Video clip included below
A sea of red descended on Indian Lake High School Thursday, Sept. 5, in response to the first of two public information meetings about the Grange Solar Grazing Center. A majority of protestors wore red to show their opposition to the development.
Presented by Open Road Renewables (ORR), the meeting featured booths and tables set up around the school cafeteria. According to Cyrus Tashakkori, president of ORR, these would address the different elements of the project and solar programs in general.
“The company is required to hold these meetings by the Ohio Power Siting Board, which is here as well,” he said. “There’s a lot of misinformation in the community.”
Their goal was to provide a comprehensive overview of the project.
If the number of attendees in red shirts was any indication, though, most weren’t there to show their support.
Nevertheless, Lea Del Hurley with Hurley Farms admitted, “It was never on my bucket list to do this.”
And Ben Davis, who teaches math at Calvary Christian School, also felt obligated to be there.
“I’m pro-solar,” Davis stated, “but this isn’t the right area. We’ve got blue herons, bald eagles, ducks and sandhill cranes that depend on this land, and they want to put solar panels on it? You can’t tell me there’s not a better place for that.”
Tashakkori gave two reasons to put the solar panels in northern Logan County: because the area imports all of its energy and because the area’s transmission system has rare capacity for the project.
“Our job here is to address local concerns and to make sure the project is as beneficial as possible to the local community,” Tashakkori added. “We are contending with a lot of misinformation and fear.”
Tashakkori said the energy created would first flow to meet demand in Logan County, and then out from there to meet the closest demand. The power would be purchased by large manufacturers or facilities like Amazon or Intel, which would provide millions of dollars per year of revenue to Logan County.
If approved by the siting board, construction on the proposed 500 MW solar facility covering approximately 2,600 acres of leased property would begin in 2026. (Editor’s note: These figures have been updated, based on information included in a legal notice in the Bellefontaine Examiner).
The ORR anticipates the facility would last approximately 40 years.
In a press release, ORR stated that, in addition to $10 million in donations, the project would generate $200 million in new revenue for schools and local services in Logan County over those four decades.
Hurley, though, expressed the main concerns for many in attendance—the abuse of prime farmland and the detrimental affects thousands of acres of solar panels would have on the Indian Lake region.
“We as business owners are dependent on people coming to the lake for our livelihood. They’re looking to destroy that, and what will that do to us?” Hurley asked.
Hurley and her team—who had their own table at Thursday’s meeting—are part of the Indian Lake Advocacy Group, which was originally started to fight the weeds overrunning the lake. They joined on as a branch of that to protest solar panels.
According to Hurley, Open Road told them they had to take down their petition table and protest signs, claiming it was ORR’s event. The advocacy group refused on the basis of the meeting being held in a public space.
“What’s happening now is the division of our community, with neighbor fighting against neighbor,” Hurley concluded. “I hope when the solar is gone, we’ll all be friends again.”