County Being Lied to Regarding “Supposed Income”

[Matilda]

Post Shared By: Facebook User Ruthann Wike, in the Facebook Group: Stop Solar Farms
October 17, 2020
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Original Post Made By: Facebook User Jennifer Knebel, in the Facebook Group Pulaski County Against Solar Project
October 17, 2020

Reposting. PLEASE SHARE! This in response to a resident from another country in regards to the promises of money from industrial solar companies for our schools and county. It's long but so correct!

The County is being lied to regarding this “supposed income”.

In reality...at the end of 35 years, the loss to the community, the county, and to the Landowner will be negative, - much less than the promised tax revenue. We have a Professor of Agricultural Economics who did our analysis in Madison Cty, Indiana of what happens economically when you take 1890 acres out of production.

It results in direct, indirect, and induced effects to the sum of $2,344,737 each year, which is an $82+ million in 35 years.

Not only that, but the County’s passing these industrial monstrosities, rely upon the Developer’s bias documentation for the costs of decommissioning that is based upon “projections” of recycling. There is a better study called Decommissioning U.S. Power Plants by Daniel Raimi of Resources For The Future.

Many collaborated on this and it was funded by the National Science Foundation, a non-bias organization. They caution about using projections. The bottomline is that it will be approximately $110,000 per MW for PV panels.

To decommission our 120MW project in our county, we would need an appropriate bond of $13,200,000. And this is JUST to tear it down. This doesn’t include any amount to restore the land or compensate land owners for the loss in crop yields they will ultimately experience.

Professor Ron Heiniger, Agronomist and Soil Scientist of North Carolina University has written a document about this. He estimates $1780 per acre will be needed to restore the Ph, and reclaim/restore. Now add $213,600 and the total is $13,413,600.

Well, our ignorant county officials accepted a measly bond of $5.6 million.

Now- to the landowners eager to make lots of money, - an MAI appraiser in Kentucky is currently working on the value of a family farm now with its acreage of soybean/corn crop production and adding inflation based upon Purdue University’s modules and what it would be worth after solar panels in 35 years to go BACK to farming.

The truth is, the farmer will most likely have to decommission it because the county didn’t gain enough on the bond.

Then there will be a loss crop yield for several years, then take into consideration that many Landowners in Madison County have allowed the developer to abandon everything beyond 36” in the ground. So they now don’t have to remove cabling, wires, broken pylons, cement, etc. What does this do to the value of Prime Farmland when these items are abandoned??

Yes, it is ruined. It is actually so far ruined that it can’t even be used for residential housing bc no one can put in a septic or foundation with all the leftover items in the ground.

That crap must come out, - and then what has happened to the water source in the ground? The unknowns and concerns are many.

So- guess what the amount is that Invenergy, the developer in our County, promised we’d get in tax revenue over 35 years? $26 million...that’s it. What will happen is a 35 economic devastation is to the tune of $82+ million with an inefficient decommissioning bond leaving the county and landowners screwed to truly turn the land back to Ag production and the farmer that supposedly got all the $$ will now have to figure out how he is going to recover these losses and will FINALLY find out that the supposed “gain” didn’t outweigh all these hidden truths that I have been preaching about lately.

Lastly- the promised tax revenue by any developer is totally subjective and illusionary!

As stated above, the project is displacing an already existing income known as Agriculture, that has multiplying effects.

The new assessed value taxes may not continue or remain at the same levels. If the project gets sold to government public utilities, they are tax exempt!! Also there are transactions which can act to reduce the assessed value and thus the tax receipts including but not limited to sale/leaseback transactions, multiple sales, (perhaps to a related party or back) where the fair market value is reset with each sale, and some financing transactions that may result in reduced values and corresponding reduced tax receipts.

All of these transactions are legal and not disclosed by the Developers when they file their applications to build. And they certainly will NOT make any assurances that their promises of a particular tax amount will be permanent or that it may not be significantly reduced over time.

Without a proper ordinance or a smart fiscal body of local government (the county council) being involved to make this part of the deal a PERMANENT and FIXED tax revenue that gets paid...estimated lifetime taxes is not warranted.

And guess what....they are all LLC’s and so when it all goes south, and it will, - they can file bankruptcy and leave us all holding the bag. This whole Green New Deal is the biggest boondoggle I’ve seen in my lifetime.