GARDNER, Kansas − Donna Knoche made her method as much as the rostrum on the Johnson County Fee listening to on June 6, 2022, her new yellow shirt crisp and her voice regular. It wasn’t one thing she’d ever thought she’d need to do in her 93 years within the place her grandfather first homesteaded within the 1860s.
Calmly setting apart her walker, she regarded on the county commissioners arrayed to her left and commenced to talk.
“I by no means in all my life thought I’d get up right here to guard our property rights by with the ability to use our land legally for the most effective advantage of our household,” she stated.
Scores of individuals had been in line behind her. A lot of them had different concepts.
Some implored the commissioners to vote to permit the so-called West Gardner plan, a utility-size array of photo voltaic panels, saying the county wanted to commit to scrub power for his or her kids’s future.
However others had been simply as passionately opposed. Many wore matching T-shirts that implored the council to “Cease INDUSTRIAL SOLAR,” testifying for greater than three hours in opposition to the plan for Knoche’s farm and others throughout the county.
To them, the photo voltaic plant would “threaten well being and well-being” and didn’t match “the character of the land.” It could create “a panorama of black glass and towering windmills,” that might put lives in danger and trigger “a mass exodus out of the world.”
The battle performed out in entrance of 1 small county fee in a single 613,000-person county. However at its coronary heart, this battle – and a whole lot of others prefer it throughout the nation – was over the way forward for the entire nation’s power provide and, maybe, the way forward for the planet.
Because the nation races to shift to carbon-free power to forestall local weather change, opposition actions have popped up nationwide to battle new photo voltaic and wind farms, hampering America’s probabilities of assembly its local weather pledges.
A USA TODAY evaluation of native guidelines and insurance policies nationwide discovered that, as of December, 15% of counties in the US had banned or in any other case blocked new utility-scale wind farms, photo voltaic installations or each.
Prior to now decade, 183 U.S. counties had their first wind tasks begin producing energy, whereas almost 375 blocked new wind generators. In 2023, nearly as many counties blocked new photo voltaic tasks as added them.
The explanations for native opposition are different and the motives behind them could be murky however typically boil down to 1 important concept: Renewables are positive, however we don’t need them right here.
That’s an issue, stated Grace Wu, a professor on the College of California, Santa Barbara, who research power methods and land use change. “If nowhere appears to be the correct place, more and more we’ll have a more durable and more durable time to web site them.”
The land owned by the Knoche household is only one spot in a statewide battle in Kansas, which has each the nation’s fourth greatest wind sources and, as solar energy expertise has grow to be extra environment friendly, robust photo voltaic as properly: the identical daylight that drives photosynthesis in large-scale crops like corn can generate power in photo voltaic panels.
As we speak, the state will get 47.13% of its electrical energy from wind and 0.33% from photo voltaic.
But now, 14 of the 105 counties in Kansas block wind generators and 12 block photo voltaic farms. These embody outright bans, peak restrictions, unworkable setbacks for generators, measurement limitations for photo voltaic farms, caps on the quantity of agricultural land that can be utilized and, in McPherson County, an “indefinite moratorium” on photo voltaic functions.
These efforts mirror these in a whole lot of counties and townships throughout the nation, the place the merest trace of a possible venture shortly brings forth a Fb group, yard indicators, organized protests and – more and more – zoning guidelines and legal guidelines that make new renewable power inconceivable to construct.
Seen as only one flare-up in a nationwide pattern to oppose native green-energy tasks, the battle in Johnson County shouldn’t be stunning.
However to Donna Knoche, 93, and her husband Robert “Doc” Knoche, 95, it’s bewildering – and annoying.
For them, leasing acres to a photo voltaic farm would simplify their land’s care, maintain it obtainable for farming when the lease runs out and permit it to proceed to be handed on by the generations.
“We figured it was simply a kind of kinds of issues that you would do – like shopping for a home or leasing a automotive. You would simply do it by yourself and never need to take care of all this complexity,” Donna stated.
As a substitute, it has grow to be a five-year battle.
“I had no concept it will drag on this lengthy,” stated Doc.
Deep roots in Kansas
Each Donna and Doc have deep roots on this land.
Donna’s grandfather William Brecheisen got here to the US in 1850 as a 7-year-old. His German-speaking household was from Alsace–Lorraine, at the moment a part of France.
“They acquired the Kansas Fever,” she stated. “They got here out in a prairie schooner wagon,” she stated.
William served within the Union Military through the Civil Warfare after which got here dwelling to Kansas, the place he homesteaded 160 acres of the flat, productive plains.
“We’ve got the patent from 1868,” Donna stated proudly from her well-worn chair subsequent to her husband’s matching one in the lounge of their easy rambler in Gardner, Kansas. They’ve lived right here since 1959. It’s the place they raised their six kids.
Robert is universally referred to as Doc after working greater than 60 years as a big animal veterinarian within the space – he nonetheless has his license. He grew up within the city of Paola. After the demise of his mom he was raised on his uncle and aunt’s farm. On the time, they labored the land not with machines however with half a dozen horses – “and two mules,” he stated.
Too younger to serve in World Warfare II, he needed to wait a number of years to start out veterinary faculty as a result of all of the slots had been reserved for veterans.
He graduated in 1952 and settled in Gardner, a city of 650 on the time.
He roomed with a neighborhood lady who took in boarders, and went on dates with a couple of women on the town. “I by no means requested for a second date,” he says. Then his landlady’s daughter had a child on the new hospital in Gardner and Robert met a nurse who had simply been employed there – Donna.
Their first date was on July 12, 1952, “to an image present in Ottawa” about 25 miles away. They drove in Doc’s 1951 Ford.
As we speak once they inform this story, the couple take a look at one another – their matching chairs aspect by aspect – and smile.
“We’ve been married for 70 years,” Donna stated.
“In order that’s the way it all labored out,” Doc stated.
These 160 acres that Donna’s grandfather had farmed grew because the household purchased up extra land.
As we speak that legacy is about 1,190 acres of farmland that straddles Johnson and Douglas counties. For a few years, the Knoches rented out many of the floor to Donna’s uncle Fortunate Brecheisen, who grew corn, soybeans and hay. After he died in 1997 they took over, finally operating a 200-head cow-calf operation along with the veterinary observe.
“We purchased some land south of Gardner and we had principally Angus cattle of our personal,” Doc stated. “I constructed the fences and mowed the hay. Mother would reply the telephone when individuals known as for emergencies.”
“It wasn’t straightforward, it was lengthy hours,” Doc says of the 10-year stint. Shoulder surgical procedure round 2010 pressured him to surrender his herd. Since then, they’ve rented the land to different farmers and ranchers.
Doc doesn’t name himself a farmer, however he is aware of the soil isn’t as fertile as it’s elsewhere. “Fortunate all the time stated, ‘We’ve acquired all backside land – as a result of the highest land is all washed away.’ So it is not the nice prime floor you consider,” Doc stated.
Protecting the land wholesome and productive is vital to the household. “We have labored to preserve the soil and make it higher by the years,” stated Donna.
In time, they realized they’d by no means farm the entire property, and nobody particular person of their household was prone to, both. That led to a conundrum.
The Knoches have six kids, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. As they approached their 90s, they’d wrestled with methods to divide the 1,190 acres amongst all these heirs.
They’d a plan for sharing, however then a greater one got here up. In 2018, they got here dwelling to a message on their answering machine.
The caller was from a photo voltaic developer trying to lease land within the space for a photo voltaic farm.
“Nicely, I known as him again and we talked about it,” Doc stated, “and it sounded higher than farming.” It didn’t damage that considered one of their sons-in-law, Steve Clark, was an engineer and photo voltaic advisor, so that they had an skilled to speak with.
The Knoches ended up signing a four-year lease on their land with NextEra Power, as did different landowners and farmers close by.
The deal gave the corporate an choice to construct on the land. The Knoches acquired slightly bit of cash for the settlement, and for some time, nothing else occurred. “We didn’t make an enormous present of it,” Donna stated.
They figured it will take a very long time for an power plant to be developed, if ever.
They’d heard tales about windmills elsewhere, and the way individuals fought them. This appeared completely different. A photo voltaic farm would maintain the agricultural land from being constructed up as one thing else – a subdivision, or a warehouse. The panels lasted a very long time, as much as 30 years, however after that, they might be eliminated and the land might be farmed once more, if individuals needed.
They didn’t give it some thought a lot for the subsequent few years.
“I actually hadn’t heard a lot about individuals combating photo voltaic,” Doc stated. Then he regarded over at his spouse, one thing between a smile and a grimace on his face.
“So we discovered about it,” he stated.
The opposition to photo voltaic
The deliberate photo voltaic farm – the West Gardner Photo voltaic Venture – was initially proposed to incorporate as a lot as 3,000 acres unfold over Douglas and Johnson counties that might generate as much as 320 megawatts of electrical energy. The venture would additionally embody 129 megawatts of battery storage, to make the photo voltaic power obtainable when the solar isn’t shining.
Then issues acquired contentious.
Individuals heard concerning the leases and commenced to prepare in opposition to the proposed photo voltaic farm. A Fb group opposing the venture appeared, a number of teams had been shaped and a web site was created.
Quickly there have been hearings scheduled earlier than the Johnson County commissioners, who had been contemplating varied proposals amending the zoning laws for photo voltaic services and battery storage.
There have been work classes. Planning fee conferences. Subcommittee conferences. The work stretched for greater than a yr.
Crowds of opponents flocked to public conferences to demand the plans for a photo voltaic farm be shut down.
The household estimates between the 2 counties they’ve attended greater than a dozen conferences, not together with those they’ve watched on-line.
Lastly, June 2022 arrived. The aim on this heat summer time evening was to vote on precisely what the county would permit. How massive may the photo voltaic installations be? How far should they be from cities? What about stormwater runoff? How a lot of a buffer ought to there be from the land of different neighbors who weren’t a part of the venture? What number of years would permits be legitimate?
Even when county commissioners allowed photo voltaic tasks, there would nonetheless be different hurdles.
Opponents decried what they name industrial wind and photo voltaic and stated the installations don’t have any place in an idyllic panorama of corn, wheat, soybeans and cattle.
They stated photo voltaic panels would drip poisonous chemical compounds from their glass into the bottom, contaminating wells. The land beneath them would warmth up and kill all surrounding vegetation. The photo voltaic cells and batteries deliberate to accompany them could be in danger for catastrophic fires that nation firefighters could be unable to comprise. Property values would fall and a lot of the land could be consumed that the nation would threat ravenous.
These Johnson County conferences aired lots of the similar issues that emerged nationwide, in additional than a dozen completely different native zoning conferences reviewed on-line or in particular person by USA TODAY.
The issue with these issues is that nearly none of them are true.
“They’d these conferences and so they had been very adverse,” stated Karlene Thomson, one of many Knoches’ daughters. “Loads of misinformation acquired put out.”
The assembly on June 6, 2022, lasted greater than three hours.
It started with a solemn recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Then speaker after speaker got here ahead. There have been many in favor of the venture, however most had been adamantly – although politely – opposed.
To them the photo voltaic farm was an intrusion of commercial power manufacturing that might destroy the agricultural group that they liked.
Not that the world hadn’t lengthy been dwelling to greater than farms. The 9,000 acre Sunflower Military Ammunition Plant was constructed there in 1942, using greater than 15,000 individuals on the peak of World Warfare II. In 2013, BNSF Railway opened an intermodal transport hub within the southern a part of the county. The 330-acre I-35 Logistics Park opened the identical yr. Panasonic broke floor on a brand new battery plant on the previous ammunition plant in 2022.
And folks from close by Olathe, Overland Park and even Kansas Metropolis stored shifting deeper into the county, shopping for small 5- and 10-acre plots to construct their dream properties on.
However hundreds of acres of photo voltaic panels was one thing nobody had ever skilled, and so they didn’t prefer it.
“That is to this point off from being proper, I do not even have phrases. You can be affecting over 200 owners and 1,200 souls with one venture,” stated Lisa Huppe of close by Edgerton, Kansas.
“We aren’t in opposition to photo voltaic power. Nonetheless, in the case of utility scale services within the agricultural communities of rural Johnson County, it’s the unsuitable alternative,” she stated. “If you happen to permit this to occur, commissioners, you’ll devalue the property and destroy the lives that now we have spent years constructing right here and threaten our well being and well-being.”
Many opponents sported T-shirts that learn “County Commissioners: Shield our High quality of Life. Allow us to assist you to draft laws that cease INDUSTRIAL SOLAR.”
“We stand to lose the character of our communities, with a transition from agricultural to industrial use,” stated Pam Ferguson of Eudora. “Builders need you to suppose that we have to flip our state right into a panorama of black glass and towering windmills. And if you happen to achieve this, the planet will likely be ruined.”
Photo voltaic and wind energy have to be sited responsibly, away from locations like Johnson County which have numerous individuals in them, stated Carrie Brandon, chairperson for Douglas County/Johnson County Kansans for Accountable Photo voltaic.
“We understand that renewable power is required to offset oil and coal,” she stated. “However now we have sensible individuals on our planet who’re always arising with new power innovations. Haste makes for waste – we could be sensible about it and never simply go all in on blanketing rural areas and taking agricultural land out of our stock.”
Brandon says her work to battle the venture has taken a toll on her well being and her enterprise. “I’ve spent at the least half one million {dollars} at my hourly charge, it’s been an unlimited effort during the last three years,” she stated.
For the Knoches, the need to farm the solar on their land is a straightforward matter of property rights. They and different landowners need to maximize the revenue they make from their fields with out having to promote it off or break it up. It’s their land. They need to use it as they see match.
“This opposition doesn’t appear to be involved about property rights for anyone however themselves,” stated Donna.
In fact, zoning restrictions are nothing new. The Knoches suppose the photo voltaic panels – not very tall, silent, no smoke or different emissions – make for a greater slot in farm nation than nearly anything that may get constructed.
However the household can also’t assist however see it as a matter of seniority. In spite of everything, this has been their land for the higher a part of two centuries.
Doc does permit that issues began to vary even within the Nineteen Fifties. Individuals moved out of the town to small farms for the ambiance.
Again in these days they had been known as agriculturalists.
“There was a narrative concerning the distinction between a farmer and an agriculturalist,” he stated. “A farmer makes cash on the farm and spends it on the town. An agriculturalist makes cash on the town and comes out and buys a farm and spends it on his farm,” Doc stated.
Again then, the spreads individuals purchased had been possibly 160 acres, he stated. Individuals truly farmed. As we speak the lot sizes of these searching for a rural life-style are loads smaller, typically as little as 5 acres, stated their daughter Jane Knoche.
“Their massive assertion is that they got here out to the agricultural peace and quiet of the agricultural space,” she stated.
The problem has been divisive sufficient that it’s made the county a much less neighborly place. On a drive to go to the land the place the photo voltaic farm could be constructed, Jane identified signal after signal on fenceposts and in storefronts studying “No Industrial Photo voltaic” and “Shield our High quality of Life.”
“Not so enjoyable to see,” Jane stated.
Doc, who loves airplanes and aviation, likes to hang around on the tiny Gardner Municipal Airport together with his buddies. Till the day somebody tracked him down there to confront him concerning the plan.
“He got here in there and stated ‘I assume you’re actual pleased with the truth that you’ve lowered everyone’s property values,’” he stated.
Dealing with the way forward for inexperienced power
Renewable power crops do get in-built Kansas.
Two hours northwest of the Knoches’ house is the Amerugi Farm. It’s 400 acres of corn, soybeans, barley, oats, rye and alfalfa, woodlands and pasture. It’s additionally dwelling to 1 wind turbine that’s a part of the Soldier Creek Wind Power Middle.
The wind venture, which incorporates 120 generators dotted throughout the fields of 200 collaborating landowners, went into operation in 2020 and immediately produces as much as 300 megawatts of electrical energy, about sufficient for about 64,000 properties.
Mary Fund and her husband Ed Reznicek have farmed there since 1978 on land Fund’s household has owned because the 1870s. The one wind turbine on their land offers them a small lease cost.
“It’s a pleasant little addition to our retirement earnings but it surely’s not going to make us wealthy,” stated Fund, 70.
She views that turbine in a lot the identical method her mom and aunt noticed the oil leases on the farm within the early Nineteen Eighties.
“They struck oil, so now we have a few oil wells on our land. They helped my mom in her previous age,” she stated.
Certainly, throughout the farm nation the place inexperienced power is now controversial, pump jacks and gasoline wells have lengthy extracted from the bottom beneath to create a far much less inexperienced type of power. Nemaha County is dwelling to 22 oil wells and in 2022 produced 33,788 barrels of oil, sufficient to make as a lot as 675,000 gallons of gasoline.
The state as a complete has greater than 48,000 oil wells and 19,000 pure gasoline wells in manufacturing in 2023.
It’s a type of karma, Fund stated. “You don’t allow them to extract oil out of your land after which not allow them to put up a turbine.”
They signed a lease in July 2018 that gave a three-year choice for NextEra to discover use of their land as a web site for a possible turbine, however solely after a number of months of communications with the wind farm consultant, visiting different windfarms to see what it felt prefer to be close to generators and a variety of analysis.
“I actually need to confess I didn’t suppose anyone would oppose it,” she stated. “I imply, why would you?”
She was unsuitable. Issues shortly acquired testy, a lot of it organized by Fb. Audio system railed in opposition to wind and stacks of a misinformation-filled ebook appeared on the counters of native companies and native libraries all winter lengthy.
“It was by no means clear who introduced these into the county, however the web site of South Dakotans for Protected & Accountable Renewable Power provides a case of 30 for $1,000 donations,” she stated.
The furor over the plan made the couple enemies within the place they’d lived collectively for 45 years, the place the place Fund grew up.
“There are individuals who don’t discuss to one another anymore, and individuals who grudgingly moved on and speak about the whole lot however the wind farm,” she stated. “I’ve acquired a neighbor who received’t discuss to me, however her husband will.”
In the long run, county commissioners voted to approve the wind farm in 2019. It was in-built 2020 and now brings about $900,000 in taxes to the county every year.
That’s on high of the lease funds made on to landowners together with Mary and Ed.
The Soldier Creek generators dot a spare, wind-swept panorama of farms, grazing land, creeks and woodlots.
Dwelling close to the generators hasn’t bothered the couple. On quiet nights they will hear each the turbine and the oil wells.
However theirs appears prone to be the final wind energy that will likely be in-built Nemaha County. After the primary conditional use permits had been accredited in early 2019, the county fee handed a moratorium on new tasks in Might of 2019.
In October of 2023 they handed a decision extending the moratorium for an additional yr. A brand new County Complete Plan paperwork opposition to additional wind power and successfully warns off builders.
When the Knoches first started contemplating the potential for a photo voltaic venture on their land, they had been each of their 80s. Doc was nonetheless having fun with his pastime of going up in a gas-powered grasp glider. Three of their kids had been nonetheless of their 50s and so they solely had 11 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.
In December 2023, everybody was older. Doc had stopped flying and suffered a fall. Donna needed to be extra cautious when she walked.
They usually weren’t a lot nearer to having a deal.
Each Douglas and Johnson counties have handed new zoning laws surrounding photo voltaic. In Douglas as of 2022, tasks are restricted to not more than 1,000 acres and have to be at the least 500 toes from present residences. In Johnson, there’s a cap of two,000 acres per venture and a one-and-a-half mile setback from neighboring cities.
One other photo voltaic venture, which had nothing to do with their land, is now additionally going by the method in Douglas County. It ended the yr with a packed planning assembly that went previous 2:00 am on Dec. 19, which is now headed to yet one more vote by the county fee.
The Knoches proceed to stay of their modest rambler, stuffed with pictures, mementos. They go to kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They provide donuts to company and pull out scrapbooks with clippings concerning the venture together with books on the household’s historical past within the space.
Each marvel on the adjustments they’ve seen of their lives. Donna tells of rising up with kerosene lamps and remembers once they first acquired an Aladdin lamp, which burned kerosene however used a mantle as a substitute of a wick.
“It was nearly like evening and day in comparison with that previous kerosene lamp,” she stated. “We didn’t get electrical energy out within the farm till, it was 1947 or 1948, once I was in highschool.”
Doc ponders the shifts in a state the place he first plowed with horses and mules. As he testified to the county fee, he’s not afraid solar energy will flip the county’s farmland into an industrial wasteland.
He’s afraid of the fixed push to show farms into subdivisions.
“Out right here,” he stated, “I feel in 5, ten years you may be glad it is there as a result of you are going to be crowded out by different individuals.”
This story was produced with assist from the McGraw Middle for Enterprise Journalism on the Craig Newmark Graduate Faculty of Journalism on the Metropolis College of New York.
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