To the board of adjustment,
In May, at the first NGR hearing, we heard from several people who said, “We just shouldn’t take good farmland out of production”. Others complained that the energy produced might be exported to other states – or that their own view and their quality of life might be harmed.
I’ve thought a lot about that in the days since, as I walk “my road”, talk to my neighbors and reflect on the 30 years I’ve lived and farmed here, and the changes, both good and bad, we’ve faced in Greene County and across the Midwest.
In Iowa – and in Greene County – corn grows row upon row, acre upon acre, mile upon mile. Ditto soybeans, with a few less acres in production of soy; the lack of diversity notable and lamented by environmentalists.
When there isn’t a soybean field to the horizon, it’s a veritable CORN DESERT – Or is it? Consider these other uses:
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) crop land, contracted with the USDA/NRCS in a multitude of practices: saving highly erodible ground; wetlands; waterways, buffers and wildlife habitat, with ten or fifteen year contracts – growing prairie grasses; filtering water, sequestering carbon – and providing annual payments that sometimes equal or exceed the cash rent that a landowner might otherwise receive. And, at the end of the contract. the land reverts to the land owner. HOW different are those contracts, payments and end result from NGR’s contracts, payments and end result?
The NEW Coop, just south of Cooper, with its lights all night and a farm’s worth of silos for its new feed mill and fertilizer storage; the ethanol plant at Grand Junction using more water that any of our small towns; John Deere planter manufacturing; garbage trucks and specialty vehicles produced at Scranton Manufacturing. All these industries on square miles of land, exporting their locally manufactured products well beyond our county lines. GOOD for Greene County – good for Iowa. NGR is ready to join the business ranks, paying taxes, add another new business first for Grand Junction and Greene County.
We feed millions of pigs, cattle and poultry in thousands of buildings, each built on parcels – at least 2 acres, many times more – all across the state! The smells, the noise, the flies, are downsides, true, but improvements in odor and insect control with pit additives; insistence on manure management best practices and the market for pork, bacon, beef, eggs, turkey and chicken here at home and abroad make livestock production a vital part of our farmscape.
Farmers do what they want with their land: We knock down buildings: too old, too decript, unused. Trees, homesteads, groves and rough timber; all met with the bulldozer for another acre, no matter how marginal; another hog building; even the truckloads of clay hidden on the river bluff or to build a road back into the pasture for grazing cattle. NGR will plant the site under the panels, providing grazing for sheep, space for growing vegetables, flowers, keeping bees. Another YES for solar.
Acres have been annexed to Waukee, Adel, even Jefferson; for schools, parking lots, a casino, dentist’s office, a dog park, or another housing development. Urban sprawl may be a curse – but its also a blessing. Each new family, new school, new business, means Greene County and Iowa are growing. Providing Solar energy is another growth opportunity.
SO if you or I decide to put land into CRP instead of corn or soy; or sell a farm to build a new business or a new school; or put up a wind tower within the community; or contract with National Grid Renewals for rents more than the government contracts; aren’t we adding to the progress of our community?
AND if by welcoming an up-and-coming solar business, we make a difference in the amount of coal, fossil fuels and even ethanol that gets used here in Iowa? AND If our land sequesters carbon, AND grows pastures to feed a few sheep, AND provides for bees for pollination of crops and honey AND produces and adds clean sunshine energy to the grid? Isn’t that a win for all of us?
National Grid Renewables listened in May – they heard our concerns. They went back and addressed those, too; not just the Emergency Plan that was asked for, but many community concerns. The Application meets the Greene County ordinance. NGR has shown a willingness to work with landowners, neighbors and the County to bring a viable project forward and have shown they will work with us in the future.
Christina Henning, Franklin Township
