neighbor’s solar panels between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. The experts determined that 15 percent of Mark’s solar panels were being shaded by those trees. That meant the trees were in violation and the neighbors that owned them – criminals.”
|
||||
