Aerial view of a flock of sheep grazing in a solar farm with solar panels.(Getty Images.)
At a time when the future of our children demands a phase out of the fossil fuels that a firmly united global scientific community says are guaranteed to escalate in impact until massive droughts imperil the world’s food supply bringing levels of hunger not seen in centuries, the sad defeat of another Ohio solar farm is nothing to celebrate.
Instead, the forced withdrawal of the Grange Solar Grazing Center is a true tragedy that must be investigated and brought “into the light of day.” The public deserves to know the extent to which Ohio solar projects are being manipulated by vested interests in favor of fossil fuel.
The place to start is the appearance of Ohio Senate Bill 52. This was a bill that purported to allow more “local democratic control” over solar and wind siting decisions.
In reality, this shift was a giveaway to a fossil fuel industry looking for a way to serve its profit motive by knocking out a competing energy source. Those interests saw it as an opportunity to pick highly vulnerable targets — small towns in rural areas — and then overwhelm them with sophisticated and well-funded disinformation campaigns aimed at manipulating public opinion.
The classic example of this dynamic at work is Knox County, where the heavy involvement by the fossil fuel corporation called Ariel has been exposed by both a documentary and an investigation at the national level by the Pulitzer Prize-winning anti-corruption watchdog ProPublica reported in this news story.
The strategy has been to identify a local concern and then twist that issue into one that serves the fossil fuel interest. The primary issue chosen has been the concern about preserving prime farmland. On the surface, this seems a very legitimate concern. What renders it illegitimate is the totally dishonest way it has been manipulated.
The solar project just cancelled serves as the supreme case in point.
Right from the start, the developer Open Road Renewables made a deep commitment to integrate the concept of “agrivoltaics” — whereby solar panels and agriculture are integrated so they continue to coexist on the same land — into its proposal, even naming it the “Grange Solar Grazing Center” in order to make this intent explicit. Sheep grazing was going to take place across the entire project.
Dual-use of land for solar panels and farming can propel clean energy forward in Ohio
This full adoption of agrivoltaics then in turn fostered a truly dramatic shift in the public comments being submitted to the Ohio Power Siting Board for its public hearing process. Those comments were now coming in at a stunning 80% in FAVOR of the project. This translated to a remarkable 4-to-1 ratio.
One would certainly assume from these numbers that this project was well on its way to approval. What actually happened however was that it alarmed the fossil fuel forces into overdrive. There are indications that a pressure campaign was enacted to find a mechanism by which to squash this project.
As if on cue, one appears — what is called the “unanimous stance of local officials rule.”
What it does is confer a weighted advantage on those local officials so that their stance can actually be used to run right over the expressed interests of the citizenry at large and turn the outcome upside down.
It is a so-called “rule” that can be used to blatantly circumvent and defeat the democratic process. With local officials already “in their pocket,” it becomes a tool for fossil fuel interests to stop a project that with a 4-to-1 majority in public support seemed destined to succeed.
The next step becomes the response by the Ohio Power Siting Board. The process is that its staff members recommend a yes or no vote to the full board before an official decision is rendered. These recommendations are almost always followed.
It is revealed that — largely because of a major deference given to this so-called “unanimous local officials rule“ — the staff startlingly recommends a denial of permit.
I close with an “Open Letter” appeal directed specifically to the members of the Ohio Power Siting Board:
Members of the Ohio Power Siting Board,
It is extremely instructive to look at how your board handled the approval of Oak Run, a larger agrivoltaics solar project in Madison County.
In your favorable ruling, it was said, “the dual-land use potential that agrivoltaics unlocks addresses a primary concern of project skeptics: the conversion of land to a use other than agriculture.”
It went on: “Oak Run’s strong commitment to agrivoltaics is additional evidence of Oak Run’s responsiveness to feedback from the local community.”
The project  “presents unique opportunities that would provide significant benefits to the state … the opportunity to put Madison County and the state of Ohio “at the forefront” of an “innovative” practice.”
The question begs to be asked: How is it that the Grange Solar Grazing Center does not qualify for all the positive attributes that were praised about Oak Run?
How does it not further the very same principles listed in your own mission statement — to “protect the environment and land use”? It was designed from day one to be dual use.
My second question to you: In recent decisions, your board has moved toward placing more importance on the *numbers* in regard to public comments.
There is a strong case that what should carry the day should be the overwhelmingly documentable truth presented by the global scientific community about the threat to the entire planet from fossil fuels.
But if you are going to prioritize numbers over scientific urgency, then here with Grange there is a 4-to-1 majority of public comments in favor. WHY would you startlingly switch your criterion and now say that the voices of a small number of local officials are suddenly much more important than a large majority of the public?
How does this square with your sense of democracy and fair play?
My final question: How does one avoid the question that asks what this has to do with the fact this project location happened to be in the home district of not only the president of the Ohio Senate — Senator Rob McColley — but someone who was one of the two prime sponsors of the earlier described SB 52 bill trying to shut down solar farms ? One cannot “prove” there was a connection, but the situation looks awfully suspicious.
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