In 1993 we purchased a house west of Parkersburg on not quite four acres. Our home is surrounded by hundreds of acres, all owned by various landowners.
In 2022 solar tries to come into the county and we are told that we should have thought of this back when we bought the place.
In southern Montgomery County, Tenaska, a company from Omaha, Nebraska, is signing on countless landowners who are falling for the get rich quick scheme. My neighbor to the south signed in May 2021.
Tenaska and all companies like them act quickly. They sign up as many landowners as possible and they don’t want the little guy stuck in the middle knowing anything until it is too. All of these companies come with a cute and catchy name like the Cold Spring Solar Project.
Northern Montgomery County also will be swallowed up in this solar disaster if landowners have their way.
Solar is so new but is taking the United States by storm. When all is said and done we will give up the total land area of six or seven states. People are outraged as are we.
What are the health issues to those of us living by these huge industrial eyesores? What testing has been done to ensure we living by them will be OK?
These contracts are 30 and 30-plus years in length. What about decommissioning these things at the end of their contract? Where will 10,000 plus acres of solar panels go? Most of these landowners don’t know and most likely don’t care. Many of them won’t live to see the contract end.
All of these solar parcels will be fenced in by a dark fence not to exceed 12 feet tall. Can you imagine what that will do to our county? Ten thousand plus acres of solar and fencing.
There will be lighting near these things as well. The night sky will be all but gone.
The heat off of these things will be horrible. Drive by the 80 acres solar field off C.R. 150, shut off your car and listen to that hum.
I didn’t move here in 1993 to listen to hundreds of acres of solar hum. I didn’t move here to watch our property value plummet. Property is high right now. Who wants to move into a property where you will drown in solar? Who will help those of us who don’t want this? Will it be the commissioners who most likely will sign this in? Will it be the landowners who do this? Will it be the companies like Tenaska?
Will the county’s comprehensive plan be forced to do what it states and protect landowners like us?
The farmer to the south of me is keeping 40 or so acres out of his contract. He didn’t want that around him and he doesn’t understand what my problem is. I have to live with a 200-foot setback. Two hundred feet while he required 40 acres.
Another landowner close to me says he will be able to live anywhere in the world now, and guess where he doesn’t want to live — in the middle of a solar jungle.
The guy to the west of me signed over his land in Putnam County and moved into his grandmother’s home because he didn’t want to be surrounded by solar there. However, his grandmother’s house is surrounded on all four sides. That isn’t what he wanted.
Another woman who doesn’t live near her farm ground signed on but was worried about family who would live in the vicinity of it. She couldn’t put her family at risk.
Everybody is scared for their own safety, but what about the safety of those who didn’t even get a letter or hear anything about any of this until it was almost too late? Everybody wants solar, but nobody wants it 200 feet from their front door. One of these families will smother in it as it is close to their property lines on all four sides.
I have been attending commissioners meetings. I was there when one of these hosts approached commissioners and stated that without solar our county would die.
The commissioner said, “We don’t need solar. Montgomery County is doing very well without it.” Two weeks later that commissioner was all about solar. Who knows what happened in those two weeks to change his mind.
People need to wake up. This won’t work. This will destroy our rural way of life. It will take away so many farming jobs. How many families will uproot and leave this county? None of us knows what this will do to any of us.
We all know the fires and there are fires and when they happen they are a completely different ballgame.
I don’t want to be surrounded by something like this. My family and I don’t want this to be our new normal.
I cannot believe the farmer to the south of me literally asked me, if I would rather look out at nothing but fields and farm ground as opposed to solar. Considering he has been a farmer his whole life I would have expected the same thing out of him.
What about our health and safety and what about our rural way of life. We need like-minded citizens to be asking these same questions.
Penny J. Anglin
Rural Parkersburg
