Harris Ranch Resort isn’t close to much. Residents of California’s major cities know it mainly as a rest stop about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Interstate 5’s long run through the San Joaquin Valley. The sprawling stucco building has a Western-themed gift shop and a couple of good restaurants where travelers can enjoy regional specialties like tri-tip tacos and almond-smoked prime rib — perhaps while they charge their EV at one of the Tesla stations outside.

But in the vast expanse of California’s Westlands Water District, the ranch is about the most central spot for a meeting. On a sunny afternoon in late January, Jeff Fortune, Ross Franson, and Jeremy Hughes, three of the nine directors of the country’s largest agricultural water agency, gathered there for lunch to discuss an ambitious plan to rescue some of the most productive farmland in the U.S. from a decades-long water crisis. 

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan (VCIP) envisions converting 136,000 acres of land into 21 gigawatts of battery-backed solar power — nearly as much utility-scale solar capacity as has been installed in California to date. 

“This will be not only the largest project in California, or the largest project in the United States,” said Fortune, a third-generation farmer and the district’s board president since 2022. ​“This will be the largest project in the world.”

The scale of the plan matches that of the land. Westlands Water District was formed more than 60 years ago to collectively manage water resources and irrigation infrastructure for the farmers within its 1,000-square-mile territory. The district’s 614,000 acres grow billions of dollars’ worth of crops per year — grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, garlic, citrus fruits, almonds, pistachios, and many others. Those crops make up a major share of the bounty in a region that produces a quarter of the country’s food, including 40% of its fruits and nuts. 

RICHLAND COUNTY, Ohio — In a mostly rural stretch of Ohio nestled between Cleveland and Columbus, residents now have a rare opportunity: They get to vote directly on the future of renewable energy in their area.

Last July, Richland County banned large-scale wind and solar projects in 11 of its 18 townships. The decision not only caught many locals by surprise; it also struck them as bad for economic development and as encroaching on individual property rights. 

Almost immediately after the county’s three commissioners made their decision, dozens of residents formed a group, called the Richland County Citizens for Property Rights and Job Development, to fight what they saw as an unjust restriction on renewable energy. 

Their initial goal was clear but daunting: Collect thousands of in-person signatures within 30 days in order to put the clean energy ban on the ballot during the 2026 primary election. They succeeded.

Before early voting opened last week, the group held several town halls and spent months educating and canvassing voters. Now, their efforts face the final test. By May 5 at 7:30 p.m., every voter in Richland County will be able to weigh in on the question: Should the county keep its ban on most solar and wind farms — or scrap it and give clean energy a chance to be part of the area’s energy mix? 

A majority of ​“yes” votes on the referendum will mean the ban remains. A majority of ​“no” votes will overturn it. The referendum comes as local restrictions on solar and wind energy have proliferated nationwide, rising by 16% from June 2024 to June 2025. More than 450 counties and municipalities across 44 states now severely limit whether renewables can be built, according to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

In recent years, these rules have been a stumbling block for renewable energy projects, which are needed both to decarbonize the energy system and to meet the nation’s soaring electricity demand. New solar and wind are also among the cheapest forms of energy — a crucial distinction as utility bills rise nationwide. 

Restrictions on renewable energy are especially common in rural areas, where the vast majority of the nation’s utility-scale solar and wind projects are located.

Ohio, in particular, is a hot spot for efforts to stymie renewable energy. A 2021 state law, Senate Bill 52, gave counties the right to ban new large solar farms and wind farms of 5 megawatts and up. Roughly three dozen counties now have such restrictions in one or more of their townships. 

The Richland County Citizens for Property Rights and Job Development and its supporters would like to see their county removed from that list. 

The group reflects the composition of Richland County, with a range of ages, income levels, and professions; many members hadn’t known each other or worked together before last summer. And while some are concerned about climate change and air pollution, the group’s main arguments — evidenced by its name — echo familiar American issues: property rights and job creation. 

“I just don’t think it’s right for the county commissioners to tell other property owners that they can’t do what they want with their land,” said Emily Adams, the group’s treasurer. ​“I have what I want on my roof. And I think farmers and landowners should be able to do what they want with their property, too.” 

Confusing ballot language could be the reason an Ohio county upheld a ban on renewable energy last week. 

An early analysis of exit poll responses suggests a majority of voters likely meant to vote against Richland County’s ban on most large solar and wind projects for 11 of its 18 townships. But the ballot’s wording perplexed enough of them to have flipped the results.

That preliminary finding doesn’t change the outcome of the May 5 Richland County election. The final tally was 53% ​“yes” votes to keep the ban versus 47% ​“no” votes to axe it. But the poll sheds light on how people in the county really felt and can inform future work to roll back clean energy restrictions in Ohio and beyond.

Richland County’s referendum drew national attention because it was a rare case of residents pushing back against limits on solar and wind power. Such state and local restrictions have grown dramatically across the U.S. in recent years. 

Meanwhile, skyrocketing demand for electricity is fueling an affordability crisis. Solar and wind, and batteries to store their energy, can generally come online more quickly than natural gas plants to meet some of that demand. Renewables also aren’t subject to fluctuating fuel costs, and they increase competition in electricity markets, which can rein in power prices.

Richland County’s three commissioners relied on a 2021 state law, Senate Bill 52, to pass the restrictions last July. Local residents who opposed the ban quickly began pushing to put it to a vote. SB 52 states that for any referendum against a county’s ban, its commissioners’ resolution needs a majority vote in favor to go into effect. 

So, a ​“yes” vote means someone opposes the referendum effort to overturn the ban, while a ​“no” vote means the person backs the campaign to get rid of the ban.

“It’s confusing,” County Commissioner Cliff Mears told Canary Media in March when explaining his support against the referendum and for the ban. 

Lots of voters may have been confused, too — about one in five across all political groups, according to early analysis of the exit surveys completed by 1,193 of the 23,042 people who voted on the issue. ​“When we model what the result would have looked like if everyone had voted their stated preference, the outcome flips,” to 54% wanting to reverse the ban and 46% wanting to keep it, said Graham Diedrich, a University of Michigan Ph.D. candidate who oversaw the exit polling at a dozen locations across Richland County. 

LOWELL, Vt. — Doug Manning built his three-story home for the views. Mountain peaks ring the 800-person town of Lowell, and just beyond his back porch stretches a hayfield that the community uses as a kind of public square. The 44-acre open space hosts carnivals, sledders, and snowmobilers in the winter, and hikers and firework displays in the summer. Lowell’s only school and its town clerk’s office sit across the street.

Now, that parcel could undergo a transformation, from rolling pasture to nearly 5 megawatts of solar panels. 

The local farm family that owns the property has been in the process of selling it to Northland Solar since last year. The developer, which is gathering permits, has said it wants to start construction by July so it can meet the Trump administration’s shortened deadlines for federal incentives. The array could power about 1,500 homes, helping Vermont meet rising energy demand without burning more fossil fuels. By some standards, this is a great site for it, given that the plot is largely flat, is next to a road, and borders a substation for easy connection to the grid. 

But there’s a hitch: Many residents staunchly oppose the project.

The town’s select board — its elected governing body — has teamed up with Manning, two other neighbors, the nearby school, and a cemetery to intervene in the permitting case before the state’s Public Utility Commission, asking the regulators to deny approvals. While loss of farmland factors in, the group’s main concern is that the installation will be an eyesore and overtake a community space.

“I struggled with the idea of opposing it, because I’ve built these things,” said Manning, a master electrician who helped construct large solar projects across the state and has enough solar on his own roof to zero out his electric bill. ​“But it’s going to completely destroy the view for the house.” 

WISHEK, N.D. — George Wolff offered a cautious greeting through the window of my rented F-150. He was fresh from tending livestock, which explained the dried mud on his forehead and shirt. His boots and jeans were soiled with barnyard muck, his ballcap tipped back to cool his brow. 

It was a warm, breezy May day in North Dakota, with wind speeds hovering around 20 miles per hour, gusting to the low 30s. Angus cattle foraged on a hillside pasture behind Wolff’s barns. Two John Deere tractors sat idle off the driveway. Planting season was over, but a dry spring had slowed the arrival of this year’s wheat, corn, and soybeans. 

“What can I do for you?” asked Wolff, a fourth-generation farmer. The answer was about a half mile behind him, rising above his land like an enormous pinwheel. 

That 3-megawatt turbine, one of two on Wolff’s 3,500-acre property, is part of Badger Wind Farm. The 92-turbine, 250-MW project was brought online in January by the Danish energy giant Ørsted and is the newest such installation in North Dakota, which ranks ninth in the U.S. for producing wind energy.

Badger Wind Farm is the largest economic development project in the history of Wishek, an 850-person city about 90 miles southeast of Bismarck in McIntosh County. In exchange for hosting turbines on their property, Wolff and other local farmers and landowners receive lease payments from Ørsted — and the county will see an influx of tax revenues based on the project’s annual generation. 

This article was copublished with The Daily Yonder, a newsroom covering rural America.

POCATELLO, Idaho — Jeff Hough did not pull any punches. What his fellow Republican county commissioners were about to do, he said to the packed courthouse, would violate America’s founding ideals. He quoted the Declaration of Independence to make his case. 

The three-person commission was about to vote on an ordinance that would ban utility-scale solar and wind development in Bannock County, Idaho. 

“We cannot deny the entire county the opportunity to exercise their property rights,” Hough said. ​“That goes against the principles this country was founded on.” 

A few minutes after Hough’s emphatic speech, the ordinance passed by a 2–1 vote. Hough was the lone dissenter.

Since that consequential vote in March 2024, Hough has become the chair of the county commission and has dedicated himself to overturning that ordinance. He will soon have a chance to make that happen. This fall, Hough and the other two commissioners are set to vote on an ordinance with new language that would allow the development of solar and wind, along with nuclear energy, in the county.

The Bannock County vote is a test case of whether — and how — a community can revisit its assumptions about the costs and benefits of clean energy and decide to welcome development it once swore off.

In 2025, nearly one in four U.S. counties had some kind of ban, moratorium, or impediment to clean energy development, up from 15% of counties in 2023. More than 60% of counties with bans are rural, according to a Daily Yonder and Canary Media analysis of data from USA Today and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Bucking this national trend and reversing the ban would put Bannock County back in play at a moment when Idaho needs all the energy it can get. Idaho Power, the state’s largest utility, expects electricity demand to grow by 1 gigawatt by 2030, a roughly 26% leap from current levels.

“The need to build stuff now is critical to Idaho’s economic future,” said Aaron Menenberg, the Idaho policy manager for Renewable Northwest, a nonprofit working to decarbonize the region’s grid. ​“We can’t afford to say no to anything.”

Bannock County, nestled in a valley a few hours north of Salt Lake City and 100 miles west of Wyoming’s Teton Range, is a prime location for new power plants. It’s home to the Populus substation, a critical juncture for getting electrons onto the grid and into Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and the Pacific Northwest. Building new power plants near a substation is cheaper, and those savings can help bring down costs for utility customers. 

But the biggest opportunity for county residents, as Hough sees it, is not utility-bill savings: It’s economic development. In recent years, Bannock County’s population has grown far more slowly than Idaho’s. The county’s rural communities, meanwhile, are watching essential services disappear, and drought worsened by climate change is making it difficult for family farms to stay afloat. 

Hough believes renewables would bring money into the community. Bannock County’s neighbors offer local proof: In 2024, projects in nearby Power and Bingham counties generated $909,000 and $639,000 in tax revenue, respectively. Hough wants to send a message — to the renewables industry and others — that Bannock County is ​“open for business,” too. 

Canary Media’s Electrified Life column shares real-world tales, tips, and insights to demystify what individuals can do to shift their homes and communities to clean electric power.

Last year, Coles County, Illinois, was debating whether to kill a proposed wind farm. Dorothy Macy wanted to speak up in support of the project — but she had serious self-doubts. 

“‘There are people better than me, … people that can speak to county boards, and they’re good at it,’” Macy recalled thinking at the time. ​“But I care. I decided, ​‘I can do this.’”

So Macy, a retired educator who has called the area home for 30 years, pushed aside her nerves and teamed up with about a dozen others to advocate for the roughly 300-megawatt development. Last July, at a public hearing, she asked the county board to approve the special permit for Coles Wind. 

Macy reminded the officials as well as several community opponents in the audience that the wind farm would deliver a windfall. Over the project’s 30-year lifespan, developer Apex Clean Energy expects it to generate over $81 million in taxes, including more than $43 million for school districts.

“This is [a] new revenue source that will provide money for our Charleston public schools,” Macy, whose own children went through that school system, said in her testimony. ​“And it will keep my taxes down.” 

Macy’s voice may have helped get Coles Wind across the finish line. Shortly after the public hearing, the county board voted 6–5 to approve the project permit.

A few months later, Macy showed up again before the county board to support the 210-MW Glacier Moraine Solar project. After initially shooting down the permit, the board made a U-turn in October. Both the wind and solar projects are now under construction.

Macy got out of her comfort zone to voice support for clean energy in her community. As opposition to solar, wind, and battery projects grows in pockets across the United States, that kind of determination matters more than ever.

Why stand up for clean energy in your community

Local permitting is the biggest bottleneck to reducing planet-heating emissions from the power sector, said Matt Traldi, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Greenlight America, which galvanizes grassroots support for clean energy projects. Nearly one in four counties in the U.S. restrict renewables development. And disinformation on how they impact farmland, human health, wildlife, and more spreads on social media, stoking fears in rural communities, where the majority of these projects get proposed.

Although carbon-free energy is necessary to avert the worst of the climate crisis, that motivation often isn’t what’s driving decision-makers. ​“Local governments are not deciding ​‘Is climate change real?’ And they’re not even deciding ​‘Is clean energy good?’” Traldi said. ​“They’re deciding ​‘Should we build this thing here?’” And that calculus, he notes, is based on ​“What do our constituents want? And will I get reelected if I say yes to this?”

Roughly half of Americans support solar and wind projects in their area, according to an April survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. But opponents are typically the loudest voices in the room. And while the opposition knows it needs to organize if it wants to stop a project, Traldi said, supporters are often unaware that if they don’t show up, clean energy loses by forfeit.

Just a few individuals turning up at hearings can tip the scales in favor of renewables, Traldi noted: Five or 10 people can take a project from ​“political suicide” to something that could ​“sail through.”

Advocating for local renewables is also one of the biggest opportunities for climate action that an individual can take. Greenlight America calculated that a 270-MW solar project is the emissions equivalent of taking 44,000 gas-powered cars off the road. 

“You might think one of the biggest decisions you can make is switching to an EV,” Traldi said. If you’re one of five people that tip the scales at a hearing, ​“it’s like you do that almost 10,000 times.”

Ready to boost renewables in your community? Here’s some expert advice.

Keep an ear to the ground for proposed solar, wind, and battery projects.

You might hear about a clean energy proposal in the local newspaper, on the TV or radio, at the library, or on a city or county website. Or it may be all your neighbors can talk about, in person or online in local Facebook groups and Nextdoor posts. Especially important is to look for when there will be hearings where you can advocate for a project.

Find or create a pro-renewables posse. 

Macy in Coles County didn’t go it alone. She was already in touch with local organizer Cindy Shepherd, green team director at the environmental organization Faith in Place, who encouraged Macy to speak up for the wind and solar farm projects.