BROCK – Dave and Susan Piper say their country way of life is at risk because of a proposed solar farm and the lack of zoning in Nemaha County.

They were among 70 people who crammed a Brock Village Board meeting in August, where representatives of National Grid Renewables talked about the economic benefits of generating 100 megawatts of electricity on 1,700 acres and $16 million in tax revenue over 20 years.

Those benefits are not worth the risk for the Pipers, who built their home 30 years ago on family ground with a scenic view. They fear a scarred landscape and a departure from agricultural uses and they worry about the livability of their home.

 

Susan: “With the solar panel farming that we have researched, and this is from many states that have had this, we know that it will generate more heat and we’ve got it in front of our house, by our farmland and over behind us. It will generate anywhere between five to 15 degrees warmer.”

They worry that panels absorbing sunlight to convert it to electricity will result in a solar heat island.

They say panels absorb more sunlight than natural vegetation and the solar panels would reduce the amount of vegetation that would normally have a cooling effect.

The impact of heat islands might be minimized by the layout of the solar farm, but Nemaha County has no zoning and no regulations regarding layout.

The couple say citizens want to be heard on the subject but while the village has a one-mile jurisdiction, its ordinances say nothing about utility-scale solar power. The county board has no zoning at all.

Like the village board meeting, Dave said, there were a lot of questions left unanswered at a county board meeting.

 

Dave: “They didn’t need do anything with the county board. There’s no zoning. The county has absolutely nothing. All they can do is make sure the roads are in as good a shape when they leave as when they showed up start building it.”

Nemaha County adopted a comprehensive development plan 22 years ago. The Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association sent the county guidelines on developing zoning regulations in 2018, but the work did not gain traction. County commissioners at that time talked about land rights and the value of trusting people use their land as they see fit.

Susan Piper says the proposed zoning will give citizens more input on how the county develops.

Susan: “It’s another place for these companies to have to stop and present. They can’t just go forward without going through the zoning and then the commissioners. They would have to get that permission first instead of just going to the land owner and flashing a bunch of money because that’s what this is about. They are paying big bucks and none of these people that put this farmland in that’s around us live anywhere close to this land. None of them live on it -- … not a single one of them.”

“But it affects the rest of us that do. That’s where I have the problem. If you want to put a solar farm on your farm, live in the middle of it like you’re doing to us.”

She says that solar panels jeopardize future farming operations

Susan: “It’s kind of ruined for quite a while and that’s sad to me. This beautiful ground that God gave us to be stewards of. Farmers are to be stewards of the land and I don’t think solar farming is that.”

Without any local zoning, commercial solar farms can build 50 feet from a property line and 250 feet from a non-participating dwelling.