Unfounded health concerns fuel solar backlash

Kevin Heath had hoped there would already be solar panels on his family farm in southeast Michigan, about 50 miles from Detroit.

About six years ago, he agreed to lease part of his land for a solar project. This would help him pay off his debts and keep the farm in the family, he said. But that opportunity was thwarted when in 2023, following resistance from some local residents, its municipality passed an ordinance banning large solar projects on land zoned for agriculture.

In the fight for solar energy development, Heath said he has been bombarded by almost every argument from critics, including claims that solar fields pose a health risk. “I’ve heard them say that, but I’ve never heard anyone prove it,” Heath said.

“The health and safety issue,” he added, “is just a joke.”

Michigan has great prospects in solar agriculture, measured by expected growth in its farms’ ability to add electricity directly to the grid. Most of the nation’s new capacity from this type of solar farm is planned this year in four states, including Michigan, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The others, with their hot deserts and plains with vast skies, seem more obvious: Texas, Arizona and California.

To some in Michigan and beyond, this growth seems dangerous. They are pressuring public officials to stop, block or otherwise complicate new solar projects with a range of arguments that now extend beyond just land use to include public health.

There is little reliable evidence to support their claims. But health concerns have helped fuel a solar backlash that is undermining efforts to expand energy sources, even as costs for customers rise.

Restrictions on solar energy development are growing nationwide, “often rooted in misinformation or unfounded fears,” including those involving “potential risks to the environment and human safety,” according to an article published late last year in the Brigham Young University Law Review.

To produce electricity, solar projects harvest energy from the sun. “And it’s really not that different from what a field of corn or alfalfa does,” said Troy Rule, a law professor at Arizona State University and author of the paper. “In fact, it’s probably even more environmentally friendly.”

Yet an Ohio state board rejected a solar project application last month, citing local opposition, even though its staff initially said it met all requirements. Among other concerns, according to the committee, opponents “testified about potential impacts on residents’ health.”

A bill in Missouri would halt commercial solar projects in the state, including those under construction, until at least 2027 while a state agency develops new regulations. The bill’s emergency clause states that this is “deemed necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, welfare, peace and security.”

And, on Michigan’s eastern edge, St. Clair County passed a new public health regulation last year that sets limits on solar development and battery storage. The move was encouraged by the county medical director who, in a memo, warned of the threat of noise, visual pollution and potential sources of contamination. Some local residents have long pressured leaders to take action, saying intrusive noise could worsen post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

According to Rule, public officials don’t always examine the validity of health claims. And local deliberations rarely compare the impact of solar farms to common agricultural practices, which can lead to fertilizer and herbicide runoff, for example, or waste lagoons from concentrated animal feeding operations.

People have many reasons to oppose large-scale solar development, said Michael Gerrard, an environmental lawyer and founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. But as for the feared health impact, he said, “there is no basis for that.”

“People try to find a justification to justify their dislike of things that they don’t like for other reasons,” Gerrard added.

President Donald Trump’s administration, meanwhile, is adding to skepticism about the usefulness of renewable energy. Among other measures, it phases out federal tax credits for the solar and wind industries.

All of this weighs heavily on efforts to build solar infrastructure. Last year, new solar installations in the United States fell 14%.

Fear versus science

Large solar developments can transform hundreds or even thousands of acres of rural land, covering them with crystalline silicon and tempered glass.

It’s a big change and people are asking questions.

Residents fear that electromagnetism and even glare could pose a health risk. They wonder whether toxic materials could seep into the ground and contaminate groundwater, if not while the solar site is operational, then in a few decades, when it reaches the end of its lifespan. This has certainly been the case with orphaned oil wellswhich were also built with security promises.

But researchers point out that the most common types of panels contain only small amounts of these materials, if any. They are enclosed and unlikely to seep into the ground. Rather than sitting in landfills when a site is decommissioned, most materials used in solar panels can be recycled (although the process can be expensive).

Craig Adair, vice president of development at Open Road Renewables, which has led renewable energy projects in several states, has addressed a range of concerns over the years, from how soil might be contaminated to the possibility of cancer-causing electromagnetic fields.

“These questions are, in almost every case, answered,” Adair said. “There are rigorous academic studies and examples of projects that have worked. »

Although the future agricultural capacity of land is often a concern, many researchers – and farmers – say a solar lease will help preserve it.

With good planning up front, equipment can be removed from a decommissioned solar site and green space restored, said Steve Kalland, executive director of the NC Clean Energy Technology Center, which, along with its partners, provides technical assistance to local governments in the Carolinas.

And a person’s exposure to the electromagnetic field, or EMF, from a solar farm is about the same as they would experience from regular household appliances, researchers say. EMF levels also decrease rapidly with distance.

Chronic exposure to noise is also a recurring complaint from critics. Challenging a proposed project by Adair’s company in Morrow County, Ohio, a woman said in a brief to the state selection committee that she was concerned about how noise from the facility could affect people with neurological sensitivities to noise, including her daughter.

Equipment called an inverter is usually the source of noise on a solar site. It converts the current to the form used on the grid.

But noise, as well as glare, is generally mitigated by planted landscaping and setbacks, or by the distance between the property line and the nearest structure. Inverters can also be placed away from neighbors’ ears.

Noise modeling for the Morrow County project showed that its inverter “will be basically inaudible to the public,” Adair said, and if it ever generated noise above a certain limit, the permit would require the company to bring it back into compliance.

The problem, Adair said, is that evidence-based answers and solutions can get lost in the fervor. They can be stifled by “opposition activists who try to scare local politicians into opposing a project, even if the concerns they raise are not legitimate,” he said.

Last month, the Ohio Power Siting Board denied a permit for Morrow County’s Adair project. His order acknowledged that the proposal offered positive benefits, but, he said, “these benefits are outweighed by the continuing and substantial opposition.”

He did not specifically cite health concerns as the reason for the denial, but rather “the varied and numerous concerns raised by both local government entities and the public in the project area.”

But, Adair said in an email, those local governments “cited (unfounded) public health concerns as the reason for their opposition to the project.”

Open Road Renewables plans to request a rehearing from the board, Adair said. The company has eight permitted solar projects in Ohio, but due to a site selection process that it says is subject to “manipulation and misinformation,” Adair declared that it would not launch any more.

Intense battles in Michigan

In St. Clair County, Michigan, it’s not just a number of residents who are concerned about large solar installations. The health ministry’s medical director echoed their concerns.

In two memos To other county officials, Dr. Remington Nevin said large solar sites pose a public health risk to the region’s largely rural residents. The state’s solar standards, he wrote, were not enough to protect them from “environmental health hazards, the spread of sources of contamination, nuisances potentially detrimental to public health, health problems, and other conditions or practices that could reasonably be expected to cause disease.”

Any detectable tonal noise, he added, should be considered an unreasonable threat to public health. He recommended new regulations.

Then-County Administrator Karry Hepting noted that Nevin’s initial memo “did not address the issue or provide support on potential health and environmental risks,” according to internal emails provided to ProPublica. “It looks like we will need to hire an external expert to get the level of detail and data needed to consider potential next steps,” she added. Hepting said she began scouting for prospects.

But County Commissioner Steven Simasko — now county board president — wrote in an internal email that he accepted Nevin’s medical opinion “as a good standard for protecting the public health of our citizens” and disagreed with the need for outside input.

Simasko told ProPublica in an email that he believed it was not the role of the administrator to get involved in a public health issue and that he was “opposed to essentially paying for a second public health medical opinion” more to Hepting’s liking.

Hepting, who has since retired from his county position, disputed Simasko’s description of his motivations in a message to ProPublica. “Nothing co That would be further from the truth,” she wrote. “It had nothing to do with seeking a different opinion. Mr. Nevin’s initial note did not answer the initial question posed by the Council. It does not indicate what the health risks are or what the negative health impacts are. Basically, he said it was a risk because he said so.

To legally justify the adoption of health regulations, Nevin said in his second memo, it was not necessary for his department to “prove, with specific scientific or medical justification, that eligible facilities pose an unreasonable threat to public health.” Instead, expert opinion, public comment and local government consent were sufficient reasons, he wrote.

Eventually, county officials were persuaded to act. THE the commissioners approved the Ministry of Health new policy for solar energy and battery installations, including a $25,000 non-refundable fee to cover the cost of reviewing a proposed project. It also said violations of this policy were punishable by up to six months in prison.

An electric utility immediately filed a lawsuit, and a solar company joined the suit. The Department of Health, they argued, does not have the authority to issue what are effectively zoning regulations. Additionally, they said in legal documents, the county cannot overstep solar standards set by the state.

In its legal filings, the county said the health regulations were adopted properly and supported by “substantial, competent and material evidence.” Facilities that don’t meet its standards “pose a threat to public health,” the county argued.

In response to detailed questions from ProPublica, a public information officer said the Health Department would not comment due to litigation.

Nevin said in a podcast interview last year he was not opposed to solar projects. “The goal,” he said, “is to identify risks, unreasonable risks, to public health posed by the construction or operation of the facility, and then take reasonable, measured steps to try to mitigate those risks, ideally in a way that would continue to allow the facility to be constructed and operated.”

Michigan’s solar capacity continues to grow, despite local pushback, but so far only 2.55% of the state’s electricity comes from solar. In Ohio, it’s nearly 6 percent, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. In Texas, it’s almost 11%. Michigan requires electricity providers to achieve a clean energy portfolio of 80% by 2035 and 100% by 2040.

Michigan has more local restrictions on renewable energy than any other state, according to the Sabin Center. “Virtually nowhere in the country has seen more conflict” over where to allow large solar farms that add electricity directly to the grid than rural Michigan, according to a 2024 article in the Case Western Reserve Law Review written by a senior researcher at the Sabin Center.

That includes the conflict in Milan Township, where Heath grew up on an 1,100-acre farm. “I always wanted to farm,” Heath said. He saw leasing some of his land to a solar company as a way to stay afloat and keep the land in the family.

In 2020, Milan Township passed an ordinance that would allow the project to move forward, with Heath’s brother, the township supervisor, abstaining.

But opposition grew. Critics created a website that claimed, among other things, that the project would release dangerous electromagnetic radiation. Heath and his siblings were berated by their neighbors, Heath said, to the point that his brother, Phil, told the township attorney he was considering resigning as supervisor. The same night, he died of a heart attack at age 67.

A few months later, with the arrival of a new supervisor, the city council banned large-scale solar development on land zoned for agriculture. The conditions were restrictive enough to effectively prohibit such a project not only on land owned by Heath and his sister, but also except for the small portion of the township zoned for industry.

Stephanie Kozar, Milan City Clerk, said in an email to ProPublica that most residents opposed solar projects on farmland and that the original ordinance was passed during the coronavirus pandemic, before officials had adequately informed residents about the potential changes. The updated policy, she said, “would protect the township and enable responsible clean energy development in the region.”

To overcome severe local restrictions, the state set standards in 2023 for noise, height, fencing, setbacks and other elements of a large solar project. It also created a pathway for developers, in some cases, to obtain permits from the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state regulator, rather than local governments.

In an order, the commission laid out the details of how the process would work. But nearly 80 local and departmental governments, including the municipality of Milan, challenged it in court, arguing that the commission exceeded its authority.

In support of the state, Heath and his sister are represented in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by a legal team affiliated with the Sabin Center, alongside local attorneys.

Also part of the case is Clara Ostrander, who hoped a solar project would help protect two farms in Milan that have been in her family for more than 150 years. “We need a neutral, responsible party like the Michigan Public Service Commission to review these projects based on facts, not fear or lies,” she testified before state officials before the bill passed.

Even with the state process, the growing demand for energy and exorbitant electricity costs, no new large solar installations have yet been built in the municipality of Milan.

And in February, as the snow melted around the “No Industrial Solar” signs that line long country roads, a circuit judge ruled that St. Clair County’s health regulations were “invalid, null and void.”

But county officials quickly decided unanimously to appeal. “This is very important to the health of St. Clair County and its residents,” one commissioner said before voting.