PENDLETON — Eastern Oregon might not bear the heat of the state’s new rules curtailing solar projects on high-value farmland.

The Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission in late May approved rules to restrict commercial solar facilities on high-value farmland statewide. The short version, according to the LCDC: “The best of the best soils would no longer be available for solar development through a simple conditional use process.”

Developers have proposed 53 projects in exclusive farm use zones in central and eastern Oregon, the LCDC reported, which would occupy more than 17,000 acres. In Eastern Oregon, less than 5 percent of the proposals would go on high-value farmland.

Umatilla County planning director Bob Waldher said the county has plenty of Class 1 or Class 2 soil, the stuff that qualifies for high-quality farmland, with large swaths around Athena and the Milton-Freewater area. But, he said, solar development does not seem much of an issue in the county.

“We don’t have an application currently that we’re reviewing,” he said.

Morrow County also might not have to worry much about the new rule. County planning director Carla McLane said the county has little of that rich soil.

“To get to that in Morrow County, you have to have lots of stars align,” she said, primarily due to a lack of water. But the ruling still raises concerns for her.

“It felt like a really rushed process,” she said.

McLane said she served on the LCDC Rules Advisory Committee, and the development commissioner and staff wanted to get the ruling in the books before the legislative session. That push, she said, ignored the bigger picture.

Oregon’s list for uses on farm land runs to 30 pages, she said, with exemptions for everything from bed and breakfasts to music concerts, and this rule focuses on one use. Should the question be, she said, whether there are too many solar projects on farm land or too many cumulative impacts on farm land?

McLane also said the new rules are about protecting prime farm land in the Willamette Valley, but Land Conservation and Development “applied a broad brush to the entire state.”

Still, she said, the rules contain “one golden nugget” — they allow counties to create a program for solar facilities if the project proposes a dual use. Counties might have to go through the effort of making the program, McLane said, but it could be beneficial as long as it was put to use and not just taking up space on the shelf.

Waldher also said the dual use was a good move. Agriculture activities such as beekeeping or cattle grazing, he said, could work just fine under solar panels.