Hey all!
If you missed the Gustin Twp meeting regarding the Green New Deal solar takeover of our land, you can watch it in its entirety via the link below.
If you’re interested – here is my assessment…
Based on my own talking with people and seeing the discussion at this meeting, primarily only the “few” who stand to benefit monetarily seem to be in favor of this. The rest of the community does seem to strongly oppose this pretty aggressive Federal & State assault on our natural beauty and our farmland.
If you have abilities & desire to help this fight… If you are like most and do not want to see miles upon miles of solar fields here… You might want to get involved sooner rather than later as contracts are already getting signed. One BIG takeaway from the meeting is that there is NO limit on how much land can be apportioned to this. Zoning boards and commissions can be easily swayed to rezone to fit their corporate township profits or avoid perceived “lawfare” threats. They could literally fill the countryside with these industrial eyesores and take the primary benefits to this region away from us (farming & tourism).
The state itself is also going to be selling out our land to facilitate this globalist agenda. Cutting down acres upon acres of forest…
I’d imagine our federal land is probably at risk too… They’ve been chopping down TONS of trees this year…
Did you know, 130,000 acres of State Forest is slated for destruction to make way for solar farms?Did you know that the most advanced solar panels only absorb 25% of UV radiation from the sun?Did you know that 75% of that UV radiation is reflected into the surrounding atmosphere?Did you know that adverse weather events are attributed to that reflected UV radiation?130,000 acres of CO2 absorbing trees are getting destroyed thanks to Whitmer and the Democrats in Lansing; and all of this ties into the passage of PA 233 and 234 and the regulation of Solar Energy Facilities.There’s big money getting waved around, but the communities are the ones that are going to feel the impact.– Big thanks to Carrie for outlining this information so succinctly!
The more I dig and learn, the more I see that these plans only benefit the landowner (via lease – and probably temporarily), the company/developers (via federal fiat subsidies), and the township (via extorted property tax revenue and/or any “incentives” parlayed via the company or other subsidized inflation causing payouts).
There is empirically no benefit to We the People – only detriment:
- No jobs (less jobs, I’m sure in the long run). We’ll enjoy no more farms, no more tourism, no more ability to develop land for something productive…
- What little tourism we have will disappear.
- Ostensibly, hunters will have to go elsewhere… I’d imagine that there will be restrictions on hunting surrounding these to avoid “friendly fire” type scenarios. It will become just like “down state”. Not to mention the insidious destruction of natural habitat. Once this ball starts rolling… There will be little to stop it once people get the reality that their only real choice is to sell out.
- Willing to bet that local workers will not be used for the majority of the temporary labor necessary to install these. All the companies are out of state. Near zero benefit locally.
- Increased road damage due to increased truck traffic. Our roads up here are pretty nice. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying I’d like to see it stay this way.
- Increased NOISE at the home line. 55 decibels of a constant equipment hum anytime you are out doors or have your windows open is allowable by state law. I don’t know about you but, I moved up here to get AWAY from noise.
- Property value WILL decrease. I would NEVER buy a property next to an eyesore – unless I had no choice – kind of like folks who live in inner cities or other globalist ghetto wastelands. Nobody wants to live in an industrial wasteland. I grew up in one. The only way property value goes up is if someone profiteers off of this by selling to a developer wanting to do more of the same – and that is a one-off thing. People who have land that isn’t big enough for a panel farm WILL lose their ass.
- It will allow them an excuse to “not need” our dams and actual green hydro energy, even more than currently. If they drain the ponds… In several years, there will be MORE flat land available to them to fill with this impractical, empirically inefficient, and wasteful inflation driving “Green New Deal” WEF Globalist agenda.
Where to possibly go from here? Well, since Gustin is not making them give one single concession, there seems no benefit to the Township for the Township to handle this, as I understand things. Punting it to the state to handle, might buy the community some time to build a resistance. Maybe this would be a good stratagem to push toward? Maybe it’s too late? Can’t say for sure if there is no attempt to fight back.
Lots to fight. There is an onslaught against our region right now. If you can help, it is needed! Please step up!
Want some icing for this cake? look no further than Joint Resolution Y – 2022 from the Democratic Michigan Legislature.
Further Reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/21/solar-farms-energy-power-california-mojave-desert
Documents from the Township Website & Page Archive
Appendix-A.-Gustin-Township-Application-for-Special-Land-Use-Permit
Appendix-B.-Site-Plan-compressed
Appendix-C.-Participating-Parcel-List
Appendix-D.-Sound-Modeling-Study
Appendix-E.-Decommissioning-Plan
Appendix-F.-Glare-Study
Appendix-G.-Real-Estate-Adjacent-Property-Value-Impact-Report
Appendix-H.-Preliminary-Stormwater-Runoff-Memorandum
Appendix-I.-Environmental-Impact-Assessment
Narrative
Variance-Requests
Source: http://gustintwp.com/ranger-power-application/
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008183102/http://gustintwp.com/ranger-power-application/
God bless you all. 🙏🏻
Jeff
Fabulous article and summation.
Every single voting member of the Gustin Township Planning Commission SHOULD be able to give a solid answer to every question or concern you raise. If they cannot, the reasonable and logical vote they should cast is a “NO” to granting the variance request until such time as they can. It neither means they are incompetent nor uneducated – it simply means there is too much information to assimilate on too short a timeframe OR Ranger Power didn’t(of course) broach issues which were potentially negative to their case.
Look forward to attending the October 28th meeting.