How Consumers Energy Turns Michigan Farm Communities Upside Down

From chasing white-tail deer to fishing for brook trout as a child, I had the opportunity to learn from my dad, my uncles, and my late grandfather how to be a keen, ethical woodsman on a Northern Michigan property we often referred to as “The Back Forty.”

My uncle purchased the property decades ago in Harrisville. It has since remained a cornerstone for annual deer hunts, weekends in the blazing summer sun prepping for deer season.

This is a shared experience among Michiganders. But now it’s under attack by developers looking to prop up colossal data centers or bulldoze enormous swaths of land for solar farm initiatives.

It seemed I was watching it all take place from the sidelines until the battle came to the doorstep of “The Back Forty” in Harrisville. My dad and I had received notice from my uncle that the 100+ acre parcel across the street was to be made into a solar farm.

It’s just a fraction of the considerable number of parcels set to be sublet to Consumers Energy in the construction of a hyper-scale solar farm initiative dubbed “the Gustin Solar Project.”

Construction for the Gustin Solar Project is set to begin in mid-2026 with the goal of being fully operational by 2029.[2] The project is scheduled to level and build on 38 parcels in Gustin Township and 10 parcels in Harrisville Township collectively spanning over a whopping 1,800 acres of land.

I attended the Harrisville Township public hearing regarding the special land use request filed by Consumers Energy on Wednesday on July 29.

The Harrisville Township planning commission had just voted their second member out from the special land-use hearing citing a conflict-of-interest. The township assessor had reportedly been offering to purchase his neighbors' lots informing them that the value of their property would decline rapidly once the solar farms were installed.

His lot is being sublet to Consumers Energy for the Gustin Solar Project.

Then the main representative for Consumers Energy, Joe Lawson III, stood up near a banner displaying the benefits of giant miscanthus, a non-native species of grass for which the company wants to plant among their solar fields.

What followed was an hour-long exhibition from Lawson informing the audience on why construction should begin as soon as possible to transform their small farming community into an industrial, hyper-scale solar farm.

A loose Q&A session was held after the presentation. Lawson’s colleagues who sat together in the front row began to look more and more defeated as the frustrated audience peppered him with questions for which he did not have favorable answers:

“Will our energy rates go down?”

“I can’t promise that,” Lawson said.

“Are the solar panels made in America?”

“No,” he stated.”

“Will the construction crews that assemble the solar farms be from our local community?”

“No.”

“In the event of a fire, will the solar panels emit toxic smoke?”

“The panels are made from glass, aluminum, and plastic so they won’t burn,” Lawson said.

The crowd audibly laughed at his ignorance regarding the flammability of plastic.

After about two hours, I decided to leave. Tensions remained high, and the Harrisville community passionately but eloquently defended their township. The next morning, I received word that the planning commission motioned to table the discussion until October.

Other Consumers Energy projects in Alcona County include 1,200 additional acres of large-scale solar farms to begin construction in 2027 within the neighboring township of Caledonia.

If large-scale solar farms are considered industrial from a zoning perspective, how do projects of this magnitude get approved in townships that are almost entirely zoned as agricultural land?

The playbook is simple. Locate aging farming communities where a lot of the land can be classified as “brownfields” or under-utilized lots. Find local landowners who primarily live in other locations such as Birmingham, Alpena, or Traverse City.

Notify them of the potential money they could be making on their unused land by subletting it to the power company. Negotiate a price per acre and strike a deal. Present the business case to the local communities emphasizing job creation (solely in initial construction and maintenance) and power capacity.

Extend the offer to any council members who may already own viable land that fits the requirements of the project. Strike another deal. Apply for a special land-use permit that allows an industrial sized solar farm to be constructed on agriculturally zoned land. The planning commission approves the request. Fire up the bulldozer. Rinse and repeat.

Conservationally, the consequences of blanking out such a considerable swath of land could be devastating to the local flora and fauna. While it is obvious that the white-tailed deer population will suffer, the massive uptick in bird and bat deaths due to mistaking the panels for water is often overlooked.

Habitat loss is inevitable. The permanent shade and the removal of rain water run-off allows for little biodiversity. Cleaning materials as well as toxic chemicals can contaminate the soil and permanently destroy the land.

Though the impact on the environment is significant, the community and agricultural effects should not be overlooked. As the acres of farmland dwindle, so do the small communities who live on and work on it.

Losing these individuals means losing the heart of our country.

Despite building these massive solar farms, both DTE and Consumers have continued their long trend of rate hikes on the residents of Michigan—a trend that they have unabashedly and perpetually imposed on their customers with the most recent Consumers submission being the highest rate hike proposed in the last 20 years.

Finally, it is worth briefly noting both DTE and Consumers Energy (through its publicly traded parent company CMS Energies) receive substantial federal grants, tax credits, and state-backed economic subsidies.

That’s right, while we are forced to pay more and more as “customers” to these monopolistic power companies, we also foot the bill for the destruction of our farmland via our own tax dollars.

Sounds like a win-win, but for who?