Local governments’ ability to keep pace and stay out in front of land use issues could be key to the county and region’s growth in the next decade-plus.
So far, governing boards and judges have been sluggish to address zoning and annexation.
During this past Monday’s meeting of the board of supervisors, it was made mention that one wind farm company had already started to dig giant holes on private land before consulting with the county’s code enforcement officer.
District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald suggested that the company may have done this attempting to get shovels into the dirt in order to possibly be grandfathered into green energy incentives before many of them expire under the current administration of President Donald Trump.
Trump’s own rhetoric about wind and solar seems to be at odds at times with his promotion of further development of artificial intelligence, otherwise known as AI.
Trump often rails against green energy, but those projects seem to be necessary for future data center projects, like the $6 billion center that was announced in Rankin County this week.
Gov. Tate Reeves is much more measured about his stance on green energy, because he knows that wind and solar are paramount to the state’s abilities to recruit these giant data centers.
Delta solar and wind farms are set to power multiple sites, including the Madison Amazon data center that was announced last year.
In exchange for providing our energy for these projects, counties like Sunflower receive a much larger chunk of tax dollars than had the land remained solely agricultural.
The biggest drawback to the proliferation of solar farms in the region is the decommissioning of thousands of acres of some of the world’s most fertile farmland.
Also, for decades, this region’s economy has been largely based in agriculture.
If solar and wind projects eventually consume more than half of the acreage here, it’s hard to imagine what the Delta’s economy might look like in 10 to 20 years, since solar and wind projects tend to produce almost zero jobs and eliminate the need for ag-based labor with every acre that is occupied by panels and windmills.
On the other hand, technology is moving faster than any governmental body can keep pace, even the United State Congress.
Just about everything we do on our phones requires data, which means that the demand for data centers and the green energy that offsets their power usage, will only grow.
If wind and solar are going to be more commonplace here, Delta leaders should be having conversations about that.
Madison’s $10 billion data center is projected to employ over 1,000 people.
Will the Delta be considered for data center projects in the future, or will our region become the Appalachia of green energy?
On the annexation side, the City of Indianola is attempting to claw large swaths of farmland onto the city’s tax rolls, perhaps betting that some of that land will be courted by solar and wind companies in the next decade or so.
For those fighting that proposal, they believe their taxes will go up and that they’ll see very little of the city’s promised services.
There’s time for mulling, and then there’s time for action.
The region can hardly afford to sit on its hands while companies dig holes and the demand for data increases by the minute.
