When proposals for the largest solar plant ever conceived for US soil started to gather pace, something seemed to have snapped.
Ehrlich doesn't live in the county but is part of a farming family that has been in the area for many years. She has carved out a comfortable life in a mansion set on 10 acres of land, just outside the city of Lafayette, and is known locally for her donations to medical research and her small fleet of luxury cars.
There is a solar-powered health facility inside America.
The idea of transferring thousands of acres of farmland to solar energy production seems to have been unthinkable to Ehrlich. Within months of the project being proposed she had mobilized her wealth to fund a flurry of lawsuits, spearheaded a sometimes-vituperative pressure group and spent $3m buying new plots of land.
A cartoon depicting Joe Biden shoveling cash into the mouths of solar developers has been placed in the window of an office next to the solar developer.
The solar farm, which could have its goal of completion next year delayed due to lawsuits, has stirred up strong feelings among some in the area. A hog farmer who is also the president of the county's board ofzoning appeals called it nasty. We live in a quiet area with a large sense of community.
The opponents of the solar project say they are bucking an egregious assault on time-honored farming traditions and are standing up to a newcomer that threatens to warp their pastoral way of life with Chinese immigrants. In a February post, Ehrlich wrote about protecting America's farmland. Being sacrificed for inefficient, unreliable energy generation is only part of the story.
The ongoing fight is a sobering reminder of how Biden's ambitions for a mass transition to renewables, aimed at averting the worst ravages of the climate crisis, will be decided by thousands of local officials and county boards.
Localized battles over new solar projects are threatening to grow as the industry tries to expand thanks to the huge tax credits available for clean energy in the inflation reduction act. Over the past year, solar projects in Ohio, Kentucky and Nevada have been delayed or sunk by angry locals. Thirty-one states have passed laws prohibiting the construction of solar, wind and other renewable energy facilities.
Some environmentalists worry that valuable forests, wetlands and fertile soils may be sacrificed to make way for solar energy projects. The area that would be equivalent to the size of West Virginia if solar production were to grow more than 20-fold is the estimate by researchers at the University.
The American Farmland Trust's climate policy manager said that they are seeing local opposition to solar panels. Half of solar development is going on the best, most productive farmland and that is causing some concern because it's not like we are making more land. There needs to be a smart solar buildout and not hollowing out these farming communities.
Developers are not happy with the challenges posed by opponents. Nick Cohen, chief executive of Doral Renewables, said that it was just throwing spaghetti and seeing what sticks. It only takes one person to file a lawsuit, and this feels like a crusade to destroy the town.
Cohen said his dealings with Ehrlich have been civil but direct. He pointed out that the project won't cause any harm to the environment. Cohen said that they can work it out if people have concerns. The conduct here is baffling. A small group of followers are against the best interests of the whole community.
The episode shows how toxic politics can quickly sour a community. Some people have left their church because of arguments with other congregants over the solar plant.
While most people in the county are either supportive or apathetic about Mammoth, a group of people are so enraged they have taken to following and videoing him and other members of the board, or idling in cars outside their homes.
He said that an anonymous phone call was made to a school where he used to teach where he warned that he wasn't suited to be around kids. The project's supporters have been called "roaches" and "traitors" on the social networking site. One poster said that he was intimidating to children.
"This is no longer about the solar applications; it's more about driving the community apart" I've been attacked for this because it meets our requirements.
Several unprompted attacks on Biden in public hearings for supposedly forcing through the Green New Deal or for allowing Mexican immigrants to take precious farmland along with the solar developers have become entangled in the debate about solar. There are flags hanging outside of homes that say "Let's Go Brandon" and "Fuck Biden" in a county that voted for Donald Trump four to one.
That's it.
One of the largest solar projects in the world is expected to be located in the county. The number of people in the area is declining and there is a lot of corn. It's grown here and sold to the Wrigley Company.
There was a lot of excitement in Fulton county in 1978 when the partial skeleton of a mastodon was found. The area has flat, sandy ground ideal for solar and is a meeting point for two vast electrical grids.
Cohen was introduced to a farmer. Cohen said that Welker's land was exactly where he would want to be. Welker has turned away from half a century of planting and harvesting corn on his land because of the transmission lines.
Welker, who has a short, clipped moustache and is almost more enthusiastic about solar than the developers themselves, said, "You couldn't dream of a better project for us." Welker will lease his 1,125 acres in Starke county for $1,000 an acre for the next 30 years. He said it was five times what he would make using corn. "It's insane money."
There is a grid-like pattern of pilings in the soil on Welker's land. There are brackets on top of the pilings to affix the solar panels that are waiting for clearance from Malaysia. Some of the poles have wiring hanging from them, and cables are in the trenches ready to connect the output to the grid.
In the winter, the panels will shake off snow by rotating east to west. The system is easy to fit together and shorter than the corn Welker would grow here. Kevin Parzyck is a senior project manager for Doral. An application to build wind turbine in the county was turned down a few years ago. Parzyck said, "You're actually spinning a generator with wind." The crickets are louder than the solar panels.
Welker doesn't think solar is a betrayal of farming. He considers fears of food shortages overblown because 40% of all US corn is already used for another form of energy, and he already harvests the sun for his crops. The federal government pays farmers to keep land from being used for crops in order to boost the price of corn.
There are rows of nodding metal and glass that contrast with the surrounding fields of corn, but it is not clear if they are more unnatural or harmful to the surrounding area. The metal pilings bring back insect life to a landscape that is typically bombarded by pesticides and syntheticfertilizers. America's corn belt, which spans from Indiana to Nebraska, produces a fifth of the world's maize, a stunning feat of agricultural might that has deforested large areas, stripped away topsoil and made the land more toxic than it was 25 years ago.
It is likely that there will never be a cornfield here again, according to Welker. He wants to give over 500 acres in the county to solar, but he has to contend with Ehrlich, the wife of the founder of the Wabash trucking company.
The relationship is not great. I can't believe it! I don't need my neighbor's permission to do this. Welker was angry when he asked. I'm not doing anything to hurt you. What is the problem with this lady? The people are not smart.
The Guardian asked Ehrlich and her lawyer questions. The requests were not responded to.
The Mammoth project, which will generate 1.3 gigawatts of renewable energy, enough to power more than 200,000 households annually in coal- dependent Indiana, is split into three distinct areas, which look on a map like a collection of Jenga blocks. Special hearings are required for changing the use of land for solar in two of these places. Ehrlich and her group took advantage of the opportunity to sabotage the project.
The July 2020 hearing by the county's board ofzoning appeals was eagerly anticipated. The overflow crowd was able to listen in because the speakers were set up so they could be heard. There was a sense of order inside.
The supporters of solar said it would help sustain farms for future generations and raise vital tax revenue for ailing public services. Opponents were more pointed and took aim at local officials who deviated from the plan.
A recording of the meeting shows that Ehrlich's niece said she didn't want her yard to be a guinea pig. I take pride in the land that God has blessed us with and believe it should stay to be used to grow crops. The spectre of a disastrous fire was raised by the warning that property values would decline if solar arrived.
People pondered if birds and plants would be fried by the glare from the panels, perhaps in response to a different type of solar farm in California that caused some birds to spontaneously combust after flying into its beams of concentrated sunlight. Applause thundered for the first responders as Tiede urged them to stand up. Their lives are more important than some land owners.
The man off camera shouted, "You're full of it, you're full of it, you're full of it, you're full of it, you're full of it." The brother of Ehrlich said locals had been attacked by a solar plan. I am a farmer and will be forever. He believes the land should be used the way God intended it to be.
At one point a woman yelled at the board members and held up her phone while yelling. She was asked to leave and muttered, "You're not helping your cause here"
The solar panels are called a "sea of black glass" by opponents and will only cover 20% of the project area.
Ehrlich wasn't sated by this victory. The group has been pondering the issue for hundreds of hours and usually comes to hearings with reams of notes to read out. There are claims that the panels will give off deadly radiation, or that they will kill sandhill cranes by blinding them, or that they will kill the soil by poisoning it.
According to Origer, they got everything apart from banning solar. It wasn't enough. I have to believe that it is an ideological thing. Ms Ehrlich doesn't believe in solar.
In a flurry of online posts, op-eds and speeches, Ehrlich has claimed solar developers "prey upon financially struggling counties" and questioned the efficacy of renewable energy.
Some people think they have the right to do whatever they want with their land, while others think they have the right to destroy other people's property. In July of last year, Ehrlich wrote on her group's Facebook page.
According to public records, Ehrlich has spent about $3 million to purchase three plots of land in the area. The land is close to the project. Ehrlich and eight others have filed lawsuits to try to overturn the approval of the land use, dispute a tax abatement given to Doral and stop the county from making it easier for developers to set up in the area.
The Indiana court of appeals ruled in September that the project had not submitted a complete application for thezoning. The developers don't expect the project to be stopped by what they say is an administrative redo.
If she thinks property prices will go down because of the project, it doesn't make sense for her to purchase high priced land in the neighborhood. She doesn't want to discuss a mutual solution. The millions of dollars spent on lawsuits could have been put into the community. Having them as our friends is what I want more than anything.
If you go to Doral's project headquarters in Winamac you will not see a detente. There is a huge billboard that reads "No to industrial solar" on the main road into Winamac and it is hard for the developers to ignore it. Public records show that Ehrlich spent $100,000 on a building that was once a cigar store. There is a cartoon of Biden shoveling cash into the mouths of solar developers depicted as pigs in the windows.
Welker looked at the strange juxtaposition of the two offices and said that the job of testing was done byConnie. We tried to have peace talks, but she wouldn't listen. I'm here to save the county from the sun. Her job is that.
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