Amicus Brief

I’m Rodney Frye. I live about five mile west of Ford. My wife and I were, federal food inspectors at, mostly Cargill, for over 30 years. We bought part of, her father’s, farm in stages. We’ve been out there a little over 30 years now. And, this invasion of these turbines and and solar and stuff is, you know, well we didn’t sign up to live in an industrial park. This is going to affect, a lot livelihoods when you take that many acres out of production that raise feed and food for the people and for the cattle.

And, even the industry of hunting. The deer, you can’t hunt around them. You can’t. The birds won’t be there. The deer won’t be there. It’s not a good thing. The whole deal is not a good thing.

I’m Brenda Frey.  I am a third generation farmer and rancher and a Retired Federal Food Inspector. The land that I we own has been in my family since 1925. We have, sixth generation boots on the ground, and, we are in hopes of keeping the ground the way it is to farm, to run cattle, to enjoy, and, hopefully, not have any destruction from solar, which really concerns me, covering up entire acres of ground and taking it out of ag production.  The businesses, the employment that agriculture brings to our area. It could be devastating.

Rodney Frey.  With regard to the energy aspect of it, you know, they they’ve already admitted it, it is not reliable energy. They have to have battery backups. They’ve got to have either gas fired or coal fired utilities to pick up the slack. You know, we have times when the wind don’t blow. People don’t realize that, but there are times when none of the turbines are turning.

And night time, solar doesn’t produce anything. I just I don’t see the point. It’s not cost effective. As far as the carbon points or whatever it is that they they’re gaining, they burn up any benefit before they ever get these things on line. The trucks it takes to haul the equipment is run by diesel.  And then they have to constantly repair them. Its only been three years on wind turbines and they are already taking them down for repaired. There’s always two or three cranes and usually about ten pickups working on the wind turbines alone. It takes two days just to change a bearing out. So tell me how cost effective these wind and solar projects are, I don’t see the point.

Brenda Frey.  We also found out was that the participating landowner is responsible for not only damage to solar panels, or to wind turbines, they are also responsible for the lack of production. I called my insurance agent and I said, “this is what’s going on…if I would sign a lease or if I would already have had one, what would I have to do for insurance? Because the energy developer/representative asked me, you have insurance, right? And I thought, yes, I have insurance…why, what you’re depending on my insurance!?”  My insurance agent told me they would have to raise our insurance coverage in the millions. So the cost is on the back on the landowner to cover himself with an insurance policy, unbeknownst of how much it would actually cost. So then Now you’re in jeopardy.  And we’re putting that burden on the next generations, fourth, fifth, six ones after us. Our future generations won’t know about all of these liabilities, they could end up losing the property to an energy company. And even though we don’t have turbines and we don’t have the solar panels, do we still need to insure ourselves, in case I let somebody shoot birds on my property or deer?  What about stray bullets that could potentially damage my participating neighbor’s solar panels. Are we liable? I mean, those are things that nobody has a clue about.

Rodney Frey. What everybody doesn’t realize, they’re talking about Boot Hill, but there’s also a whole bunch of other little projects in the works around us. We’re going to be in a minefield. Every time you take a quarter or a section out of production, there’s no hunting for that section the wildlife is going to die out or migrate away from the huge sections of solar panels.  And besides that, hunting rights. You won’t get anybody hunting because of the liability. We are known for pheasant hunting out here and for the big deer.  Hunters come out every year during the season and that drives our economy…motels, restaurants, bars, things like that.  It will all go away, it will cease to exist.

Brenda Frey. The economic health of the community, of the entire state lies in agricultural land.  You can’t produce feed for livestock and feed for humans when your land is covered up with solar panels. The footprint for wind towers and transmission lines is smaller, but it still has a big effect on the end result.  There isn’t anyone alive that can’t say they need agricultural land.  Kansas has been a source of food for forever, we have built our heritage on cattle and ag production. We have feedlots and cattle producers. The cattle go to the feedlots, from there they go to the processing plants, from there the meat goes to your food processing and grocery stores and then to the consumer. When you cover that productive ground with solar panels what’s going to happen to peoples livelihoods, employment and our local food systems.

Nearly every business in Ford County depends on agricultural products. You take that away, and over the entire state of Kansas, then you know what’s going to happen down the road? We’ll have unemployment, hunger, and poverty. What these projects are doing is putting money into the pockets of a few. Developers say they are bringing employment to the area but did you know a solar project only requires 1 to 2 maintenance people? They say that during construction they’re going to povide jobs, but local people are not experienced in solar project construction. Developers do not want inexperienced help,they want to come in and build fast. They bring their crews from other places. Our campsites and motels fill up during construction and then all of a sudden, everyones gone. When construction is complete, the end result is not employment, but unemployment.

Rodney Frey.  One of the biggest things is to preserve the heritage. I’ve stated that we’re third generation farmers. We’ve got three more generations ready to step up. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need the solar. We don’t need the wind turbines. We don’t need the the transmission lines.

Brenda Frey.  Other than the dollars going into somebody’s pocket who has leased their property, there is no benefit at all for us out here.  As far as employment, future employment, it will not exist. So preserving what we have, providing food for livestock and food for humans, we need help to maintain that.

Rodney Frey.  They used to think of nuclear as being huge, you know, big, big plants. They can make them smaller now. They’ve been on submarines for a long time. Tell me that they can’t put a nuclear power plant in every county, every state, you know, wherever power is needed, then we won’t need the transmission lines. And the government considers nuclear green.

So lets just stop the stupid. Take the money that they’re giving away for all this solar and wind, and put it where it needs to be instead…it’s that simple.