An aggressive, standing-room-only crowd made it abundantly clear Monday evening at a special session of the Porter County Board of Commissioners that Morgan Township roundly rejects a 1,600-acre solar farm proposed in Malden.
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The only people speaking in favor of the project at the meeting held in a large ballroom at the Porter County Expo Center were landowners who have entered into 30-year lease agreements with NextEra Energy Resources, the company planning the project, union leaders advocating for the estimated 250 jobs the project would create, and a few folks working in the solar industry but not living in Morgan Township. A handful of people not under a lease agreement with NextEra declared their neutrality on the project but acknowledged they were in fact-finding mode.
Concerns ran the gamut from disposal of the panels at the end of their life span to fear of upsetting the migration patterns of sandhill cranes, but mostly settled on what degree of noise pollution the panels would create, visual blight to the landscape and questions about toxicity. In an email Tuesday, a NextEra official said the panels will not contain lithium, a substance of concern to some at the meeting.
NextEra representative Matthew Johnson gave a briskly-paced presentation of the project planned for land between Indiana 49 and Smoke Road, south of County Road 150 South. He said the project would utilize 1% of Porter County farmland and provide $35 million in tax revenue. An economic impact study by Purdue University projected $350 million in income, he said. “That’s real money going to real kitchen tables,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, whatever,” came a loud shout from the audience that set the tone for the evening, with many more interjections to come. The crowd told Jim Finan, of Granger, the executive director of Hoosiers for Renewables who has had a career in energy including with Indiana Energy and Indiana Michigan Power, to sit down and make way for locals to speak.
Porter County Board of Commissioners President Jim Biggs, R-North, issued his first of many rebukes for the crowd to remain respectful. “We’re better than that,” he said.
Two union representatives, one representing 4,500 operating engineers based out of Local 150 in Crown Point and another representing hundreds of electricians out of IBEW Local 531 in LaPorte, spoke in favor of the project and NextEra. “The more people we can recruit and train making good wages and benefits, I think we can all agree, is a good thing,” said Local 531 Business Manager Jim Clarida, who told the crowd he lives in Boone Grove.
The vast majority of the remainder of comments were in opposition to the plan. Paul Shook, one of many Morgan Township residents who said they never received any communication from NextEra, asked how loud the panels would be. Johnson said “about the hum of a refrigerator,” or around 60 decibels.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 60 decibels is about the volume of normal conversation, while exposure to noise over 70 decibels over a prolonged period can cause hearing damage.
“You say you can’t hear it. That’s a lie,” said Morgan Township resident Connie Heplin. She said a friend who lives near an already-established solar farm elsewhere in the state drove her alongside a solar panel installation. “I got out. It sounds like a semi-truck’s tires,” she said.
A few landowners planning to lease their land for the project defended their decision. Fifth-generation Morgan Township farmer Mark Maxwell said he tried to respect the rural community in his decision to lease to NextEra, but “this farmland is ultimately our private property.”
Maxwell spoke of assessed values of farmland, what percentage of that money goes to local schools, and what percentages of Indiana corn go to which markets. “How much money do you need Mark?” demanded someone from the audience.
Bob Martin, who farms 400 acres in Washington Township, and has been a long-standing member of the East Porter County School Corporation school board, had little empathy for fellow farmers who are leasing to NextEra in the neighboring township, saying that traditional farming is quite lucrative these days. “I make a very good living on 400 acres,” he said.
“The subsidy is huge,” Martin added, “otherwise you wouldn’t be able to pay these people what you’re going to pay.”
The three Porter County Commissioners weighed in at the end of the meeting. Newly elected Commissioner Barb Regnitz, R-Center, went over the county’s 20-year-old Future Land Use Plan, explaining very little is allowed in the zone in question, as it is reserved primarily for agriculture, farming electricity not being agriculture in her mind.
“That in my opinion is a huge misnomer,” Regnitz said of the labeling of the project as a “farm.”
Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South, said she wasn’t sure the current site was the best, but felt staunchly about property rights. “I think it’s too close to where we want residential growth to occur, but I don’t want to shut it down for Porter County. I think we could find other places for it,” Blaney said.
“I think I heard you loud and clear — at least the majority of you — and I work for you,” Biggs ended the meeting.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.