[A community turns on itself over the aptly named Mammoth solar
project, a planned $1.5bn power field nearly the size of Manhattan]
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‘IT’S GOT NASTY’: THE BATTLE TO BUILD THE US’S BIGGEST SOLAR
POWER FARM  
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Oliver Milman
October 30, 2022
The Guardian
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_ A community turns on itself over the aptly named Mammoth solar
project, a planned $1.5bn power field nearly the size of Manhattan _

Farmer Norm Welker on his land in Starke county, Indiana, where a
solar power field is being constructed., Taylor Glascock/The Guardian

 

When proposals for the largest solar plant ever conceived for US soil
started to gather pace – a plan that involves spearing several
million solar panels into the flat farmland of northern Indiana
[[link removed]] – something in Connie
Ehrlich seems to have snapped.

Ehrlich, 63, is part of a longstanding farming family in Pulaski
county, the site of the new solar project, but doesn’t live in the
county and previously only rarely dabbled in its usually somnolent
local politics. She has carved out a comfortable life in a sprawling
mansion set on 10 acres (four hectares) of land, just outside the city
of Lafayette, and is known locally for her donations
[[link removed]] to
medical research and her small fleet of deluxe cars with personalized
license plates.

But to Ehrlich the idea of transferring 13,000 acres of prized
farmland to solar energy production seems to have been so unthinkable
that it demanded an extraordinary response. Within months of the
project being proposed she had mobilized her wealth to fund a flurry
of lawsuits, spearheaded a sometimes-vituperative pressure group and
spent $3m buying new plots of land, including a cemetery, on the
fringes of the project.

Ehrlich even acquired an office next door to the solar developer’s
own premises – and in its window a cartoon has been placed showing
Joe Biden shoveling cash into the mouths of solar developers, depicted
as pigs in a sty.

The solar farm, which could have its goal of completion next year
delayed because of the lawsuits, has stirred up strong feelings among
some in Pulaski. “It’s got nasty, really nasty,” said Derrick
Stalbaum, a hog farmer who also acts as president of the
county’s board of zoning appeals
[[link removed]]. “It’s surprising as we live
in a quiet area with a huge sense of community usually.”

The opponents of the solar project, a $1.5bn venture appropriately
called Mammoth that is set to span an area almost as large as
Manhattan, say they are defying an egregious assault on time-honored
farming traditions and are standing up to a newcomer that threatens to
warp their pastoral way of life with Chinese-made technology. “We
need to protect America’s farmland,” Ehrlich wrote in a February
post for the Pulaski County Against Solar
[[link removed]] group’s Facebook page
[[link removed]]. “Not only from
being sacrificed for the inefficient, unreliable energy generation,
but from foreigners’ interest!”

One of Connie Ehrlich’s anti-solar billboards in Winamac,
Indiana. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The Guardian

The ongoing fight is a sobering reminder of how Biden’s ambitions
for a mass transition to renewables, aimed at averting the worst
ravages of the climate crisis, will in significant part be decided by
the vagaries and veto points of thousands of local officials, county
boards and Connie Ehrlich-style opposition across the US.

Localized battles over new solar projects threaten to proliferate as
the industry, buoyed up by the huge tax credits available for clean
energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, seeks to expand. Over the past
year, solar projects in Ohio
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all been delayed or sunk by irked local people. Ordinances restricting
solar, wind and other renewable energy facilities have been passed in
31 states
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The prospect of solar energy projects occupying a chunk of American
land has stirred unease among farmers, and even among some
environmentalists, that valuable forests, wetlands and fertile soils
may be sacrificed. If the US really is to zero out its carbon
emissions by 2050, researchers at Princeton University have estimated
[[link removed]] that solar
production could have to grow more than 20-fold, occupying an area
that, put together, would be equivalent to the size of West Virginia.

“We are absolutely seeing local opposition to solar arrays across
the US,” said Samantha Levy, climate policy manager at American
Farmland Trust. “About half of solar development is going on the
best, most productive farmland and that is causing some concern
because it’s not like we are making more land. We need to have a
smart solar buildout and not hollow out these farming communities.”

But for developers, the challenges posed by opponents such as Ehrlich
are infuriating. “It’s just throw spaghetti and see what
sticks,” said Nick Cohen, chief executive of Doral Renewables, the
Israeli-founded developer behind the Mammoth project in Indiana. “It
only takes one person to file a lawsuit and this feels like a
one-person crusade to burn down the town.”

Cohen said his dealings with Ehrlich have been “civil but direct”
and that Doral holds out hope of being an amiable neighbor to its foe.
The project won’t fell trees or disturb any fragile ecosystem, he
pointed out. “If people have real concerns we can work it out,”
Cohen said. “But the conduct here is so irrational and perplexing.
Connie and [a] small group of followers are working against the best
interests of the entire community.”

The episode is also a demonstration of how an era of toxic politics
and vicious online vitriol can quickly sour a community like Pulaski.
Some people have left their church because of arguments with other
congregants over the solar plant, while even family members have been
at odds with one another.

Stalbaum, the head of the board of zoning appeals, said while most
people in the county are either supportive or apathetic about Mammoth,
a faction of people are so outraged they have taken to following and
videoing him and other members of the board, or idling in cars outside
their homes.

Derrick Stalbaum, the president of the Pulaski county board of zoning
appeals. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The Guardian

Anonymous phone calls, meanwhile, were made to a school where Stalbaum
was previously a teacher to cryptically warn that he was not suited to
be around children, he said. On Facebook, supporters of the project
have been called “roaches” and “traitors” and, in one
instance, seemingly compared to Adolf Hitler. “I can only imagine
how intimidating he is around children!!” one poster wrote about
Stalbaum.

This is no longer really about the solar applications; it’s more
about driving the community apart

Derrick Stalbaum

“This is no longer really about the solar applications; it’s more
about driving the community apart,” said Stalbaum. “I have been
attacked pretty hard for this, simply because this project meets our
county requirements.”

Much of the debate in Pulaski county about solar has become entangled
in national resentments, with several unprompted attacks on Biden in
public hearings for supposedly forcing through the Green New Deal, or
for allowing Mexican immigrants to somehow take precious farmland
along with the solar developers. In Pulaski, a county where Donald
Trump outperformed Biden four to one in the 2020 election, flags
hanging outside homes declaring “Let’s Go Brandon” and, less
euphemistically, “Fuck Biden” are commonplace.

Pulaski county appears to be an otherwise unassuming location for what
will be one of the largest solar projects in the world. A rectangular
slice of agricultural northern Indiana, Pulaski is home to about
12,000 people, a number that is declining, and a lot of corn.
Peppermint is grown here, too, and sold to the Wrigley Company for gum
flavoring.

A ripple of excitement was felt in nearby Fulton county in 1978 when
the partial skeleton of a hulking mastodon was discovered
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a drainage ditch, exquisitely preserved in peat. It was this
10,000-year-old specimen that would give the Mammoth project its name,
although Doral was more excited by quirks of infrastructure and
geology – the area has flat, sandy ground ideal for solar and is a
meeting point for two vast electrical grids, called MISO and PJM, that
service tens of millions of Americans and will allow Mammoth to dump
converted sunlight into both of them for consumption.

In July 2019, Cohen was introduced to a farmer named Norm Welker.
Welker’s land, Cohen said, was “right on the bullseye, exactly
where you’d want to be.” Transmission lines run through Welker’s
fields in Starke county and, crucially, Welker himself has been
unsentimental about turning away from half a century of planting and
harvesting corn on this land.

“You couldn’t dream of a better project for us,” said Welker, a
62-year-old who has a short, clipped moustache and is almost more
enthused by the idea of solar than the developers themselves. The
money helps, of course – Welker’s 1,075 acres in Starke county
will be leased for the next three decades at $1,000 an acre a year.
“It’s five times what I’d make through corn,” he said.
“It’s crazy money.”

Construction began on Welker’s land earlier this year and a
grid-like pattern of pilings driven into the soil is already in place.
Long steel tubes are placed horizontally upon the pilings, with
brackets on top to affix the solar panels, which are awaiting
clearance for import from Malaysia. Wiring dangles from some of these
poles, and cables lie in partly dug trenches, ready to connect the
output to an inverter which will then help propel electrons into the
grid.

The panels will automatically rotate east to west, chasing the sun
throughout the day, shaking off snow in the winter. But the whole
system is fairly simple to slot together and is shorter than the
serried ears of corn Welker would normally grow here. “It’s so
passive, I mean, it’s even more benign than wind,” said Kevin
Parzyck, a senior project manager for Doral. A few years ago,
officials in Pulaski rejected an application to build wind turbines in
the county. “With wind you’re actually spinning a generator,”
Parzyck said. “The crickets make more noise than these solar panels
do.”

To Welker, solar is an evolution of farming rather than a betrayal of
it. He already harvests the sunlight for his crops, he reasons, and
considers fears of food shortages by taking land out of production
overblown given that 40% of all US corn is already mashed up for
another form of energy – ethanol, which is added to gasoline.
Farmers are also routinely paid by the federal government to keep
tracts of land free from crops, in order to bolster the price of
corn.

Mammoth Solar’s Pulaski county office is located next to the Pulaski
County Against Solar storefront. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The
Guardian

The rows of nodding metal and glass will contrast with the surrounding
fields of corn, but it’s a moot point
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to whether they are more unnatural or harmful to the surrounds. Wild
grasses and wildflowers are springing up around the metal pilings,
bringing back insect life to a landscape that is typically bombarded
by pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. America’s corn belt, which
stretches from Indiana to Nebraska, produces a fifth of the world’s
maize, a stunning feat of agricultural might that has deforested
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areas, stripped away topsoil and made the land, by one measure, 48
times more toxic
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was 25 years ago.

It blows my mind! It’s my farm – why do I need my neighbor’s
permission to do this?

Norm Welker

“I’m gonna retire, I’m gonna restore habitats – it’s likely
there’ll never be a cornfield here ever again,” said Welker. He
has a further 500 acres in Pulaski county he hopes to give over to
solar, too, but there he faces the tenacious obstacle of Ehrlich, whom
he knew as a neighbor when she went to community college in
Indianapolis and then married Donald “Jerry” Ehrlich, founder of
the Wabash trucking company.

Now the relationship is somewhat strained. “It blows my mind! It’s
my farm – why do I need my neighbor’s permission to do this?”
Welker asked, suddenly enraged. “I’m not doing any harm to you.
What’s the deal with this woman? These people are nitwits.”

The Guardian made multiple requests to Ehrlich and her lawyer for
comment. There was no response to these requests.

An inflatable rat displayed near the Mammoth headquarters in Monterey,
Indiana; a man riding a tricycle in downtown Winamac, Indiana; and a
sign for the Global Harvest church in front of a solar field under
construction in Monterey, Indiana. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The
Guardian

The Mammoth project – which will generate 1.3 gigawatts of renewable
energy, enough to power more than 200,000 households annually
in coal-dependent Indiana
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is split into three distinct areas encompassing dozens of landowners,
which looks on a map like a collection of Jenga blocks scattered on to
the landscape. Two of these areas are in Pulaski, which has a county
ordinance that requires special hearings to consider changing the use
of land for solar. This opportunity to stymie the project was seized
upon by Ehrlich and her group.

The first hearing – by the county’s board of zoning appeals, a
five-member body that issues typically mundane decisions about land
use – in July 2020 was eagerly anticipated. Outside, people
livestreamed proceedings via their phones and speakers were set up so
the overflow crowd could listen in. Inside, Stalbaum tried to maintain
a sense of order.

A procession of local residents stepped up to speak at the microphone,
the supporters of solar stressing it would help sustain farms for
future generations and raise vital tax revenue for ailing public
services. Opponents, meanwhile, were more pointed, often invoking a
divine plan for this land and taking aim at local officials who would
stray from this.

“I don’t want my back yard to be a guinea pig!” exclaimed Riley
Cervenka Tiede, Ehrlich’s niece, a recording of the meeting shows.
“As a farmer I take great pride in the beautiful land that God has
blessed us with and believe it should stay to be used to grow
crops.” Tiede warned that property values would decline if solar
arrived – there is somewhat threadbare evidence
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this – and raised the spectre of a disastrous fire.

A downtown stretch of Winamac, Indiana. Photograph: Taylor
Glascock/The Guardian

On the Facebook streamed comments, people pondered if birds and plants
would be fried by the glare from the panels, perhaps in response to a
different, and unusual, type of solar farm in California that caused
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birds to spontaneously combust after flying into its beams of
concentrated sunlight. “Firefighters, police, please stand up,”
Tiede implored, as applause thundered for the first responders.
“Their lives are more important than a few landowners getting
money!”

I believe the land should be used the way God intended it to be

Mark Cervenka

When Origer attempted to explain that revenue from Mammoth could be
used to help lower taxes for landowners – Mammoth will plow about
$1.5m a year into Pulaski’s coffers, about a fifth of the county’s
revenues from income tax – a man off camera shouted, “You’re
full of shit!” Mark Cervenka, Ehrlich’s brother who farms land in
Pulaski, said locals had been ambushed by a “disturbing, frightening
and disgusting” solar plan. “I’m a farmer and always will be. I
believe the land should be used the way God intended it to be,” he
added.

Things get so heated at one point a woman stormed toward the board
members and started shouting indecipherably at them while holding up
her phone. Stalbaum asked two burly sheriff’s deputies to remove her
and muttered, “You’re not helping your cause here.”

Norm Welker on his land in Starke county, Indiana. Photograph: Taylor
Glascock/The Guardian

The board voted unanimousl_y_ to allow a special exception for the
solar project in the wake of the gathering, although with conditions,
pushed for by Ehrlich and allied local resident Jennifer Knebel, that
new trees will block the sight of the solar panels, noise will be kept
to a minimum and wide buffer areas of open land will be kept at the
project boundaries. Just 20% of the project area will be covered by
the actual solar panels, which are disparagingly called a “sea of
black glass” by opponents.

Ehrlich has not been sated by this partial victory. According to
Knebel, the group has spent “hundreds of hours” pondering the
issue, usually coming to hearings with reams of notes to read out.
Doral has had to muster a cadre of experts to counter claims the
silicon and aluminum panels will give off deadly radiation, or that
they will kill sandhill cranes by blinding them or will leach poison
into the soil.

“I feel like they got just about everything they could get apart
from outright banning solar,” said Origer. “But whatever everyone
did, it wasn’t enough. I have to conclude that it is at least
partially an ideological thing. Ms Ehrlich simply doesn’t think that
solar is good.”

Power lines stand near what will be the interconnection point of the
Mammoth solar project. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The Guardian

In a flurry of online posts, op-eds and speeches, Ehrlich has claimed
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developers “prey upon financially struggling counties”, questioned
the efficacy of renewable energy and complained that the energy
generated won’t be used by the county itself, a striking protest
given Pulaski farmers’ routine sale of corn to be consumed across
the US.

“How can some landowners believe they have the right to do whatever
they want with their land while destroying someone else’s property
and quality of life?” Ehrlich posted in July last year on her
group’s Facebook page.

Public records show that Ehrlich has spent about $3m to buy three
plots of land in Pulaski since 2020, including a cemetery near the
town of Francesville. Some of the land is within a mile of the planned
Mammoth project. Meanwhile, Ehrlich and eight other complainants
have filed
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try to overturn the approval of the land use, dispute a tax
abatement given to Doral
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stop the county’s subsequent move to make it easier for developers
to set up in Pulaski county.

In September, Ehrlich got some reward for her efforts – the Indiana
court of appeals ruled
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Mammoth had not submitted a complete application for the project’s
zoning. The state supreme court may now be called upon for further
judgment, although the developers do not expect to be halted by what
they frame as an administrative redo.

“It doesn’t make much sense to me that she would purchase land for
very high prices in the neighborhood if she thinks property prices
will go down because of the project,” said Cohen. “She hasn’t
been willing to compromise to discuss a mutual solution. All of the
millions of dollars we are spending on lawsuits, that could’ve been
put into the community. There’s nothing I would like more than to
have them as our friends.”

Mammoth Solar’s Pulaski county office in Winamac,
Indiana. Photograph: Taylor Glascock/The Guardian

A detente doesn’t appear likely, however, if you take a trip to
Doral’s project headquarters in Winamac, a small town that is
Pulaski’s county seat. On the main road into Winamac is a huge
billboard that reads “No to industrial solar” and, once you get to
the Doral office, the opposition is hard for the developers to ignore.
Ehrlich spent $100,000 on a former cigar store, public records show,
that is a footstep from Doral’s own office. The windows are
plastered with anti-solar posters, including the cartoon of Biden
shoveling cash into the mouths of solar developers depicted as pigs.

“Protesting – that’s Connie’s job,” said Welker, as he
looked at the strange juxtaposition of the two offices. “Nick and I
stopped in one time and tried to have peace talks, but she’s just,
‘No. I’m here to save Pulaski county from solar panels.’
That’s her job.”

_OLIVER MILMAN is an environment reporter for Guardian US.
Twitter @olliemilman [[link removed]]_

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* solar energy
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* farming
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* environment
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* sustainable energy
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* Indiana
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