Letter: Property rights and balancing risk to the community

We are not angry at the landowners who chose to lease their property for solar panels and battery energy storage systems. They made a private business decision on land they own, and that right deserves respect.

What concerns many residents is not the landowner’s choice, but the expectation that the rest of the county should absorb the risks that come with these projects.

Large battery energy storage systems introduce safety considerations that deserve thoughtful review. One of those is the potential for thermal runaway, a known failure mode in lithium-ion batteries where overheating can spread from one cell to others. While such events are uncommon, when they do occur, they require specialized emergency response, extended monitoring, and can affect nearby residents and infrastructure. These are not hypothetical issues, but operational realities that communities and first responders must be prepared to manage.

If such an incident were to occur, it would not be private companies or landowners who are asked to shelter nearby neighborhoods, reroute school buses, or provide emergency services. That responsibility would fall on local towns, volunteer fire departments, and county taxpayers.

The financial benefits of these projects largely flow to private landowners and utility companies. The risks, however, are shared by the broader community, often without meaningful local authority, dedicated funding, or enforceable safety guarantees.

This is not about blaming farmers or neighbors who leased their land. It is about whether it is reasonable for an entire county to shoulder public-safety responsibility for projects that primarily benefit private interests.

Respecting property rights should not require communities to accept risk without adequate protections, transparency, and local control.

John Kaltenbacher
Dubois County