For those that can't understand that things have to change I say get thee a horse and buggy.
3
A few years back this town of Idaho Falls (population around 60,000) was in a tizzy over a wind farm proposal for the hills around the area. The wind farm won - some farmers (almost all very conservative) were happy to have the lease income for some of their land. Others opposed the farm for the usual reasons: an eyesore, "California will get the electricity", and so on. Well, the wind farm has been operating successfully now for a number of years, and the furor settled down long ago. I see the big wind machines from my east window and it doesn't bother me a bit. Better than looking at a lot of other industrial sites I can think of.
5
I completely agree with the sentiment! There is no reason NOT to install the panels on city roofs. In fact, there they are closer to where the energy is being consumed. We should protect our beautiful lands, not deface them with endless solar farms, which easily can be moved to the city.
I am speaking of own experience. I have put 50 panels on my roof in a major city and as a result I am completely energy neutral.
Wind farms ia another matter, of course, but solar panels don't need to be in the country side, except for dry and sunny desert areas. But that does not apply to the Pacific Northwest.
5
I'm sure that Conservative media would have a cakewalk in convincing the folks opposing this solar farm to take up fracking, should that be an option.
1
Sidestepping all the politics — I was surprised to see this article the day before our family began its official move to the beautiful town of — Ellensburg!
I can attest to how genuinely nice and welcoming everyone we’ve met in Ellensburg has been.
But we’ve seen first hand the explosion of real estate, coming just as we scrambled to move from the insanely-priced real estate market of the Los Angeles area. The first two houses in Ellensburg we made offers on were outbid by people making all-cash offers — within a day of those houses coming on the market.
We were seriously worried if we would even find housing, with months to go before my wife began her new job at Central Washington University. We saw first hand how the University’s major housing crunch extended pressure onto Ellensburg’s limited rental market.
But here’s something that shocked me: I could find virtually no available office space in town. The few spaces I did investigate cost more per square foot than downtown Pasadena, California! So we’ve had to consider building a home office outbuilding on our future property!
We consider ourselves lucky to have found a beautiful house in the process of being built, and we’re closing soon — happy to become part of this town that, up until this morning, not one of my friend had heard of.
4
Couple of thoughts here.
For the Nelson's, the family of six struggling to pay the bills even though the husband is a tech worker. STOP HAVING KIDS YOU CANNOT AFFORD. If Ms. Nelson got a job they might stand a better chance of paying their bills.
Second thought is that is it almost always the conservatives who demand they don't want government deciding what businesses or people do with their own property/money. That lasts right up until a neighbor starts making money and they aren't or the neighbor does something they don't like.
Then they run to the government, elected officials and the courts to whine about the problem and demand the the government get more involved but only on their side of the issue. If the government sides against them, then the gubm'nt is conspiring against them too.
They just need to grow up. Learn to adapt.
How about this, instead of eeking out a measely living farming on your 20 acres, why don't you lease some of that land to a developer and collect rent on the multi-unit properties they build? require land repair bonds be in place to prevent/repair problems with groundwater pollutants and then sit back and grow your weed and cucumbers for personal consumption or sale at the farmers market. Or better yet go back to school and learn a new trade as you collect those lease payments.
2
This reminds me of Atlanta's Northern growth that turned horse farms into subdivisions. One friend said that when she applied for zoning to sell her farm for a subdivision (she could no longer get her horse trailer out of the driveway because of the traffic), the newcomers who now lived around her came to the meeting and protested because they loved seeing the pastures full of horses.
3
If a neighboring farm plants oats instead of wheat like the rest of the county would those farmers be mad? This is evidence of years of mass manipulation by fossil fuel companies. Playing into the hands of the coal barons that ruled America over a century ago, and seem to rule the opinions of many today. As much as it is the distant Seattleites that push for solar it will be the Eastern communities that have the economic boost.
2
I used to love walking or driving past Budd's Farm on my way out of town. The rough, rocky terrain, the cows, the smells, gave me a sense that all was right in the world. But I truly believe that if Mr. Budd leased some of that land to solar energy it too would have been part of my rural upbringing. Good on ya Mr. Budd.
4
This is a complicated issue. However, with global warming becoming more of a threat every day, we need to use solar and wind power to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. If a landowner wants to earn money by leasing land for those purposes instead of farming the land, they should have the freedom to do that. Both windmills and solar panels are temporary structures which do no permanent harm to the farmland.
3
I'm a Washington state resident, watching the power struggle between conservative, largely rural interests and more liberal, urban pressures in the Pacific Northwest.
This dispute over solar power typifies the attitudes. When the government is managing land use, many in the rural areas cast them as the bad actor, unconstitutionally infringing on private land use rights. But if a private citizen wants to do something with their own land that runs counter to the conservative status quo, private land rights go out the window and the owner is pilloried. The underlying motivations are not about land use but rather fear: fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of someone who thinks independently.
9
Here’s the response to the opposition - cough up the money I would make leasing my land for the solar installation or lease the land from me and grow what you will.
In other words, pay up or shut up.
3
Perhaps they would like a nice refinery or pipeline built by their good friends - the oil industry - instead?
6
"Critics said the project would remove too much land from agricultural production in central Washington. If approved by regulators, it would be one of the biggest solar generators ever built in the state, with five large arrays spread around the county, covering around 250 acres..."
I'm dying laughing. Removing too much land, and the grand total is 250 acres? From a state that is 45 million acres in size. That's nothing. Less than half a square mile. The "losing valuable farmland" argument holds ZERO water.
8
Especially since most of the land West of the Cascades which was farmland now has concrete tilt-up warehouses, apartment complexes and housing developments.
Especially when you consider the amount of farmland in Washington and Oregon that has been lost to ugly sprawling suburbs.
1
I'd like to see more rooftop solar in places like this https://goo.gl/maps/pf5PuDgPFWm rather than solar "farms" that convert ag lands and wildlife habitat to industrial use. I think it would be economically healthy for Auburn and Kent too.
6
But Fred, those farmers are willing to rent their land because they can't make any money at farming anymore. Did you consider that? They are ALL about to lose their farms from decreased revenues. That will only get worse as Trump's trade war erects barriers to foreign agricultural trade. Having solar farms on this land is a much better alternative than having it go back to the bank over time, and then being bought on the cheap by Big Agro.
And did you consider that Kent and Auburn, on the western slopes of the Cascades, has an entirely different weather pattern than the eastern slopes? And that our eastern desert slopes are IDEAL for that kind of local weather generation? I have a house in the western foothills of Mt Rainier, and believe me solar is not much more than a joke here. Of course we should have it, but we will never generate as much electricity as your region can. Perhaps it's time to switch priorities, and income generating venues? Farming is long dead, no matter what the second-home owners might say. It will be a lot less impactful than hog or dairy farming, which I live right next to.
1
Farm fields are every bit as artificial as are photo-voltaic panels: both are used to collect Solar energy for human purposes. Maybe the critics would be satisfied if the Solar panels were tinted green.
4
For 40 years in Washington State, I watched Rossi. Like a bad penny, he never goes away. Eating from the public trough, Rossi is not a moderate like Reichert. It will be a sad day if the 8th District votes for another Trump bearing politician like Rossi.
11
OK, then forget the solar. Pave it and put up the usual WalMart, Starbucks, cell phone store and whatever unnecessary other trash we can think of. See if you like that better. Oddly, these are usually the very same people that fight for oil pipelines. We don't want clean energy, but your disgusting oil spills all over our land? - no thanks!
10
Whatever happened to doing something for the public good? It seems to me the situation is a win-win; the landowners receive rent in the solar array is a passive, nonpolluting facility. Some people will find a way to complain about anything…
9
Dino Rossi is a republican gadfly who is wholly owned by big business and big banks. In all the years he has run for office, he has offered NOTHING. No original ideas, just the usual republican platitudes, blah blah blah. Smarmy to the max.
14
I used to work in the state senate. There were plenty of politicians I found to be amazing humans (such as current Rep. Kilmer) but there were also many craven entitled morons. Dino was near the top of that list. I’ve never met a pol who felt more like a used car salesman.
People move to or stay in the country because they enjoy a static lifestyle. I get that. I have a ton of family in Palouse and Spokane who live that dream. But cities and life are dynamic in nature. There’s no getting away from it. The state democrats need to do more town halls to convince folks in these areas that it’s time to get on board with clean energy.
14
Guess where the people who buy your agricultural products live... Seattle.
4
Perhaps we just need to build an extension cord long enough to reach the sun - wouldn't that be neat ?
This is an issue (like most) that requires and ''all of the above'' strategy. The point is not to produce more energy (especially for profit), but rather to produce only what we really require and conserve wherever we can.
The land (especially arable) is being consumed, built on, wasted and exploited more and more as population grows exponentially. We have to deal with these issues yesterday, let alone today or tomorrow.
Until then the NIMBY's will keep on complaining.
8
covering around 250 acres with sun-sucking panels
Don’t you mean sun-basking? Why must everything written in the Times anymore feel like a pejorative all the time? Ever since Trump it seems like that attitude has even permeated down to solar panels.
11
So, if this article is an accurate picture of the scene, then there really is no sensible argument to oppose putting solar power on some of this land.
It's just sheer partisanry, and a covert campaign to stop all renewable energy in the country. WA farmers need the money they would get from those leases, and it's their land after all. This isn't even a question of imminent domain, or an illegal taking by the government, or an increase in pollution, or a change to the watershed, or unlawful encroachment on their neighbor's land so long as they stay under existing height restrictions. Which the solar installation would do!
8
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we derive our energy from dead salmon (i.e., hydroelectric).
3
Two main problems with the way the political side of this story is reported: 1) Washington has a Top-Two, so-called Jungle primary system. There are more than a dozen candidates on the ballot, 5 Dems, 4 Reps among them. Dino Rossi is almost certain to be one of the two to come out on top but there is a favorite Dem, as well.
2) While the district stretches from just outside of Seattle all the way down to Ellensburg, 46 percent of the population live in the half dozen or so largest cities, all in the greater Seattle Area and full of Microsoft, Amazon, etc. employees.
5
If you were to take an aerial photo in and around urban-suburban areas, what do you see? Roof Tops...millions upon millions of them. Instead of tearing up vast natural areas first, lets start with rooftops and modernizing the electrical grid so we can connect them.
5
Solar panels don't interfere with grazing sheep-goats-poultry. Some projects on farms have the lines of panels a bit further separated so that the farmer can grow some kind of crop between them, though this is unusual. It's true that land has to be cleared for large solar thermal installations, but I'd be extremely surprised if any such project was proposed at this latitude.
3
There's no "tearing up vast natural areas" required. Sheep graze happily among solar panels. Animals graze and crops grow quite happily under lazily turning wind turbine blades.
Rooftops are a good place to have panels - but not all roofs are created equal. Wrong orientation along with shade from neighbouring buildings or trees can make the whole of a roof unusable for the purpose.
1
Colstrip and Centralia are pretty darn smokey.
On the western desert they scrape all the native brush and cactus,don't ask me how but Ive seen it up close.Thousands of acres are cleared for the wind towers and the frames for solar panels and you wouldn't believe you were in California,looking at the site.They kill millions of birds annually but you never hear a thing . Especially quiet ,in California.So I consider myself ,at least ,not uneducated on the subject.
3
So many problems are caused by people thinking they have the right to dictate what is on other people's property, particularly things that don't affect them directly other than aesthetics. They don't want to have to look at it.
Free market solution - offer to buy the land, or shut up.
9
Maria, the reason farmers are considering leasing their land for solar energy production is because their farmland, among the most productive and fertile on the West Coast, is no longer making them money, and hasn't for quite a while. May of these farms will stop operations and close if they don't find supplemental income like this program. Other regions in the state have already implemented a solar program like this with great success, so it's an opaque mystery why these people are against it.
5
I regularly travel this area to our family ranch in far Northeast WA . I’ve made this trip for forty years and now monthly to help care for family and do the ranch bookkeeping.
The Kittitas Valley used to be full of huge beautiful farms with an aromatic cattle feedlot on one side of I-90 and a pig farm on the other. As economics changed, the number of cattle ranches plummeted. Now it’s crop land if it’s not houses and new box stores. The wind farms are on the rock and sage hills around and above the valley where cattle grazed, not on the lower more bucolic appearing crop land.
Anyone can understand that living next to a large tract of open green fields would be more attractive than manmade structures no matter how aesthetically built or passive in effect. But the farmer hits a nail on the head when she talked about people’s romance with the farming life when they don’t have to depend on it to live. All of us from a history of working arable land find it painful to see it permanently covered with manmade structures...even if it makes the most sense ecologically and financially. It admits that farming is over and that’s a psychological blow to decades of toil and care.
The solar panels have benefit but are identified with liberals here. I find it believable that the fossil fuel industry fosters “let’s you and him fight” about these issues. Grief about a passing way of life can be channeled into anger at others.
12
They don't need to get involved.
Eastern and Western Washington fight over everything every election. Its basically two states divided by the Cascade Mountains.
The eastern side is very conservative, Evangelical, and Republican. I grew up in Indiana and Spokane reminds me of where I grew up.
The western side is more like Amsterdam. If you are conservative, you vote for Bernie.
The eastern side gets very tired of the western side always ruling the state by shear numbers.
4
Indeed so. And, guess what: the energy source with the smallest environmental footprint by far is nuclear.
"One person, one vote" is a better principle for governance than "one acre, one vote".
It's not a right/left thing, that's for sure. Here in Vermont, some environmentalists are against solar and wind, some of the anti-renewable folks are right-wing leave me alone types. I'm not sure you can characterize who's for it and who's against it.
As much as I like and admire the New York Times, I can't for the life of me figure out why the paper consistently shows solar energy in a negative light. It seems to me that solar power is the hope for a cleaner, healthier future. Why so negative?
6
If solar energy is to be environmentally sound, it must be collected on lands already ruined by humans or on already developed land, not arable farmland and undeveloped land in intact ecosystems.
4
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we derive our energy from dead salmon (i.e., hydroelectric).
3
Solar installations pose far less of an impact to residents than wind even. They are low to the ground, silent and require minimal operations. How much of this opposition is from second homeowners or people without the vested interest in the local economy held by year-round residents? The article fails to point out the significant economic benefits the project will bring (primarily as tax revenue) to pay for the infrastructure requirements brought by recent growth.
Kittitas County commissioners would better serve constituents by embracing renewable energy and the economic boost it brings to the local economy. The success story is only two counties to the south, where Goldendale, WA and Klickitat County created a Western model for renewable energy regulation by local governments. Klickitat County, having lost two large employers, a mill and an aluminum smelter, has added more than two billion dollars of renewable energy assets to the county in the last fifteen years.
From your own publication: Wind is the New Cash Crop in Rural Wash. Town
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/10/18/18greenwire...
7
Looking at the Ellensburg area on Google Earth, the valley it resides in looks very lush (especially to a Kansan), but a few miles east there is a large area of scrub that looks to me very non-productive. Why not place the solar panels there? I would have thought it would be less expensive, especially since I see a large power transmission line crossing the scrub.
In any case, if the solar array is thought too ugly, require it to be ringed with trees. In a few years it will be nearly invisible to its neighbors.
2
But the massive clear cutting in Washington State by lumber companies is just peachy.
17
I once had to explain to an environmental activist in Portland, OR why Teddy Kennedy did everything in his power to kill (successfully) wind turbines off Cape Cod that might, possibly, on a clear day be faintly visible from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis.
Progressive city folks always want renewable energy projects sited somewhere other than their preferred getaways, preferably where the people are poor and powerless.
5
I live in the Tri-Cities, about 2.5 hours south of Ellensburg. I'm a progressive in a sea of conservatism. I can see a fairly large wind farm from my back yard in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. I have PV's on my roof and also live within walking distance of a PUD solar farm. All look great to me!
As the article points out, it's really not a progressive vs. conservative issue. It's environmental and economical considerations that should drive the conversation. And it really shouldn't be an eastern Washington vs western Washington issue. It's a national and global issue.
3
Is it OK for farmers to cash out by developing their land and sub-dividing into 3 acre lots?
The old way for farming is not as sustainable as it once was. Farms are closing down. Something is going to go in those fields.
1
Bear the burden? Pay the price? What percent of Washington state's tax money goes to projects in rural areas? A far smaller percentage than the portion of the population living in those areas I'd bet. Things like renewable energy plants are one of the few ways that rural areas can balance out the subsidies sent to them by urban residents, yet people like Paul Jewell think they've paid too much already. These folks would change their tune if they were forced to try maintaining electrical utilities in rural areas using just the payments owed by rural residents.
9
Seattle City Light just recently asked for rate hikes because usage is down. How much more "efficiency" do you want?
1
Every month I get a letter from them claiming that I use more electricity than my neighbors (who travel a LOT). So, I am a tad confused. They keep offering to come over and show me ways to reduce my usage yet they are complaining that usage is down. Which do they want?
3
“They’re all in the rural areas,” said Mr. Jewell, who opposes the solar project. “And so there’s really a disconnect there — they [urban areas] say ‘yes,’ and we bear the burden. They say ‘yes,’ and we pay the price.”
I have no sympathy for Mr. Jewell's plight. Rural folks vote Republican and the rest of us have to pay the price for that.
38
Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I see clean, renewable energy and I love it!
11
But it is far from "clean" - it ruins farmland and in Rhode Island the same solar "farm" issue threatens loss of large tracts of woodland and the destruction of the creatures that live there. Similarly the transmission of "clean" hydro power from Quebec threatens mountain landscapes all across northern New England. There is no such thing as "clean" energy - they all have impacts from manufacture, siting, maintenance, transmission, disposal...though some, especially coal and oil, are worse than others.
9
Indeed so. And, guess what: the energy source with the smallest environmental footprint by far is nuclear.
Is there Koch Brothers money fueling this fight over fuel?
12
I'd also love to know the answer to that. As reported in the Times, the Kochs are fueling and funding opposition to public transit projects across the country and I wouldn't be at all surprised if their dark money is in this too.
9
Hey Paul Jewell: Do you know what _is_ located in the greater Seattle area? The taxpayers who fund your subsidized county. Stop accepting more tax money from the state than you contribute, and maybe Seattle will be inclined to leave you alone in your rural impoverishment.
33
Wind farms in Kittitas County are probably a necessary evil, but it's true that they severely degrade the viewshed for many eyes. What was a formerly a near-natural expanse of land from the hills above Ellensburg to the Stuart Range of the Cascade Mountains now has an army of wildly spinning, gigantic robots seemingly marching across verdant slopes. Renewable energy is good in many ways, but it is often very imposing and inarguably ugly.
Solar farms seem less intrusive on viewsheds and one's sense of place, but the echoes of the fight over wind farms have carried over to the current situation. The article implies that the debate is just another right/left conflict, but a careful read indicates that opinion is as varied as the modern Kittitas electorate. Seattle is far and away the economic engine of Washington state, and where its tendrils extend (predictably down I-90 east to Ellensburg), there will be struggles to adapt.
5
I thought the article would say more regarding agricultural production displacing solar (which seems like a valid criticism to me), but nothing more referred to that issue?
I’ve personally seen the solar farms in desolate Nevada countryside. They do take up quite a bit of room, but the desert-like, sunny conditions there make sense for solar. Why put solar over rich, productive ariable land?
5
"Why put solar over rich, productive ariable land"
Because that land isn't making farmers any money.
4
So, if this article is an accurate picture of the moment, then there really is no sensible argument to oppose putting solar power on some of this land.
It's just sheer partisanry, and a covert campaign to stop all renewable energy in the country. WA farmers need the money they would get from those leases, and it's their land after all. This isn't even a question of imminent domain, or an illegal taking by the government, or an increase in pollution, or a change to the watershed, or unlawful encroachment on their neighbor's land so long as they stay under existing height restrictions. Which the solar installation would do!
3
If the people who own the farm want to put in solar panels, they should have the right to. It doesn't negatively affect anyone else.
End of story.
23
While it’s possible that sleazy fossil-fuel money is fomenting the conflict in this case, I think that simple tribal politics is enough to explain the opposition to the solar farm: solar is a liberal idea, so the conservative citizens are against it. Never mind that this opposition jettisons one more cause conservatives have long championed, individual property rights, which now joins free trade on the sea bed.
Well, if Ms. Brunson is correct—and I suspect she is—that her neighbors “want the romance of watching you farm,” then I would advise her and her husband start setting up an old-fashioned 250-acre hog farm to give the neighbors a good, strong dose of romance, and then see if they might then be in a mood to “settle” for a solar farm instead.
47
Reminds me of the wind turbine debate. Everyone wants energy, just not from where they can see it.
6
These farmers have a beef with solar panels but if it is anything like where my parents live, they don't have a qualm about about crop dusters spraying harmful pesticides and the use of herbicides. The reality is that conservatives worship at the altar of Big Oil. Anything that harms their god must be stopped.
13
Like other commentators, I am confused as to who is opposing the proposed solar farm. It seems that a Trump supporter is for it as is a democratic manager of a fruit and vegetable stand. Are owners of larger tracts of land for it and owners of smaller plots against it? Is this a rural versus metropolitan conflict?
5
"They say ‘yes,’ and we pay the price.”
Actually, the Westside in Washington State pays the price. They subsidize the rest of the state with their outsized tax generation.
51
It is interesting how solar panels suddenly become an eyesore on the rural landscape? Try living next to a hog farm with 200 pigs. Pungent.
34
Only in the US could the rabid right-wing win by arguing to boost coal production in West Virginia, while simultaneously winning in Washington by supporting solar power. And having come from West Virginia, people need to compare the footprint of a strip mine to that of windmills and solar power projects. Dear ranchette owners from the dark side of Washington State---when you move to a county you should buy into the people who are already there, as well as the pretty views.
5
Unfortunately, Vermont (via wind power; not coal) has followed the example in West Virginia, by also bulldozing mountains for access roads; filling in streams with debris from and for those same access roads; dynamiting mountain-tops to create level platforms for industrial wind farms, etc. It is arguably not nearly as bad as modern strip mining for coal (although the dead birds and bats may disagree) but to pretend that wind and solar has no negative environmental impact is to stick one's head in the sand. There needs to be a global effort focused on the demand side (i.e., slowing & reversing global population growth) rather than an endless focus on the supply side.
Former VT Commissioner of Fish & Wildlife and aquatic biologist Steve Wright was published in the NY Times on this issue a few years ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/opinion/the-not-so-green-mountains.html the only
1
And why exactly do some locals oppose an environmentally friendly modern technology that slows global warming ?
Their half-baked rationale seems to be that it's part of a liberal plot.
Yes, a plot to be nice to Mother Earth and avoid further climate degradation at a very economical price.
This article is further evidence that the American right-wing is little more than The Party of Spite, The Party of Stupid and the Gas Oil Pollution party.
Pachyderm Spongiform Encephalopathy is a terrible and unique form of American brain damage.
D to go forward; R for reverse.
28
See Patricia McArdle's comment: the fossil fuel folks are at war with the rest of us. When it comes to solar panels near ground level, this is mystifying. The more important debate is about wind turbines that must be in someone's view. The fighting about views has just begun: look up what has happened off the coast of MA where rich folks vacay and also in the Hamptons in NY State, a perfect spot for turbines, but crowded with relaxing gold. Personally I love to look at these things turn and turn, creating smoke-free energy, as they do in the highlands of Scotland, among other places, but others have decided to be selfish about it. Welcome to the modern world. What's needed is leadership, and on every level of government.
9
Wind mills might look good to you but they chop up birds at a serious rate.
6
There is truth in that (windmills chopping up birds) but it's a small blip compared to the number of birds killed by domestic cats which their owners leave out, not to mention feral cats, but they seldom mention this. Why is the cat issue such a big deal for windmills but ignored otherwise?
1
These programs already exist… Also a lot of the money for these solar projects is flowing to rural areas: they don’t have it bad, especially since we are not exactly covering the country with solar farms. I think people can deal with an oat field being replaced by solar panels here and there, can’t they?
16
You'd think that farmers would like alternative sources of income especially since Trump is making farming a losing business.
23
The subtlety is alluded to here but not explicitly stated. Farmers are generally for solar (for the reasons you mention), it is ranchette owners and retirees who are against it.
36
The solar is replacing hydropower for the state of WA, not anything smokey. The article also fails to mention how tackles the solar company in charge of this project was in their installation efforts. There was almost no public outreach or mediation attempts outside the courts. I think that a lighter touch would have lead to panels already producing clear green power for this awesome place:)
2
What a beautiful photo leading this story. Would the county's residents rather see a dreadful power plant billowing smoke? Welcome to the the 21st century.
35
“One reader (Gus) wondered why rural folks would oppose a local farmer's decision to lease out some of his land for income generating solar panels, since there is a negligible impact on that farmer's neighbors. One could ask the same about opposition to wind turbines, which springs to life every time a new wind farm is proposed. The answer to both questions can be found in a strategy memo leaked to the Guardian in 2012. This document written for the oil and gas industry calls for a national PR campaign to quietly fund small but vocal opposition groups aimed at fomenting local public opposition to renewable energy projects. Their goal: to ensure that public perception of these proposals "becomes so bad that no one wants to admit in public they’re for it." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2012/may/09/wind-pow...
There's also this revealing 10/30/14 NYT article titled "Win Ugly or Lose Pretty" about Richard Berman, a political consultant, who (in a speech that was secretly recorded and released to the media) told oil and gas industry officials that they needed to exploit emotions like fear and turn them against environmental groups. “Think of this as an endless war,” he told executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.
98
Change is hard.
22
People who have carved up the natural landscape think they get to dictate what their neighbor puts on their property? I’m sure they wouldn’t complain if their republican representatives plopped a prison out there.
35
Seems to me that watching someone farm solar energy isn't much different than watching someone farm soybeans or corn. Either way, it's the farm people who are actually doing something productive. If you don't like what someone else is doing with property owned by that someone else then maybe you should find a way to buy it. Otherwise it's their property. I can think of all kinds of things worse than solar panels.
45
What exactly is the "burden" that resident have from a solar farm in the area? There is no noise, traffic, pollution, or danger to birds. We have solar panels on our home and produce all of our own electricity including charging an all electric car and returning energy to the grid. And very few people even notice them -- in fact, we've had people come to our door and ask us to show them the panels (which are on the front roof of the house) that they could have seen by looking up at our roof as they came up the driveway. Based on our experience, I really do not understand why every rooftop and more patches of land facing the sun do not have solar panels. It is a win-win for everyone but the oil, gas, and coal industry who as energy companies should have been investing in renewable energy al along.
55
Actually some solar “farms” employ collectors that intensify the solar radiation, and these can harm birds, because they get very hot, unlike rooftop panels.
5
They are industrial, not bucolic. Also, we should be investing in agriculture. Maybe now more than ever considering our current turn away from globalism. That said, it's curious if conservatives who should be supportive of the right to use one's land as one sees fit are trying to dictate to struggling farmers what to do with the land if they aren't willing to allocate subsidies or tax breaks that are truly helpful to farmers. I just have to wonder if the Koch Brothers aren't funding and fomenting as they have their fingers in many local and far reaching decisions where fossil fuels are ultimately at stake.
6
Thank you for pointing out the details about some solar farms . Here is an article from the Audobon Society about solar power and birds. https://www.audubon.org/news/why-solar-power-good-birds It is quite balanced and incorporates what is currently known.
Willing sellers are allowing solar farms. Perhaps the neighbors are envious? According to USDA data, there is around 180,000 acres of agricultural land in that county and they don't want to allow 250 acres for solar farms? Sorry, the numbers and data don't add up. Would they rather have a coal fired power plant in the neighborhood? How much additional money will come to the county from the solar farm? No data there either. How much of the solar power will go to the county? The world is changing and they can change with it or get out of the way.
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I think the owners summarized the issue pretty well: the neighbors want to see a pretty farm, but ultimately it is none of their business what he does with it. People will have to learn that wind turbines and solar farms are part of the landscape, just like other power lines, farmland, roads and houses are. Rural areas are actually having it better than cities here: the jobs for installing the farms and the money flowing to lease land are where the farms are built, not in cities.
I also note that the article mentions the same usual messed up city planning: population flowing to a new area does not mean housing prices should rise. If 10,000 households move in but you build 10,000 new houses or apartments, prices won’t budge. Why are we not able to do that? It’s not as if there were the same land constraints in rural Washington as there are in Manhattan? Local communities would get lots of job and money from the construction industry, lots of new people with money to spend, new families that are ready to pay taxes for schools and other public services, it would all be very positive. Or even better: build housing where people originally wanted to live and were chased by rising prices. This way you don’t get people doing “long-distance commuting”, which is much worse for the environment than not having solar farms, and much worse for your quality of life than living next door to a solar farm.
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Paul Jewell complains that the eastern Washington areas take the greater burden for these renewable energy projects, but doesn't know or acknowledge that the Greater Seattle Area bears most of the state's tax burden because of the bigger companies and higher taxes.
It's always a partnership. Eastern WA supplies agriculture, energy, etc to the entire state while Western WA supplies the manufacturing, more taxes, and your 2-day deliveries.
On the solar panel issue, it always surprises me when people who call for property rights and respectivng individual freedoms feel the need to heckle and belittle an individual making a decision on their own property.
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Paul continues to be an aspiring Teaparty Patriot who buys into the whole "west side vs. east side values" shtick that's embarrassing and makes the community seem foolish.
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I can understand the opposition of the rural folks. It might help if renewable projects like this and future solar farms and wind farms were coupled to mandated efficiency programs focused in the cities. That way, everyone would have skin in the game.
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These programs already exist… Also a lot of the money for these solar projects is flowing to rural areas: they don’t have it bad, especially since we are not exactly covering the country with solar farms. I think people can deal with an oat field being replaced by solar panels here and there, can’t they?
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Seattle has one of the strictest set of requirements for building energy efficiency in the country. See http://www.seattle.gov/DPD/codesrules/codes/energy/overview/
Seattle has requirements that go well beyond those required statewide in Washington. One could suggest that rural counties set stricter energy efficiency requirements if they want to limit energy generation.
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I wish it were a little clearer why, exactly, the people in the rural areas dislike solar panels. What's the negative impact on the neighbors if a farmer wants to lease some of his land to a solar panel company?
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There is a very old, knee-jerk resentment by conservatives in Eastern Washington against pretty much everything Western Washington represents. There has been talk for years by conservatives to split the state in half so "they can have a voice". I've lived here all my life, and went to college in Ellensburg (26 years ago). The wind there can be unbelievable--I remember often walking INTO the wind as if in some silent movie. You can see the wind turbines in the distance from I-90 when traveling from Eastern to Western Washington. When I first saw them 10 years ago, it struck me as being very smart...and nice that a little bit of the Seattle area was rubbing off on Eastern Washington. They seem to hate it for the exact same reason. (I live in the Yakima area, and there is a solar panel store here, and over the years they have sprung up on barns and hills even in the deep country. I think the article is correct that attitudes are mixed.)
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I agree with Gus in that the negative impact on neighbors is not clear. All over the country farmers have leased out their land for fracking, which seems infinitely more impactful (negatively) on everyone. What is the opposition here?
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I attended some local hearings on this issue. People are against it because of the change, the change in their viewshed and because any loss in hayland reduces local hay farming power (the major crop here) which puts the industry at risk to future obstacles. IMO, this is a classic NIMBY response the a shift from a green irrigated field to a chain link fence around a solar farm.
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I thought conservatives were in favor of people being able to do what they want with their land. But they see solar and freak out like its a plot against them? Its actually a path forward for them and they could find themselves gaining wealth by renting land to the despised city folks. The alternative is to continue to buy oil from places like Saudi Arabia, or the evil Canadians.
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Well said! If you don't want your neighbors to put up solar panels, then buy their land and don't put them up. But you shouldn't have the right to stop someone else from using their land in a productive way that doesn't harm you.
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In rural Texas, the long-time farmers are all for windmills and solar. Farm corn, farm cattle, farm the wind, farm the sun - they don’t care. It’s money. It’s the city slickers, just moved in, and with plenty of money, that don’t want their view spoiled. So this is far from a standard Left-Right issue.
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The County Board of Commissioners in my sparely populated home county in Nebraska have recently declared a moratorium on wind farms. It's been a very contentious issue, to say the least. However, one of the main reasons against it was that wind farms will "ruin our rural way of life", which just astounds me, as it's already gone. The small towns are dying, farm income is down, property taxes have gone up, land prices have been going down for the first time since the Reagan administration. This could have provided an avenue to stave off the industrialization of agriculture for the area.
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