Most of the resistance to clean energy in rural America does not come from long time residents.
The farmers who have stewarded the land, in some cases for a century or more, generally look at clean energy as a way to diversify their incomes and preserve the family land – or at least, they defend the right of any landowner to do as he/she sees fit with their property.
Often the most rabid anti-clean energy activists are well-to-do newcomers who are enamored of their “Green Acres” lifestyle, and view the farmers as little more than sharecroppers – “The Help” – Groundskeepers – whose only job is to shut up and keep growing that corn, maintaining an unchanging pastoral backdrop for newcomers lifestyles, even if they are losing their shirts doing it.
Good example is North Shade Township in Gratiot County, Michigan, where I interviewed John Peck, the Township Supervisor, and Art Kurtze, a longtime trustee.
Before wind turbines, they told me, their century-old township hall did not even have running water or a bathroom. They relied on porta potties for plumbing and an old oil burner in the middle of the meeting room for heat.
With the money from wind turbines that went in about 5 years ago, North Shade built an addition to the Hall, with men and women’s bathrooms, a kitchen, a large screen TV for remote meetings, and wi-fi.
Nearby, Carson City/Crystal High School drew upon wind funding to upgrade their stadium, track, and other facilities.
Nearby, Montcalm County has had a drawn-out confrontation over wind power with wealthy “Lake People” and real estate speculators, whose business model relies on farmers losing their land, so it can be scarfed up and turned into sprawl development, leading the charge.
Last year, Governor Gretchen Whitmer spearheaded Clean Energy siting reform that balanced the equation by giving a path for frustrated farmers and clean developers to take their appeal to the State’s Public Service Commission in Lansing.
There’s optimism that the new law, which takes effect this week, will accelerate clean energy deployment.
Mr. Sinclair – Have you done your research on Mr. Kurtze? That video with him to you embedded at the top of this article is crazy to watch. At the start of that wind project, he was vehemently against it, meeting minutes should show that he and his wife were hugely critical and antagonistic to the project.
that’s what he told me. He was originally against it, but has become a supporter based on the facts.