In June 2020 I moved my family a few miles outside of Mount Vernon to a small house on 20 acres. It was like a dream come true for me. I had always wanted to live out in the country surrounded by trees and some good open farmland.
Then in late 2021 I received a postcard in the mail alerting me that a utility scale solar project was being planned for my area. So, I began researching. I soon discovered many scholarly sources and scientific studies that showed there are some very good reasons to be concerned about utility scale solar.
After hours upon hours of research though, my opposition to industrial solar can be summed up this way: There is a proper and an improper way to respond to and interact with the natural world that is right outside our front (and back) doors. We are its stewards, and we have a duty to protect and care for it. Wendell Berry put it this way “Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.”
The proposed Frasier Solar Project stands in stark contrast to this idea of conservation stewardship. It is an industrial development that will cover 840+ acres of prime farmland and include installing over 250,000 solar panels, miles upon miles of fencing, and tons of steel posts, all of which will be in place for 40-plus years. This is not conserving the open spaces and beautiful scenery that surround us. This is subduing and industrializing them so that the generation that comes after our children (children not even born yet) will have to figure out how to fully restore them.
So, I am opposed to utility scale projects like this on prime farmland because I am against the exploitation and degradation of the natural world for economic gain, and I am against zero-sum policies that see the deprivation of rural farming communities and the despoiling of pastoral beauty as necessary in order to meet the growing demand of mega-corporations and governments for “green” energy. There must be a better way.
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