BUTLER COUNTY —About 10 miles north of El Dorado on U.S. Highway 77, a break appears in the rolling cattle ranches and farmland of the Flint hills.
It’s a different sort of farm — a solar farm. It supplies electricity to several small towns throughout Lincoln Township in Butler County.
“We’re not anti-solar,” said Terry Lowmaster, a trustee of the township, which gets some of this electricity. “We have a one megawatt here in our backyard that benefits our local residents.”
At the same time, he and other local residents protested earlier this year when a Chicago-based developer applied for a permit to build a new solar farm — a $550 million dollar, 3,500-acre project.
His reasoning for his opposition to one, and not the other? The existing solar farm is just 12 acres. Plus, it’s run by a local rural electric cooperative.
“They have an office downtown. The employees live in the area. Their kids go to school with our kids, our grandkids,” Lowmaster said. “It’s home, you know? It’s a community, and they’re part of it.”
As technology improves and green energy policy advances, solar development in Kansas is booming. Production of utility-scale solar power in Kansas is expected to increase 34 times over in the next four years.
But as out-of-state — and sometimes out-of-country — solar developers approach rural communities, many are skeptical.
Lowmaster doesn’t see why he should trust solar corporations from out-of-town. He wondered how they could be held accountable on certain promises, like the number of jobs the project is meant to create or training for local firefighters.
“They swoop in, they develop, they sell, and they’re gone,” Lowmaster said.
“They’re making tons of money.”
Hecate Energy, the company that proposed the Butler County solar farm, did not respond to a request for comment. But in July, a company representative announced at a public meeting that it had withdrawn its application to build.
PUSHBACK LEADS TO POTENTIAL REGULATIONS
In August, Butler County limited the size of solar farms and banned them in the Flint Hills ecoregion, severely restricting where the developments could go.
“The Flint Hills is basically an upside down rainforest,” said Butler County Commissioner Darren Jackson, before voting yes on the regulations. “... If we start tearing this up, we’re never going to get that back.”
