Solar farm is bad fit for community

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It seems a shame to devote 2,000 acres of prime agricultural land in a community blessed with agricultural-friendly precipitation, to a solar farm. Productive agricultural land is becoming a rarer commodity in America now that severe water shortages affect western and southwestern lands, where global warming and dwindling supplies of irrigation water make farming there increasingly less viable.

The Painter Creek Solar Farm proposed for Darke County is a bad fit for this community, for many reasons which have been delineated by residents who oppose it. The project will be an eyesore, a huge scar on a formerly beautiful and productive landscape. The guesstimate of $1.1 million dollars annually for the county from the solar “farm” does not come close to compensating for the environmental and other costs and detriments the “farm” will bring to the area. As a local genuine agricultural farm owner, I oppose the project, and suggest that it be relocated to a more appropriate location in the American Southwest.

It’s unclear why so many local government officials have asserted powerlessness to stop the project. There appears to have been no fight involved, and only limited information supplied to taxpayer residents. Even if a wink and nod to the notion that solar farming is an agricultural endeavor, it seems as if officials and affected citizens could fight the project by presenting environmental impact and protection objections, as well as building code and traffic concerns, to appropriate agencies and courts for action.

Who really benefits from this project?

Cathryn Fetzer
Greenville, Ohio

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