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.”… 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.
Source: KCUR News
