Howard County talked, and we listened.

In the early 1940’s my Grandfather, Tom Beeler, purchased just under 100 acres of land in Howard County. It was there that he and my Grandmother raised a family while farming the land. At the turn of this century, four generations of his family gathered at the farm to celebrate his 100th Birthday (picture above).

Today, as the family grows and re-locates across the country, the land remains in our family while continuing to be farmed by a close friend of my grandfather. I can think of no better way to honor the life and legacy of my grandfather than to keep the farm in the family. Solar farming certainly provides us with that opportunity.

Tom Beeler was an entrepreneurial, forward thinking man. Being a strong advocate for land conservation, I believe he would have embraced the opportunity to be on the front edge of solar farming. He would have welcomed the benefits not only to his family, but to the broader Howard County community, and to the planet as well.

On behalf of the extended Beeler family I would like to offer our appreciation to the Howard County Commissioners for passing a solar ordinance that protects all of our community while ensuring responsible development of solar farms, and recognizing each family’s rights too farm what they can to sustain a living and hold onto their land — families like ours.

The approval of the Emerald Green Solar Farm would provide us a meaningful way to maintain our farm, protecting my grandfather's hard-earned legacy for future generations and providing cleaner air, water and soil for many generations to come.

I’m a fifth generation Howard County farmer. My family is blessed to have lived and farmed in this area since 1889, with the right to grow what we need to carve out a living. We have not only operated a successful business this way, we have been excellent stewards of the land.  We want to continue that legacy for generations to come, but we need Howard County to continue to protect our property rights to farm what we need to best provide for my son, Zane and his future children and grandchildren.  

Farming the sun, doesn’t just provide a weather resistant, guaranteed cash crop, we’ll also plant a continuous cover crop that creates great soil health, promoting microbial growth and creating improved water efficiency systems with worm work, while building up top soil. . The company operating the solar farm will also plant pollinators, helpful to the entire regions agricultural system. So by rotating our crops in this manner, we’re not only increasing the productivity of our land, we’re helping our neighbors crops as well. And for those worried about preserving family farms — our solar crop will only take up a small portion of our tillable land, but help us to diversify by harvesting the sun and stabilizing our yields.

I’m really excited about what the solar farm means for extra property tax income for our school system and Howard County in general.  Although my children only have a few more years at Eastern, many other teachers and students will benefit and maybe even my grandchildren someday.
By farming the sun, we’re producing cleaner air, water and soil. We want to do what’s best for our operation, our community and schools, and our land. We love this county and we respectfully ask our elected officials to protect our right to farm our land in a way that provides the best benefits for everyone. That’s the legacy we want to leave for many Howard County generations to come.

As a farm family, in the Emerald Green Solar Project, with a long history of involvement in the field of education, we see firsthand the benefits that this project will have to our community.  The project will help offset the increasing costs that schools are facing, potentially holding off a future referendum.  These additional resources can be utilized to hire staff, increase wages, help with the maintenance and upkeep of school facilities, etc.

Alongside the benefits to the school, these tax dollars will also help keep property taxes from rising for all constituents in the Eastern school corporation.  Solar has and continued to serve as a cost savings to many of the school districts in the region (Eastern, Oak Hill, Taylor, Tri-Central, and Tipton). This is a tremendous opportunity to pass on savings to those individuals living in the Eastern community and we respectfully ask our elected officials to protect our schools by allowing us to farm solar.

Having served in law enforcement for more than a quarter of a century, my family is very focused on public safety and first responders. That’s why, in addition to wanting to exercise our property rights to farm solar on some of our land, the Emerald Green Solar Farm project caught our attention.

The current ambulance service that is provided in Greentown is a combination of hired employees and primarily volunteer employees. With the Kokomo fire department no longer providing ambulance service in the city of Kokomo and increased demand on Community Howard Hospital from within the city of Kokomo, there’s a growing burden on volunteer services from Harrison township, Russiaville and Greentown to leave their areas of service to assist Kokomo.
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The presence of the solar farm in the Greentown area will provide more than $30 million dollars in tax revenue which will give the county additional funding for Greentown, potentially focused on continued operations of their public safety efforts, including their ambulance service, their fire services, and law enforcement.

As a lifelong resident and property owner in Howard County, I am excited for the Emerald Green Solar Project. My wife and I chose to stay here in Howard County as we pursued our careers and began to build our lives and family rooted here.

This new development is an exciting opportunity for our area. It will provide economic benefits to our community and local schools. It will show a community commitment to leaving a cleaner environment for our future generations including my son and daughter.

I care about our community as it’s my home and believe that Emerald Green will be a good neighbor and a valuable partner for years to come. I am proud to see our county’s willingness to look at renewable energy as a long term asset.

Unlike many of the other testimonials, I am not a long-term Howard County resident. I have spent most of my life living around Indianapolis, and only recently moved to Howard County in 2019. Since moving I have lived and worked in Kokomo, where I began a Carpentry Apprenticeship out of local 615 in 2021 (to be precise, I’m now entering my second year as of writing this testimonial).

When I first moved to Howard County, I was excited to see the numerous solar farms throughout Kokomo and the E. On Wildcat Wind Farm, which has become a part of the horizon on my evening commute home. I was excited to see more sources of renewable energy because renewable energy is important to me. I had few examples to be excited about while living in Indianapolis, expect for one prominent example.

At the Indianapolis Airport, the large solar farm is hard to miss. According to the solar project’s website (indsolarfarm.com), the solar project covers 183 acres and produces 36.1 million Kilowatt hours per year, enough to power 3,650 homes. As it stands, it is the largest airport solar farm in the world, and is immensely beneficial to our international airport. Even so, 183 acres is tiny in comparison to Emerald Green’s solar project here in Howard County.

Projected to provide enough electricity to power 53,000 homes, it represents an immense boost for working individuals here in Howard County, including myself. Construction on the solar farm should employ nearly one hundred carpenters, a rare opportunity for steady work for many workers.

Nonetheless, I wanted to recognize the hesitancy about the project from the community. Large and potentially intrusive changes are not easy nor comfortable, and that the world of today can make us uneasy and afraid. However, I wanted to highlight that Emerald Green’s project will provide benefit for all of Howard County. Not just from the projects acceptance and completion, but immediately when construction begins and our local Carpenters get to work. I’m happy to say I am also excited for Emerald Green’s Solar Project here in Howard County, and I think Howard County residents can be excited for this project too.