Help us save Franklin County, Texas! Stop our county from being taken advantage of by foreign interests. 

SaveFranklinCountyTexas – with the tree logo – is a FB page maintained by a concerned group of Texans with a focus on environmental protection for Franklin County, Texas.

(Beware other industry sponsored pages which mimic this FB page including specifically logos with a fortress).

We seek to provide information regarding industrialization in Franklin County, Texas, with additional information covering Texas, the United States, and our planet Earth. 

We initially became concerned when leases were filed for industrial solar developments to cover over one-third (1/3) of the agricultural acreage in this small county (the entire county has less than 200,000 acres – 8^th smallest of the 254 counties in Texas).  This is a real concern; these leases are of public record and lands immediately adjacent to our county boundaries on the north and west are now under millions of panels and our watershed is already impacted.

We join in concerns with our neighboring counties to the north where wind turbine installations are planned. 

Our group is not opposed to solar or wind.  We want responsible placement.  We do not want to destroy the earth to save the earth.  We want solar panels on rooftops and on canopies over parking lots. We advocate for expanded development of our state’s oil and gas resources with clean technology standards.  We advocate for the newly developed modular nuclear energy systems. 

We want a clean reliable mix of energy resources.  We do not want over 1 Million solar panels and 500,000 lithium ion batteries placed on our landscape and eventually requiring clean-up.  We cannot abide this heavy footprint across our land.  Nor can we abide the destruction of our agricultural economy and way of life when the implementation of utility scale solar is driven by payments out of our income taxes paid to foreign developers; this tax credit for solar, wind and battery storage has not been studied and our leaders must stop this destructive economic movement.   If these panels supposedly will be removed at the end of the lease term, nature will not survive to occupy the barren landscape; we cannot advocate for solar nor wind.

Our county has tested (October 2023) for the highest concentration of lithium in salt deposits under our land; the highest in the continental United States.  We have a flurry of mining and production activity planned for this county.  We want appropriate environmental oversight and planning before activity proceeds.  We are not luddites; we recognize the importance of lithium batteries.  But we want responsible regulation of this extractive industry.  Texans and our local citizens will be paid.  This is a small footprint.  We welcome a regulated industry.

Along our county’s western boundaries and extending into our county we have proposals for carbon sequestration through injection of carbon into zones deep beneath the surface of the earth.   Texans and our local citizens will be paid.  We welcome a regulated industry.

We are told that our county judge plans to bring a plastic recycling facility or other industry here.  Something must surely be done about plastics.  Fine.  Regulate the industry.  We want transparency instead of the closed meetings on all fronts held between first-name-basis foreign industrial representatives and our local leaders.

We seek to encourage sustainability.  To embrace solar, wind, batteries and green consumerism without considering the consequences powers an unsustainable way of life.  (a paraphrase of the first-rate analysis set out in the film Bright Green Lies).  We seek to inform. 

We encourage questions and we will host public forums.  Join our cause and raise the alarm with local, state and national leadership.  We want a mix of reliable energy resources.  Help save our county, and save our land and all of nature.

Shortcomings in the federal tax incentive program for solar, wind, battery and transmission line installations have allowed foreign interests to qualify for tax credits (up to about 50% of investment cost at federal level); as well as state and local tax breaks (including county property tax abatements).  Oncor is now building lines to serve the foreign solar developments; great.  So, Oncor says their cost will be passed on to consumers who consume this green energy.  So, we have coal power building solar and wind and battery components; installed in a destructive manner and then we have transmission lines clearing our forests.  All fueled by federal tax credits paid from our pockets.   

Thus, Enel out of Rome, Italy (representative: Zach Precopia) and companies tied to South Korea, Bulgaria, and France.  Companies seeking to install a huge substation with 100,000 large lithium batteries in a 20-acre concrete based storage unit about 1.5 miles out of Mt. Vernon up Bell Street east of town.   

We don’t know where the spent batteries go (current life is 3.5 years); we will have over 1 Million in a decade.  Enel (under an LLC -Stockyard Solar) filed plans with Austin to install over 620,000 solar panels on a 5,000 acre tract stretching 9 miles along FM 1896 east of Mt. Vernon.  Samsung filed plans for similar installations involving over 5,000 acres stretching 8 miles with battery installations.  Where do damaged panels go?  They sure won’t go back to Seoul or Rome.

We want solar, sure.  On the roofs of houses and over parking lots; not over our agricultural land.  And we don’t want industrial lithium batteries stored near our homes with toxic Chinese wastes poisoning our lands and waters.

Check out the solar opposition facebook page with a wealth of information explaining the problems which we face with industrial solar installations in rural America.

Please call or e-mail commissioners and ask them to enact a moratorium on industrial solar developments until we have some hard answers and some bonds to protect our county.

No law prohibits our commissioners from protecting the health and safety of the public;  from protecting property values; protecting our water from industrial demands; protecting our roads from destruction; protecting our wildlife and landscape from devastation.  Commissioners - tell foreign solar:  We’ll see you in court.  Obtain independent legal counsel; a lawyer not on a first-name basis with developers.  We may never have to hire counsel but, if we do, so be it.  Tell our commissioners:  Defend our county.  Adopt a moratorium on industrial solar development for the next six months; and adopt it now.   Your public stands behind you.  If a foreign developer sues to do business here; defend our county in court and stand up to these people.  Stand up to this foreign land-grab.

Contact Commissioners:

Charlie Emerson – cell 903-588-5417; e-mail:  charlieemerson56@gmail.com

Jerry Cooper – cell 903-575-8439; e-mail: jmcoop632@yahoo.com

Scott Smith – cell 214-289-1052; e-mail:  scottsmithprec4@gmail.com 

Toby Godfrey – cell 903-573-2198; e-mail tobygodfrey1571@gmail.com