Rural communities battle over massive solar installations on privately owned farmland

Massive solar installations have some rural communities
in an uproar. (Photo by Andres Siimon, Unsplash)

Some farmers believe leasing crop land for solar panel installations is a way to secure a steady income in a profession marked by unpredictability. But other farmers, landowners and community members see long stretches of solar panels on rich farmland as a wasteful tragedy worth fighting over.

In Richland, Michigan, more than 2,200 acres of farmland were leased to Consumers Energy by Liberty Farms without a word of input from the community, writes Chris Bennett of Farm Journal. But once neighbors were informed, an uproar ensued, and many community members are actively working to prevent the project from moving forward.

Kate Smit's farm sits adjacent to the land Liberty Farms leased to Consumers for its 461,000-solar-panel installation. She told Bennett, "We want to stall the Consumers’ solar project until we can get a bill passed in our state senate, so that townships and counties have to vote if a solar panel company wants in." 

Smit told Farm Journal that she believes that massive solar leases like the one she's fighting in Kalamazoo County are happening all over Michigan and the Midwest.

Bill Peter, who lives two miles from Smit, doesn't consider solar installations to be earth-friendly. He told Bennett, "There’s nothing green about this green energy. I’m not sitting quietly while 450,000 solar panels permanently replace the best farm soil around.”

For many residents in rural communities, resistance to industrial solar installations persists, despite their strong beliefs in private property rights. Ed Yelton, a cattle producer in Dearborn County, Indiana, said solar and AI data center projects belong in a separate category.

Consumers' proposed installation in Richland isn't a done deal yet. Bennett explains, "The Richland Township planning commission has not yet approved Consumer Energy’s application."

Tom Vilsack, who saw Trump as a real threat to Democrats, has some advice for them

Vilsack rides a Democratic donkey into the sunset in a
Des Moines Register illustration by Mark Marturello.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who has unique perspectives to offer, has some ideas for his fellow Democrats as they regroup following an election that saw much of their traditional base abandon them for a candidate with mostly vague promises and no government experience.

"If the Democrats are interested in winning statewide races, winning presidential races, winning gubernatorial races, winning congressional seats, they can’t get crushed in rural areas," Vilsack told Alan Bjerga of Bloomberg News. "And what’s really frustrating is, they’ve got a pretty good message, if they delivered it."

Vilsack is the only original member of President Obama's cabinet left, and knows the American heartland that Hillary Clinton lost this month. He is a native of Pennsylvania and was a two-term governor of Iowa, spanning the states that spelled victory for Donald Trump. He discussed his ideas with Kathie Obradovich of The Des Moines Register.

Vilsack said he wasn't as surprised at Trump's win as most Democrats because he had significantly discounted polls that showed Clinton leading: “I travel in different places than most people do and so I was exposed to a tremendous amount of on-the-ground indications of strong support for Trump-Pence in rural areas.”

He had these suggestions for Democrats: Do a better job “of explaining to people on a regular basis the benefits of government;” properly frame and deliver their message for helping people and regions in economic transition; strengthen supporting organizations such as labor unions, perhaps by letting the public buy memberships in them; constantly build new leadership; do a better job of using social media; and “find an overarching theme or connecting message” that connects the diverse elements of the party. “There’s no message that a rural voter would necessarily say, hey, they’re speaking to me. They’re speaking about me. They’re speaking for me.” A few months ago, Vilsack said "I just sometimes think rural America is a forgotten place." Not so much now, it seems.

Waukesha, Wis., outside Great Lakes basin, gets approval to draw water from Lake Michigan

Delegates for governors of eight Great Lakes states unanimously voted on Tuesday to allow Waukesha, Wisconsin, to pump 8 million of gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan.

Absent any legal challenges, the city will become the first U.S. community located entirely outside the Great Lakes drainage basin to receive a diversion of lake water under the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement among states.

The compact was approved in 2008 to protect the largest source of fresh water in the world from diversions outside the basin. Waukesha County straddles the subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, making the city eligible to apply for lake water.

Waukesha asked for 10 million gallons per day of Lake Michigan water several years ago after its water supply became contaminated by naturally occurring radium, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. In addition to limiting daily withdrawal to 8 million gallons, Waukesha must also restrict its water service area to the city's borders, submit to performance audits and return an equal amount of the water pumped from the lake. It will return as fully treated wastewater discharged to the Root River, a tributary of the lake, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

In the months leading up to the historic vote, 38,000 citizens from around the Great Lakes basin offered their opinions on the request, 99 percent of whom opposed Waukesha's request, The Plain Dealer noted. In addition, 11 of Michigan's members of Congress urged Gov. Rick Snyder to veto the diversion request.

To qualify for an exception to the compact, Waukesha had to prove it had no feasible alternative to Great Lakes water to meet its needs. Some environmental groups argued that the city failed to meet that standard, contending that Waukesha could update its water treatment plant to remove radium from its deep groundwater wells like some of its neighboring communities have done. The environmental groups fear approval will set a dangerous precedent for future diversions, leaving it vulnerable to water-thirsty areas in the Southwest. Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly disputed that in an op-ed piece in the Journal Sentinel.

Federal agencies, farmers focused on preventing harmful algae blooms in Lake Erie

Federal agencies and farmers are working hard to prevent an algae growth disaster like the one that occurred at this time last year in Lake Erie that caused the city of Toledo to lose its drinking water for two days, reports Agri-Pulse. The Environmental Protection Agency "has teamed up with three federal agencies to improve monitoring of algal bloom growth," and the U.S. Department of Agriculture "has granted hundreds of millions of dollars to conservation initiatives across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Additionally, farm organizations within the Western Lake Erie Basin have worked tirelessly to prevent nutrients from leaving farms and feeding blooms." (NOAA photo: Algae coats the surface and gathers along the coastline of western Lake Erie each summer)

"City of Toledo officials confirmed last week that microcystin, a toxin produced by cyanobacteria present in some algal blooms, was detected in a Lake Erie intake crib three miles away from the city," reports Agri-Pulse. "This year’s bloom is shaping up to be similar in size to last year’s—National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration expects it to peak in September and measure an '8.7' on its severity scale, a number notably higher than 2014’s 6.5 rating and unnervingly close to 2011’s index high of 10. Fortunately, most stakeholders say that the city is better positioned to manage the bloom this year."

"To start, new sensors at an intake crib are operating 24 hours a day and taking measurements every 10 minutes," Agiri-Pulse reports. "Water samples will be taken at the treatment plant, and up to four times the amount of chemicals used last year will be ready for deployment when needed. The city will also have access to an early warning detection system developed by EPA, NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will help water quality managers spot cyanobacteria algal blooms with satellite imagery. The partner agencies intend to develop a mobile app that can be utilized by water quality managers on the ground, allowing for more frequent observations over more areas than in the past."

Carrie Vollmer-Sanders, director of the Western Lake Erie Basin Project at The Nature Conservancy, said, “'In the next three years, I want to see us reversing the trend' in algal bloom size," Agri-Pulse reports. She said "if ag conservation initiatives like Lake Erie’s continue to grow in strength and breadth, 'I think we’ve won, we’ve been able to turn the tides, and we’ll be able to—whatever weather patterns we have—we’ll be able to attack any natural resources issue.'” Agri-Pulse is subscription-only but offers a four-week free trial.

Ohio fertilizer law aimed at toxic algae blooms has a loophole exempting big manure users

A loophole in Ohio's pending law to require farmers to get fertilizer licenses "exempts many large dairy, hog, and poultry farmers who spread manure on their fields," Karen Schaefer reports for Great Lakes Echo, a service of the Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. The law was created in response to algae blooms found in Lake Erie that threatened water drinking water supplies for 11 million people and made Toledo's water toxic.

Roger Wise uses grass-covered buffer strips to help keep
phosphorous out of local watersheds.(Schaefer photo)

Fourth-generation farmer Roger Wise, former president of the Ohio Farmers Union, told Schaefer, "The original legislation was going to require that all the fields that were going to have the manure applied to, all the fields were going to be labeled, there was going to be a cropping plant and soil tests, and nutrient management – and all of that’s been done away with." 

Jack Shaner, deputy director of the Ohio Environmental Council, said the law, which doesn't go into effect until 2017, "requires only chemical fertilizer applicators to be certified, not those who use manure," Schaefer writes. "Shaner wants to see a watershed-specific nutrient management plan for Lake Erie’s western basin. Agricultural scientist Andrew Ward of Ohio State University agrees. But he says fixing the agricultural practices behind Lake Erie’s algae problem won’t come cheap." Ward told her, "We’re probably talking something like a hundred million dollars a year would be needed in Ohio every year, for many, many years." (Read more)

Excessive algae growth in Lake Erie turns water toxic and causes water ban in Toledo

This weekend Toledo, Ohio, residents could not use the city's water supply because tests revealed dangerous toxins likely resulting from excessive algae growth in Lake Erie. Because they were advised not to drink the water, brush their teeth with it or prepare food with it, they had to rely on bottled water or drive miles away to friends' houses to fill containers, Emma G. Fitzsimmons reports for The New York Times.

On Sunday, tests showed that the water is still contaminated. People in northwestern Ohio and southwestern Michigan are still scrambling to find clean water. "Ohio Gov. John Kasich declared a state of emergency," the Associated Press reports. Hospitals had to cancel some surgeries and send surgical equipment elsewhere to be sterilized, said Bryan Biggie, disaster coordinator for ProMedica hospitals in Toledo.

The Ohio National Guard delivered 33,000 gallons of clean water to the residents, and volunteers distributed bottled water at local high schools. No one was sure when the water ban would end. "I want to make sure that I would be comfortable with my family—my daughters and my wife—drinking the water," Governor John R. Kasich said, Fitzsimmons writes.  "When I'm comfortable with that, then I think we're in a position where we can say to the people here in Toledo that we feel good at it, and we can move forward."

Residents waited in line to receive drinking water in Toledo on Sunday. (NYT photo)

Along Lake Erie, the water is green-tinted like pea soup. After a testing at city water treatment plant discovered unsafe levels of microcystin, "a toxin that can cause diarrhea, vomiting or abnormal liver function," the city issues an urgent water notice on Saturday Morning, Fitzsimmons writes.

Officials said the water probably became toxic as a result of a harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie. The lake provides water for 11 million people, and environmental groups have showed concern about potential algae blooms before. Carroll Township, which is east of Toledo, issued a water ban last year resulting from algae blooms in the water supply. "Over the past decade, the algae blooms have steadily increased," Fitzsimmons writes.

Researchers believe the algae has grown because of manure and chemical fertilizer that has washed into the lake from farms as well as leaky septic tank and stormwater drains that flush large amounts of phosphorus into the lake. "Agriculture industry groups have been asking farmers for more than a year to reduce phosphorus runoff before government regulators step in and impose their own restrictions," the AP reports. (Read more)

Journal Register Co., owner of more than 300 newspapers, sees stock and debt ratings slide

The stock of the Journal Register Co., a Yardley, Pa.-based newspaper chain, has been falling for weeks. On Monday, the stock closed at 22 cents per share, slightly up from the day's low of 19 cents, reports The Associated Press.

As of yesterday afternoon, the stock was trading at 28 cents per share, and Moody Investors Service downgraded the company's debt rating "two notches deeper into junk territory late Thursday on concerns the publisher of the New Haven (Conn.) Register is losing too much top-line revenue to cover its repayment obligations," reports Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher.

Journal Register stock (NYSE: JRC) has been trading below $1 for the past month and is in danger of being de-listed. The company announced earlier this week that it might put itself for sale and that it had hired Lazard Freres & Co. LLC for financial advice. Fitzgerald writes that there are reports the company is considering filing for bankruptcy. (Read more)

Besides its flagship Register, the company owns 21 other daily newspapers and 310 non-daily publications in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Hartford Courant's Capitol Watch sees other signs of trouble. "When New Haven Register's longtime Capitol bureau chief, Gregory Hladky, was abruptly laid off exactly one month ago, some Capitol insiders said the already weak finances of the Journal Register Company must be worse than anyone realized," Christopher Keating writes, adding, "Hladky's position had once been considered safe by many because his articles from the Capitol appeared in a wide variety of the JRC's publications, including the weeklies." (Read more)

UPDATE, April 14: Alan Mutter explains in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog that the company is "highly profitable" but is suffering from too much debt, largely from buying a chain of papers in the Detroit area.

Arkansas town's scholarship program sends 81 percent of high school graduates to college

Only 18.2 percent of Arkansans had a bachelor's degree in 2000, the the lowest among the states except West Virginia (16.5 percent). In the town of El Dorado, Ark., a local oil company's scholarship program is trying to improve that by offering to send all local high school graduates — regardless of grades or income — to college, Steve Brawner reports for The Christian Science Monitor. (Brawner also took the photo of an El Dorado High School classroom above.)

The program has helped spark growth in the town of 22,000 near the Louisiana border. Brawner explains the renaissance:

The percentage of graduating seniors attending college has risen from about 60 percent to 81 percent. Families are moving into the school district to take advantage of the program after decades of population decline. The student body has risen by at least 140 students to more than 4,500, and this year's kindergarten class is 12 percent larger than the last. In 2007, the town passed a property-tax increase to replace its 45-year-old high school and created a local sales tax to fund economic development.

The program, called El Dorado Promise and sponsored by Murphy Oil Corp., is the latest in a line of similar community programs that are springing up around the country. (We recently mentioned one sponsored the Rotary Club in Hopkinsville, Ky.) The El Dorado program was inspired by Kalamazoo Promise in Michigan, but it has some differences, Brawner writes. In the El Dorado program, students must enroll in the fall after high school graduation, and they can attend any college anywhere, while receiving tuition and fees equivalent to Arkansas' most expensive state school. Students who have been enrolled in the El Dorado district longer receive more money, with ninth grade being the final time to enroll to be eligible for participation in the program. (Read more)

Protestant churches are expelling more members

Alexandra Alter of The Wall Street Journal reports "a growing movement among some conservative Protestant pastors to bring back church discipline, an ancient practice in which suspected sinners are privately confronted and then publicly castigated and excommunicated if they refuse to repent. While many Christians find such practices outdated, pastors in large and small churches across the country are expelling members for offenses ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service and criticizing church leaders."

Sometimes the offenses seem to be more against the pastor than the church or some higher power. Alter begins her story with the case of a rural Michigan woman who questioned her pastor's authority, and cites a woman in rural Virginia who was voted out "for gossiping about her pastor's plans to buy a bigger house." And sometimes the supposedly private actions become public; the Virginia woman "believes the episode cost her a seat on the school board last year; she lost by 42 votes," Alter writes.

"In the past decade, more than two dozen lawsuits related to church discipline have been filed as congregants sue pastors for defamation, negligent counseling and emotional injury, according to the Religion Case Reporter, a legal-research database," Alter reports. "Courts have often refused to hear such cases on the grounds that churches are protected by the constitutional right to free religious exercise, but some have sided with alleged sinners. ... Scholars estimate that 10 to 15 percent of Protestant evangelical churches practice church discipline -- about 14,000 to 21,000 U.S. congregations in total." (Read more)

Mitt Romney ran strongest in urban Michigan, but he still carried rural areas -- and evangelicals

Call it "Return of the Native," with apologies to Thomas Hardy. It appears that former Massachusetts Mitt Romney's roots in Michigan sprouted votes from him all over the state, crossing rural-urban and religious lines, as he won the state's Republican presidential primary yesterday.

Romney's margin over Arizona Sen. John McCain was larger in the state's metropolitan areas than outside them, but he still carried rural Michigan -- and even the evangelical voters who were the main target of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee but may have been less skeptical than those elsewhere of Romney's Mormon religion because he was raised in the state and his father was its governor.

"McCain made up some ground outside Detroit but failed to put together a majority in any part of the state except the Upper Peninsula," reports the Daily Yonder, which produced the pie chart. "In this region, the state’s most rural, McCain won 14 of 15 counties and beat Romney by 9 percentage points. McCain also performed well in the rural counties of Western Michigan, but Romney made up the difference in metropolitan Grand Rapids, Holland, and Grand Haven."

Huckabee got 18 percent of the rural vote, compared to 16 percent statewide. For the Yonder story, by Tim Marema, Bill Bishop and Julie Ardery, click here.

Illegally dumped deer carcasses make hunting season unpleasant for some

Some rural residents in Michigan dread the beginning of deer hunting season, because each year it brings the nuisance of illegally dumped deer carcasses. In Bennington Township, Mich., Rick and Dawn Lucas had 17 deer carcasses dropped within 100 yards of their home, reports The Argus-Press in Owosso. The problem is not a new one, but it might be getting worse due to under staffing at the Department of Natural Resources, reports Scott Atkinson. In rural areas such as around the Lucases, a lack of witnesses and patrols means the problem might not be going away soon. (Read more)

The problem is prevalent in other states, reports the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald. Outdoors editor Brad Dokken interviewed hunters and officials who said it is all too common. "'It,' in this case, is the practice of dumping deer carcasses - the bones and crud that's left over after the meat has been removed - in waterways, roadside ditches or other highly visible place," Dokken writes. "Besides being illegal, dumping carcasses is unsightly and gives all deer hunters a bad name." He also cites the latest weekly report from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources which included plenty of complaints about the illegal dumping. " You know who you are," Dokken tells would-be dumpers, "and it's time to clean up your act." (Read more)

Michigan TV station investigates aging rural housing projects

In the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversaw a program to subsidize the construction of apartments for needy rural residents. Now, some of those structures (such as this one at left) are showing their age, and residents want to see more repairs, reports WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich.

There were 15,000 small apartment projects in all, and WOOD-TV took a look at the inspection reports for the dozen rural housing projects in Kent County after residents complained about inadequate maintenance.

"In general, the inspection reports reflect signs of aging buildings," Henry Erb reports. "Worn and stained carpets, cloudy windows, pieces of siding or soffit missing. The inspector noted that at one place the owner said they didn't have enough money to replace the worn carpet. Small examples of what is happening on a nationwide scale -- a struggle to keep such federally-backed housing from becoming rural slums."

A 2004 report from the USDA found that "no property has adequate reserves or sufficient cash flow to do needed repairs," and so recently the department has tried to add funding, Erb reports. In Michigan, the USDA approved $22 million for 15 projects, but Erb writes that funding remains far below the levels of the 1980s. (Read more)

Television mini-series chronicles rural Watersmeet, Mich., and its Nimrods

Watersmeet, Mich., fits every definition of rural. It has a population of fewer than 1,500, and it sits among the streams and lakes of the state's Upper Peninsula. The tiny town and its high school basketball team, the Nimrods, will be in the spotlight when the eight-part miniseries "Nimrod Nation" debuts Nov. 26 on the Sundance Channel. The film was screened this week in Madison, Wis., reports the Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe. Members of the basketball and cheerleading squad as well as the film's director, Brett Morgen, were on hand, reports Jason Juno.

The Watersmeet Township School — which has less than 100 students — had been featured in a 2004 ESPN commercial that said, ''Without sports, who would cheer for the Nimrods?'' Those ads brought national attention to the school and its basketball, and they sparked sales of about $80,000 worth of Nimrod gear, reported The New York Times in 2004. The ads also brought Morgen to the town to film the 2005-06 basketball season.

"More a portrait of a small American town than a conventional sports documentary, 'Nimrod Nation' sympathetically observes life and conversation in the local coffee shops, hunting lodges and locker rooms as the long, cold basketball season unfolds," according to the Sundance Channel Web site.

A clip from the mini-series can be viewed here.

West Virginia has highest frequency of deer-vehicle collisions in the country

A collision between a vehicle and a deer is more likely in West Virginia than in any other state, according to State Farm Insurance claims data from all of 2006 and early 2007. The insurer said a vehicle driving through West Virginia has a 1 in 57 chance of colliding with a deer — compare that to an individual's 1 in 150 chance of being audited by the IRS or 1 in 250,000 chance of being struck by lightning in the next year. Nationally, 1 in 216 vehicles will collide with a deer.

The risk is greater during the deer mating and migration season of October, November and December. George Hohmann of the Charleston Daily Mail writes, "In recent months, West Virginia wildlife officials have said the state's drought conditions this summer also increase the danger for deer to roam closer to major roadways. The need for new food sources is pushing them nearer to residential and metropolitan areas." (Read more)

States with the highest chances for deer collisions:

1. West Virginia, 1 in 57
2. Michigan, 1 in 86
3. Wisconsin, 1 in 99
4. Pennsylvania, 1 in 100
5. Iowa, 1 in 109

Across the country, the total number of deer-vehicle collisions rose 6.3 percent last year, State Farm said. The average cost of the property damage caused by a collision was $2,900. For the full news release from State Farm, go here. A columnist in The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., argues that hunting season helps reduce such collisions.

GateHouse Media purchases 14 dailies, three non-dailies from Morris Publishing Group

A deal between two community newspaper chains will make 17 newspapers in eight states change hands. GateHouse Media Inc. announced late Tuesday its purchase of 14 dailies, three non-dailies and a commercial printing operation from Morris Publishing Group. The sale totals $115 million, reports Editor & Publisher.

The 14 daily newspapers, mainly in the rural Midwest, range in size from the 4,700-circulation York (Neb.) News-Times to the 21,000-circulation of The Grand Island (Neb.) Independent. Here is the complete list of the dailies and their circulations:

• Dodge City (Kan.) Daily Globe, 9,700
• The Newton Kansan, 7,647
• The Morning Sun, Pittsburg, Kan., 10,312
• Hillsdale (Mich.) Daily News, 7,285
• The Holland (Mich.) Sentinel, 18,345
• Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post, 8,171
• The Examiner, Independence, Mo., 14,022
• The Grand Island (Neb.) Independent, 21,204
• York (Neb.) News-Times, 4,695
• The Daily Ardmoreite, Oklahoma, 9,753
• The Shawnee (Okla.) News-Star, 8,830
• Yankton (S.D.) Daily Press & Dakotan, 7,855
• The Oak Ridger in Tennessee, 7,554
• News Chief in Winter Haven, Fla., 9,817

The deal also includes three non-dailies:

• La Estrella (Spanish counterpart of Dodge City Daily Globe)
• The Girard (Kan.) City Press, 1,300
• Vermillion (S.D.) Plain Talk, 1,630

Morris Publishing CEO William S. Morris IV said the sale is "in line with our strategic plan to focus on our larger markets and will enable us to pay down our existing bank debt." Before the sale, the Augusta, Ga.-based Morris Publishing owned and operated 27 daily newspapers, while the Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse, one of the nation's largest community newspaper chains, owned and operated 86 dailies. "This is an excellent acquisition opportunity for GateHouse," GateHouse CEO Mike Reed said in a statement. "These are strong local media franchises in small markets, many of which are near existing GateHouse properties and offer compelling synergy opportunities." (Read more)