Susan Burns says she is fighting a "David and Goliath" battle.
Burns, a 75-year-old woman who lives on a Hatton farm that's been in her family for more than 100 years, leads what she estimates to be approximately 300 Callaway County residents in organizing against proposed renewable energy expansions they fear are taking advantage of high quality farmland without contributing enough to county tax streams.
The Facebook group she runs, "Callaway County Missouri Commercial Solar Invasion," has 600 followers.
"It's too fast," Burns said about planned solar farms and a 40-mile high voltage energy transmission line. "I would not say that I'm against green energy, I just think that the government subsidies have caused companies to want to get these subsidies, and they're pushing it and going as fast as they can without considering the safety and the environment."
Discussions about how to tax, regulate and monitor renewable energy, such as solar and wind, have been brewing throughout Callaway County for years. They've come into sharper focus as plans to build massive solar farms and expand a 800-mile clean energy transmission line progress.
Residents have sought the help and guidance of county officials, state lawmakers and Missouri's Public Service Commission, all of which are actively involved in determining rules and standards for utilities to operate under.
Ranger Power has signed lease agreements on approximately 3,000 acres of land with the goal of building a large-scale solar farm capable of producing around 250 megawatts -- enough electricity to power approximately 35,000 homes. The proposed farm would be north of Kingdom City.
NextEra Energy Resources, the world's largest generator of solar and wind energy according to its website, is preparing to build a 600-acre, 100-megawatt solar field near New Bloomfield. Pending state and local approvals, the project is scheduled to begin in 2024 and will be "one of the first solar projects in Missouri," according to its website.
Burns, among others, is drawing connections between the two solar projects and a proposed expansion to Grain Belt Express, an 800-mile renewable energy transmission line that will span three states and carry wind energy from Kansas and distribute it to communities until its end at the Illinois-Indiana border. The high voltage transmission line's final route was approved by Missouri's Public Service Commission in 2019 and Invenergy, the company that took ownership of building the line soon after, became a public utility that expects to provide $12.8 million in annual energy savings for 39 municipal utilities across Missouri.
It will run through Monroe County with a Moberly office. Construction is expected to bring 1,500 jobs and $1.3 billion in economic activity.
Last August, Invenergy filed an application with the Missouri Public Commission to create the Tiger Connection, a proposed 40-mile line running from the McCredie Substation northwest of Kingdom City in Callaway County to the main line in Monroe County.
If approved, the Grain Belt Express line would bring 2,500 megawatts of clean energy to Missouri -- five times more power than it previously promised and the same supply and reliability capacity as two new nuclear power plants, according to the company's announcement.
"Since purchasing Grain Belt Express back in 2019, we've heard from stakeholders across Missouri that want to see more of the line's benefits delivered into the state," Shashank Sane, executive vice president and head of transmission at Invenergy, said in a statement. "As families and businesses face rising costs and power grid operators warn about current and future regional reliability challenges, we are pleased to be seeking approvals that respond to calls for more local benefits and that will dramatically increase this state-of-the-art transmission infrastructure project's delivery of real energy solutions to Missourians."
The transmission line builders held public meetings in Callaway and Audrain counties about the Tiger Connector line in July 2022. At that point, none of the 39 municipal utilities around the state that had signed up to receive power through the Grain Belt Express included municipalities in Callaway County. Centralia and Columbia in Boone County were signed up.
The public meetings asked residents to provide input on the route for the line to take. Missouri law recently changed to require utilities to pay landowners 150 percent of market value rather than the previous 90 percent.
"In the spirit of that legislation, we think it's fair to say we'll go with that 150 percent," said Brad Pnazek, vice president of transmission development at Invenergy.
Invenergy doesn't anticipate hearing back from the Public Service Commission about the Tiger Connector line until May 2023, but plans to work with landowners along the route on environmental surveys, final design and easement acquisition. Earliest construction could begin in 2024, if approved.
Invenergy plans to build the first part of the line, from Kansas to Moberly and down to the McCredie substation, first before continuing the Grain Belt Express to Indiana. That would provide Missouri consumers power earlier.
The Public Service Commission is hosting local public hearings on the Tiger Connector expansion and formal evidentiary hearings starting at 9 a.m. May 22-26 at the Governor Office Building, Room 310, 200 Madison St., in Jefferson City.
"We have not one person in Callaway County who is in favor of leasing their land to this transmission company," Burns said. "Our commissioners are opposed to it. They don't want it here."
The 40-mile expansion to the Grain Belt Express was the subject of a Callaway County Commission meeting last December.
Western District Commissioner Roger Fischer said residents have voiced concerns about the proposal so he invited county leaders from other parts of the state where the Grain Belt Express is already approved to share their experiences. Presiding Commissioner Gary Jungermann was not in attendance.
The Grain Belt path runs across 206 miles of Missouri through eight counties: Buchanan, Clinton, Caldwell, Carroll, Chariton, Randolph, Monroe and Ralls. The Tiger Connection proposal would relocate the Missouri converter station from Ralls County to Monroe County, according to the Public Service Commission, as well as an alternating current connector line from Ralls County to Monroe, Audrain and Callaway counties.
Wiley Hibbard, former presiding commissioner of Ralls County, said he and a couple other county officials were elected to fight the Grain Belt Express project. Ralls County created an ordinance requiring utilities to seek a permit before operating within county lines.
Hibbard said at least four other counties passed similar measures. After Hibbard told Grain Belt it would need to receive the permit, he said the company requested all of Ralls County's previous permit applications.
"They haven't been back since," he said. "And in the meantime, they've moved the converter station from Ralls County to Monroe County and came up with this scheme to go through. ... That's my opinion when I call it a scheme because they are not opposed to suing people, as John Truesdale will tell you right now."
Truesdale, a former Randolph County commissioner, said his county is facing a lawsuit from Invenergy over a moratorium it instituted to stall development of the utility.
He said the eight counties the line was originally going to cross are expressing reservations over "red flags" with Invenergy. He expressed doubt Invenergy could build the Grain Belt, given it's larger than anything the company has built. Hibbard noted the wind farm in Kansas is not yet fully built.
"In dealing with them, we are seeing extreme problems in communication, not only from them to us, like we get from our regular utilities that have been there awhile, but amongst themselves. They contradict themselves over and over again," Truesdale said at the December Callaway County Commission meeting. "Every time they do that, it's a big red flag."
Many at the Callaway County Commission meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the Public Service Commission, claiming it hasn't looked out for their interests.
Truesdale said the Public Service Commission's granting the Grant Belt its certificate of convenience and necessity provided the company the power of eminent domain as a public utility. He questioned what changed to make the commission approve Grain Belt's application after denying it.
"The Public Service Commission should be watching out for us, and they're not," Hibbard said.
"What I can't stress enough is it's not a done deal," he said, referencing the decision expected this spring. "The Public Service Commission is going to have to make a ruling on this."
Burns, who attended the commission meeting, said in an interview she would prefer Invenergy bury its high voltage transmission line to ease her concerns about potential health and weather risks. She said she's concerned about what the transmission line, solar panels and related equipment would mean for property values.
Burns is the seventh generation to live on her family farm. She and her husband don't actively farm but lease their land out to others to farm it. She considers herself part of the "farming culture."
"We see the solar and the Grain Belt coming through, and we realize that we'll soon be an industrial complex here," Burns said.
The farmland in Callaway County is of higher quality than typically found throughout Missouri, according to the University of Missouri Extension. The average price per acre of farmland throughout the state is $3,385 and in Callaway County it's $3,960. The university has ranked the quality of the farmland in the top half of its eight-point scale.
Burns said she's worried about the turning of agricultural fields raising corn, soybeans or livestock to solar fields filled with rows of metal panels, and what it means for the county's agribusiness and property values. She cited academic studies that indicate property values can drop up to 30 percent when adjoined to a solar field.
Burns said she doesn't have an issue with the smaller solar farm in Boone County near Columbia because all of its energy is going to area residents. She doesn't support large-scale farms that supply energy to other states.
"We're opposed to 4,000 acres at a time being eaten up," she said.
If the solar farms are coming, Burns said, Callaway County should be able to tax the companies the same as any commercial company moving to the county. Fischer, the county's Western District commissioner, echoed those sentiments in a public hearing, adding it could support several county functions.
Taxation of solar companies was the focus of a recent state task force formed last year.
The Task Force on Fair, Nondiscriminatory Local Taxation Concerning Solar Energy Systems was composed of lawmakers, county assessors, tax commissioners and representatives from the agriculture industry and private solar developments. It was tasked with creating a formula for the Legislature to adopt to create a uniform statewide county property tax on solar.
The task force finalized its report in December, but chairman Sen. Mike Cierpiot, R-Lee's Summit, said he doesn't know if it resolved anything, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. He said he doesn't know if any resolution would be found this legislative session.
Last August, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a 2013 law that granted some solar systems a property tax exemption because the tax break was unconstitutional.
The task force report recommends a uniform formula instead of counties negotiating payments in lieu of taxes from the solar providers. Solar should pay a "fair share" of property taxes to counties, schools and other local jurisdictions, according to the report.
What the "fair share" is remains undetermined.
"The solar companies have already gotten all kinds of subsidies from the government and all kinds of tax breaks at the federal level," said Burns, who testified before the task force and has repeatedly met with lawmakers. "Why should our county not be able to collect the same amount of taxes as any other business?"
Senate Majority Leader Cindy O'Laughlin, R-Shelbina, Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis, and Cierepoit were on the task force, as were Reps. Bishop Davidson, R-Republic, Doug Richey, R-Excelsior Springs, and David Tyson Smith, D-Columbia.
Some have been receptive to the same concerns Burns has. Others are all in on solar, she said. O'Laughlin has opposed solar developments on tillable farmland.
Sen. Travis Fitzwater, R-Holts Summit, introduced a bill, SB 549, to restrict solar developments by requiring them to gain a county permit before approaching the Public Service Commission and changing their tax structure. Fitzwater is discussing his bill March 13 at Callaway Electric Company in Fulton.
Burns said it's a "good start" but she doesn't think it goes far enough. She wanted to see safeguards from solar chemical fires and panels from being installed too close to residential areas.
Several lawmakers have recently received campaign contributions from a political action committee associated with Invenergy.
Since 2019, Invenergy has contributed approximately $39,000 to the Nexus PAC, according to filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission. The PAC has supported several state lawmaker campaign funds since then, including: Sen. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia; Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe; Cierpiot; May and Fitzwater.
In 2020, Invenergy contributed $10,000 each to Nexus PAC at two others, as well as $6,000 to the Missouri Senate Campaign Committee.
Burns said she attempted to hire a lobbyist to promote her position but couldn't find one "that did not have conflicting interests."
"They have covered our Capitol with solar lobbyists," she said. "It is big-big money."
"We believe we're fighting a David and Goliath fight," Burns continued. "We need to find legislators that can stand up against that pressure."
