Supporters and opponents of the proposed Frasier Solar project will formally testify before the Ohio Power Siting Board at a public hearing Thursday night in Mount Vernon.
The proposed 120-megawatt solar project has divided neighbors and amassed supporters and opponents, including one seemingly well-funded opposition group that won’t disclose who is backing it.
“There have been so many things that have happened here that I thought would never happen in our little community,” said Kathy Gamble, founder of the group Knox County for Responsible Solar.
For example, Gamble and other county residents received an apparently anti-solar newspaper in their mailboxes. It had large headlines asking questions such as, "Could the Texas Power Crisis happen in Ohio?"
“It was called Ohio Energy Reporter, and I've never figured out really where it came from, you know,” Gamble said.
The Chicago address listed on the newspaper goes to a company that provides mail services to groups without addresses.
Running an election on solar
The day before the March primary election, voters received mailers supporting Republican County Commissioner candidates Barry Lester and Bill Phillips. The fliers said they were paid for by the Buckeye Conservatives PAC, a political action committee formed just 10 days before the election.
Is it unclear who is behind the PAC, and campaign financing for the election does not have to be reported until April 26, according to Ohio law.
Lester, one of the candidates backed by the PAC, won his primary.
Another outspokenly anti-solar candidate, Drenda Keesee, won a primary for a second county commissioner’s seat.
Frasier Solar
Solar power has been a hot topic in Knox County since the announcement of the roughly 800-acre Frasier Solar project. It would bring about 250,000 solar panels to a spattering of disconnected farm fields in Clinton and Miller townships, just south of Mount Vernon.
The project awaits approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board.
Gamble said she will speak at the Siting Board’s upcoming public hearing.
“There's a lot of fear in Knox County about the change coming, and I'm trying to ease that fear,” Gamble said.
She plans to talk about farmers’ rights to lease their land, tax benefits for the schools and county, a plan to graze sheep under the solar panels, and of course, clean energy.
“There's lots of reasons why solar would benefit not only the landowners with the money they get from leases, but everyone's interests,” Gamble said.
Opposition to the project
But “the opposition,” as Gamble and other pro-solar neighbors call it, will also speak.
Two organized groups, Preserve Knox County and Knox Smart Development, oppose the Frasier project. Both have filed as parties in Frasier’s Ohio Power Siting Board case.
Gamble describes Preserve Knox County as a grassroots group that started with Miller Township residents. It’s the entity behind the yellow signs reading “no industrial solar” that dot the township and Mount Vernon roads – often just one or two houses away from Gamble’s green “yes solar” signs.
Knox Smart Development, on the other hand, seems to be very-well funded, according to Gamble and Kathiann Kowalski, a journalist reporting for Energy News Network.
Knox Smart Development has held large town halls with refreshments and placed ads in newspapers and online. It was incorporated by Mount Vernon resident Jared Yost, who could not be reached for comment.
The group’s website boasts that 18 resolutions signed opposing solar, including by Mount Vernon City Council and raises a variety of concerns.
“It’s important for the public to know who is who as they speak. It's important for the public to know what the substance of different arguments is."- Journalist Kathiann Kowalski
Anonymous funding
Kathiann Kowalski attended Knox Smart Development’s November Town Hall.
“The meeting was packed. I was surprised to see it that full on a weekday night, especially on a cold weekday night,” Kowalski said. “And the speakers were very well organized.”
Gamble was outside the same town hall meeting and said a representative of Frasier’s development company, Open Road Renewables, was denied entrance even though he had a ticket.
At the event, Kowalski said she asked Yost who funded the event. “And he said, you know, that they were funded by a group of people who wish to remain anonymous. And he never has directly answered who is funding them,” Kowalski said.
Because Knox Smart Development is a limited liability corporation, it does not have to disclose information about its funders.
Kowalski found that the event’s emcee, Tom Whatman, works for a group called Majority Strategies, which is a high-paid contractor for the pro-natural gas Empowerment Alliance. “It's a group that could be called a dark money group, because it's not required to disclose its funders,” Kowalski said of The Empowerment Alliance.
Kowalski connected The Empowerment Alliance to Ariel Corporation, a corporation which makes compressors for the natural gas industry. Ariel Corporation is headquartered in Mount Vernon.
Kowalski said she believes it’s important to think about why people are either supporting or opposing a project.
“It’s important for the public to know who is who as they speak. It's important for the public to know what the substance of different arguments is,” she said.
As for Gamble, she is cautiously optimistic that Frasier will earn Siting Board approval. “If they hear the facts, as well as all the emotion, they will be able to sort through it,” Gamble said.
Thursday’s meeting is at 5 p.m. at Knox Memorial Theatre in Mount Vernon. A legal judge from the Ohio Power Siting Board will hear testimony from the public in the order in which people sign in.
