After Controversy: Solar Farm Handily Permitted in Northern Michigan

I’ve covered the completely bogus non-story about “evil solar developers want to cut down virgin Michigan forest for solar” that blew up on fossil fueled social media and Fox News a few weeks ago.

We saw the workings of a well oiled global misinformation machine, as click bait stories appeared on South Asia and made the round trip to social media echo chambers in North America, as intended, see above.

The fossil funded right wing “Policy Foundation” Mackinac Center joined in with a somber lecture backed by an image of an untouched primal forest, complete with a babbling brook.

There was in fact, an offer of marginal land, made by the Michigan DNR, to a developer working on a project nearby, but the offer was refused many months ago. I walked that land on Monday. Not quite a pristine virgin old growth forest.

Ed Rivet, Director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum sent out a memo to legislators and journalists to enumerate the facts.

“You should not be surprised that this controversy was started by misinformation being reported in the media. The headlines did not read, “DNR to lease working lands for solar & buy better land for habitat and recreation.”

The media also misidentified a parcel of land containing a beloved cross country ski trail as being part of the project. The cross country ski trails will not be touched. In addition, the land in question is already transected by three power lines and hosts 14 oil wells. Finally, the media has not reported the following about the composition of the land:

• 52 acres (20%) of the land is functionally clear of trees, which includes power lines, oil wells, and open land damaged by a tornado that ravaged Gaylord in May of 2022.

• Another 127 acres (30%) was previously harvested for logging prior to being considered for solar.

• Another 80 acres (19%) is row-planted red pines that are nearing maturity and subject to what the DNR refers to as “final harvest” – essentially clear cutting. All 420 acres are managed as a forestry resource acres, NOT wildlife habitat, hunting or recreational lands.

• 33 acres (7%) is across the road from the county airport, directly in the flightpath of the runway.

Thus, 76% of the land is either clear, previously cleared, subject to future harvesting, or in a flighpath, regardless of whether a solar project is ever built. For a century, the DNR has managed “working lands” alongside its charge to preserve land for wildlife habitat, hunting, fishing and recreation. It has been leasing land for logging, oil and gas development, pipelines and power lines, and sand and gravel mining.

This is precisely the type of land the DNR selected near Gaylord. The 420 acres is less than 1/1000th of a percent of the DNR’s 4.6 million acres.”

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On Monday night, the Planning Commission was well briefed. The Chair told the crowd that there would be no discussion of the DNR controversy because it was not relevant to the matter at hand, the permit for a 1000 acre solar project entirely on private land, proposed by RWE, a large and very competent solar developer.

The Supervisor of Hayes Township, where the project is sited, spoke up and commented that the developer, RWE, had been remarkably cooperative, transparent, and willing to compromise throughout the whole process, which was handled entirely locally – putting lie to the “the state has taken away local control” nonsense.
The board ran a disciplined meeting, everyone was heard, and the project was permitted by a vote of 7-1.

If you look in the video at the top, you’ll see law enforcement officers behind Mr Stoltz. There were 3 sheriff deputies on the premises, which is unusual.
I found out later from those in a position to know, that a professional security team of 3 was also in the crowd – due to credible threats of violence against a member of the RWE team – who, you won’t be surprised, was a woman of color, and did not attend the meeting as a precaution.
The threats were thought to be from members of the Michigan Militia, activated by the mighty Wurlitzer of fossil fuel misinformation, working exactly as planned.
This is stochastic terror, and it’s standard operating procedure for the anti-clean energy crowd. See accounts from township officials and farmers below.