They hoped solar panels would secure the future of their farm. Then their neighbors found out

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/02/04/solar-power-in-kansas/ [login to see] 7/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rasa_io&utm_campaign=newsletter
Yellowstone! This story is a small scale parallel, in the opposite direction, to the popular TV Show. The TV show does a good job of explaining environmental resources impacts. This USA Article does a great job of identifying emotional human elements, and that’s good because we always need to look at humanity. What is missing from this story? Scientific facts. Any honest discussion about infrastructure needs to weigh more on the scientific/environmental facts, this is the biggest critical item that USA Today neglected in this article. This is why USA Today is a Leftist Publication because they stir up strong emotions that people just can’t see beyond. Back to an evaluation of this article…

A proper environmental evaluation (EA) of these Counties would look at the “existing resources” in the area that may be: soil, what lives in the soil, is there water in the soil, what is the quality of that water, vegetation cover, insects present, what wildlife lives in the area and what does everything eat to survive, is there any aquatic life, what is it’s quality, T&E Species in the area, what birds live in the area, what do they eat, air quality, and everything between. The EA establishes all the codependences between these items, and maybe more.

Now you bring in the development, in this case solar panels, wind turbans, and transmission lines required, and evaluate if it will change the vegetation, water, air quality, insects, and wildlife. There may some other things to look at on a case by case basis.

Article Quotes: “The Knoches have six children, 11 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. As they approached their 90s, they’d wrestled with how to divide the 1,190 acres among all those heirs.”
“The problem with these concerns is that almost none of them are true.”
“Many opponents sported T-shirts that read “County Commissioners: Protect our Quality of Life. Let us help you draft regulations that stop INDUSTRIAL SOLAR.”
“There are people who don’t talk to each other anymore, and people who grudgingly moved on and talk about everything but the wind farm,” she said. “I’ve got a neighbor who won’t talk to me, but her husband will.”

What’s the right and wrong of this story. You can see now we will never tell from the reporting USA Today performed. Their reporting was terrible. Even if no EA was performed for this development, in my mind as journalists, they still have a responsibility to identify areas that need to be looked at besides just the human element. I spent a lifetime designing, constructing, and evaluating infrastructure projects and I can say when I see bad reporting like this, it always makes me angry and sad that special interests try to fool people into doing what they want. It’s that simple.

Thank you for your patience in reading all this. It is a complex topic.