Fighting 'Solar Farm' Installation

[51allis]

to the OP, your situation makes a person ponder a bit. Everyday it seems our rights are encroached upon with little recourse. From EV push, war on oil, banning of gas stoves etc. the list goes on and on. I have Amish neighbors that use no electricity, to me thats the ultimate green but few can handle the lifestyle (not considering the religious aspect of it, just their way of life etc.). If you are going to go green and be an earth steward, there is nothing that comes close to how the Amish do what they do. AGAIN not considering religion part of it, but candles, canning, gardening, building, farming, wood cook stove, wood heat stoves etc., they obviously utilize the "green" to a enormous extent and many have been doing the same thing for over 100 years. Sometimes technology can be more trouble than its worth and we as a society are quickly seeing the effects of this.

 

[mx842]

We have that problem here in Va. too. they tried to put in 200 ac of them down the street from us. Then a group got together to fight it and won but it took money to do it. They sent out mailers to every home in the area and asked for donations to help with the cost of fighting the project. Everybody I know of donated and in the end it paid off. It takes loud voices and money to fight city hall. We were not so lucky on on the hundred ac track where a major battle of the Civil War was faught on. I don't know where the Civil War ptoperties people were on that one. They sneaked that one in without anyone knowing about it until it was to late.
Here the owners don't actually sell the property they lease it to the investment company company that''s putting them in normally for like 30 year lease then they pull out. Of course by then the greeny weenie bunch will have come up with some other gimmic to waste our money on.

 

[walhondingMF]

I"VE GOT IT!

Maybe, we're all looking at this all wrong. Maybe instead of figuring out how to make more energy, we should be figuring out how to need less of it...

But needing less of something is not good for capitalism and the economy...

 

[terryu]

Some people have got together in one of our communities and are planning on installing a huge multi-acre solar farm on property adjacent to my daughter's and sister-in-law's property. They will be surrounded to the north and south of their properties and across the road. Their property value will go to nearly nothing.

Has anybody fought the installation of one of these?

Any ideas?

RSKY

Check with your municipality as to what the land is zoned for. If it’s zoned agriculture they may need to have a public hearing to try re-zone. Also has anyone made a plan for reclamation of these panels, they have at best a 30 year life expectancy.

 

[Flogger]

I feel sorry for your daughter. We have had several large scale solar projects in our area the last couple of years, they are installed on good agriculture lands.
I have several very mixed feelings on this type of project. I believe that they should be installed on marginal ground, pasture , brush lots and such not on good arable ground.
Also the appearance of these things is not the nicest view in the world.
Then we have the other side;
it is their property, it is theirs to do with as they see fit, they are the ones paying the taxes on that property, they are trying to make some money off their property.
It is private property what right does someone have to tell property owners what to do with their private property.

Besides look at the bright side it could be a 5000 head hog farm, or 20,000 unit poultry setup.

Doesn't ones rights begin to fade as they encroach into others. Damage to property values is no different than physical damage.

 

[bhooper]

Last year, Facebook corp (Meta, whatever) installed solar panels on probably hundreds of acres south of metro Atlanta in a rural county. The problem was cutting and spraying the grass below and around the panels would be a huge undertaking. So they, along with some other agency solved the problem by raising the panels high enough to let sheep graze under them. It seems to work. I think it doubled the sheep population in Ga. and produces grass fed meat. Still have to look at ugly panels but maybe it helped with property value and is producing food and electricity.

 

[walhondingMF]

We have that problem here in Va. too. they tried to put in 200 ac of them down the street from us. Then a group got together to fight it and won but it took money to do it. They sent out mailers to every home in the area and asked for donations to help with the cost of fighting the project. Everybody I know of donated and in the end it paid off. It takes loud voices and money to fight city hall. We were not so lucky on on the hundred ac track where a major battle of the Civil War was faught on. I don't know where the Civil War ptoperties people were on that one. They sneaked that one in without anyone knowing about it until it was to late.
Here the owners don't actually sell the property they lease it to the investment company company that''s putting them in normally for like 30 year lease then they pull out. Of course by then the greeny weenie bunch will have come up with some other gimmic to waste our money on.

The situation you describe is one that has been happening in our country for many, many years. It seems though, that it is a bit hypocritical to JUST blame new solar and wind facilities for this encroachment. They're just the 2 most recent added to the list. The same criticisms need to be applied equally...

My best friend's father loves his 75 acres in Smithfield, OH more than anything on Earth. Bought it with hard earned money working in a steel mill. NG pipeline company came in a few years ago when the NG boom started and offered them, along with their neighbors, a decent amount of money to run a pipeline through their property. He was the only one that said no. Loves his woods more than money. Cost him thousands in legal fees, much more than it cost the pipeline company to just run it around his property.

My in-laws have lived in the same house for 30 years. Always an old farm house and fields across the road from them. A guy who made a bunch of money on land leasing bought the farm across from them and built a large truck garage. It is leased from him by a fracking water hauling company. In the summer, they can no longer sit on their front porch because of all the dust from the trucks on the gravel drive, which is every 15 minutes. Multiple members of the family have called and filled complaints, along with my "very assertive" brother in law (who works in oil and gas) going over there. They simply reply that its just not cost effective for them to put water or tar down or they claim its the property owner's responsibility. Local ordinance enforcement is either A. overwhelmed or B. won't go after any part of the NG industry.

It's not the type of energy production, or even the actions of the energy production, it's the people responsible for the production...

 

[GrumpyL5030]

Some people have got together in one of our communities and are planning on installing a huge multi-acre solar farm on property adjacent to my daughter's and sister-in-law's property. They will be surrounded to the north and south of their properties and across the road. Their property value will go to nearly nothing.

Has anybody fought the installation of one of these?

Any ideas?

RSKY

Yup. Almost sounds like you live In our town here in northern NY. Same story here. Some want it, most of us don't, as at least not where they want it. Solar energy is a great concept, but lately it's gone overboard with promoting it. It uses up good farmland we desperately need. Where I live, it's frequently 5.5 - 6 months of winter. Not a lot of sun making it through the clouds from November to May. I think the biggest beneficiary may be the folks selling solar farms. The losers might end up being whoever owns the property when the panels go dead and are forgotten. I don't think there's a plan for disposal of these panels, similar to spent nuclear fuel. It's not gonna be pretty in +/- 30 years when a homeowner gets stuck with a bunch of abandoned, worthless junk out in their fields and ends up stuck with the responsibility of restoring the property to it's original state. It's getting pushed too aggressively right now due to a few folks making a lot of $$$ from it. Solar power can be great, but still needs a lot of bugs worked out of it. Good luck with your situation. Fight if you and your community need to.

 

[BruceS_55]

Wow! So far there’s 90 pages of comments on this thread. Hot topic indeed. On the subject of wind farms, has anyone done an impact statement on the long term use of windmills? Where does the energy come from. Obviously it’s from stealing the power of the wind. What if there was a wind farm at the top of the San Isabel National Forest eons ago. The Great Sand Dunes probably would not exist today. As long as something fits with the ideology of a certain political group, consequences be damned.

 

[Oaktree]

I have Amish neighbors that use no electricity, to me thats the ultimate green but few can handle the lifestyle (not considering the religious aspect of it, just their way of life etc.). If you are going to go green and be an earth steward, there is nothing that comes close to how the Amish do what they do. AGAIN not considering religion part of it, but candles, canning, gardening, building, farming, wood cook stove, wood heat stoves etc., they obviously utilize the "green" to a enormous extent and many have been doing the same thing for over 100 years. Sometimes technology can be more trouble than its worth and we as a society are quickly seeing the effects of this.

Not sure I'd want to live like the Amish do, but it sure would help solve the obesity epidemic we have today. Maybe a happy medium could be found between their lifestyle and the overly technified (is that a word?) lifestyle most Americans live.