While the proposed location for a renewable energy technology facility has moved, Poinciana area residents continue to show their opposition to the arrival of the facility’s anticipated hydrogen and lithium ion battery manufacturing units, and their potential for environmental-harming accidents.
A number of them came out to Monday’s monthly County Commission meeting set aside for items not on a regular meeting’s agenda.
It’s been a months-long fight for groups like No Factory Zone on Toho, a group of residents that has shown its opposition to Osceola County’s proposed plan to sell 63 acres of land to the company so it could build Green Garden Village — seven energy-producing factories. The land, just west of Lake Tohopekaliga, has been the proposed site for the Mac Overstreet regional park, something the residents have also been fighting for.
“When is what you’ve promised going to happen,” resident Gerald Frawley said at Monday’s meeting about the park.
They’ve held signs along Pleasant Hill Road — and attended meetings like Monday’s — and they are keeping up the fight even though the plan now moves the potential site a few miles to the north.
Panacea Global Energy, the U.S. entity of CMG Clean Tech, is a bidder on land adjacent to the Poinciana SunRail Station along Poinciana Boulevard north of Orange Blossom Trail. That land is near where the county has plans for a mixed-use development of affordable housing and commercial development; existing houses are just north of it.
“Innocent lives are still at risk,” said Mark Rambis, referring to the facility’s anticipated hydrogen and lithium ion battery manufacturing units, and their potential for environmental- harming accidents. “The players have moved.”
Debbie Rambis, who has filed to run for district 3 commissioner in 2024, said that while the new location is in a different district, she’s still going to fight for the safety of all county residents.
“It’s still not right. The company has listened to us (regarding the change in venue), but I don’t know if the county is.”
Back in April, residents vehemently commented on the potential dangers of hydrogen and lithium ion manufacturing on the environment, such as Lake Toho and nearby homes and schools. The concerns were about lightning storms, acts of terrorism, workplace accidents, and adding 1,200 cars to Pleasant Hill Road, a thoroughfare seen as already overly-congested.
While the three of five county commissioners did not comment on what the residents shared at Monday’s meeting, county officials say an agreement with Panacea on the SunRail-adjacent parcel will come to commissioners at a future board meeting for their approval, paving the way for some 1,200 new green technology jobs to come to Osceola County with an average salary of $75,000.
