UPDATE:   Adams Cty Commissioners HAVE NOT passed our Plan Committee's ordinances to protect non participating adjacent landowners with a 1320' setback. Now we're waiting for the commissioners to review and pass this as is with no changes.  Email our commissioners to pass the Plan Committee's ordinance without any modifications.

skuhn@co.adams.in.us       rmoore@co.adams.in.us sstoppenhagen@co.adams.in.us 

Adams County, IN RESIDENTS, HELP REGULATE  INDUSTRIAL SOLAR FARMS WANTING TO COME INTO our County!!!  

What do you know about solar farms?

Fields and fields of solar farms may be your view for the next 30 years!

We're losing food producing acreage!!

Currently some farmers/landowners all Adams County have signed up their farm ground for solar farms. The Solar farm projects possess a threat to the well-being of residents, “including their financial security and their right to fully enjoy the property they own, without suffering such devastating destruction of the peace, beauty, and harmony of their neighborhood.” 

The solar projects are “ugly” and “blight”.   It will have a negative effect on our water tables.  It will impact the local environment in negative ways. 

Concerns range from visual impacts to property devaluation, noise, drinking water quality, unmanaged drainage systems, health, and safety. 

The petitioning residents are requesting the banning of so called “solar farms” from coming into Adams County.  Adams County is highly populated, there are houses every ¼ of a mile throughout our county, if not closer. The Wabash and St Mary’s Rivers, Geneva’s Limberlost Loblolly habitat, and Linn Grove County Park ponds, are beautiful homes for Bald Eagles, migrating fowl, and other wildlife, that this project would be detrimental to, let alone an eye sore for our thousands of residents.  Around Adams County (Hartford/French Township) our water table is very shallow, 8 ft on some local properties.  Most solar companies’ posts are pounded into the bedrock and that bedrock around 116 is only 2-3 feet deep.  This would be like putting millions of straws into our drinking water table. 

Concerns:

1.     Visual Impact -  To construct a solar farm, numerous panels must be installed and is normally surrounded by 8’ barbed fencing. This alters the landscape in practical and aesthetic ways. The land can no longer be used for anything but power generation.

2.     Reflections from the Panels - Panel reflection is possibly the most common safety concern raised for solar developments and is commonly referred to as ‘glint and glare’ concerns. Solar panels are designed to absorb as much light as possible and reflect as little as possible. This is an issue with migratory birds. Many solar farms also came under scrutiny when an increasing number of bird deaths were reported on its premises. Many of their wings had been melted or burned off by heat from the solar farm’s mirrors.

3.     Noise - Concerns over noise can be expressed for a solar development. Sound equals to generator like noise. To provide a significant amount of electrical energy, solar farms require large tracts of land with generator like noise.

4.     Property Devaluation - The solar farms would devalue residents’ properties due to present health risks from the installation, electromagnetic exposure, visual impact, solar panels glare, drinking water table, poor water drainage management, continuous noise during the solar production (generator like noise), and habitat degradation.

5.     Electromagnetic Short- & Long-Term Health Effects - A study of real-world exposure to non-ionizing radiation from magnetic fields in pregnant women found a significantly higher rate of miscarriage, providing new evidence regarding their potential health risks, according to the World Health Association. There are established biological effects from acute exposure at high levels that are explained by recognized biophysical mechanisms. External ELF magnetic fields induce electric fields and currents in the body which, at very high field strengths, cause nerve and muscle stimulation and changes in nerve cell excitability in the central nervous system. Potential long-term effects: Much of the scientific research examining long-term risks from ELF magnetic field exposure has focused on childhood leukemia. In 2002, IARC published a monograph classifying ELF magnetic fields as "possibly carcinogenic to humans".

6.     Human Health Risks - While solar power remains a more environmentally friendly form of energy production than fossil fuel sources, it is not completely free of hazards. Toxic chemicals, including hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid, are used to clean the surface of semiconductors during PV cell production. The cells themselves contain materials that are harmful to people and the environment if improperly thrown away; these include gallium arsenide and cadmium telluride. Silicon dust produced by the PV cell manufacturing process is also harmful to people if inhaled.

7.      Fire Safety - The possibility of fires resulting from or intensified by PV systems.

8.     Habitat Degradation - The impact that solar farms have on individual species can send ripples throughout entire ecosystems. When solar farms harm or remove species within a habitat, they also remove the valuable ecosystem services that they provide to the habitat. The habitat becomes less livable for plants and wildlife that have adapted to its specific conditions. This is a GREAT concern since we have Bald Eagles, which are protected in our country, along with migratory fowl around the Wabash and St Mary’s Rivers and the Linn Grove County Park Ponds and Geneva’s Loblolly habitat .  There are nests up and down these Rivers and habitat areas.

9.     Land Use Consequences - Utility-scale solar power installations require a lot of space because solar energy collection is relatively inefficient; it can take up to 10 acres of solar panels to produce 1 megawatt of electricity. Water Supply Management may be threatened if not carefully managed.  This also eliminates acres of food producing ground.

10.   Water Maintenance & Drainage - The integrity of the water table is among the concerns that potentially toxic components of the solar equipment could leak. Around Adams County, especially Hartford/French Townships, our water table is very shallow, 8 ft on some local properties.  Most solar companies’ posts are pounded into the bedrock and that bedrock around 116 is only 2-3 feet deep.  This would be like putting millions of straws into our drinking water table. 

11.   Panel End-of-Life Management - Operations and Maintenance – Panel Washing and Vegetation Control Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) PV systems do not emit any material during their operation; however, they do generate electromagnetic fields (EMF), sometimes referred to as radiation.

12.  Energy Consumption - Solar power plants generate clean energy, but they do not yet produce enough to provide electricity for the production of all solar power equipment. Most PV cells and other solar equipment are produced in facilities that rely on fossil fuel-based power sources, such as traditional power plants. Therefore, the manufacture of these components results in the emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants that affect the air and nearby water bodies. Transporting, installing, and maintaining solar power equipment also contributes to the carbon footprint of this power source

EMAIL COMMISSIONERS!!!!!!

Skuhn@co.adams.in.us 

Rmoore@co.adams.in.us 

Sstoppenhagen@co.adams.in.us