To the editor:

As a regular reader of Chad Lawhorn’s Town Talk column, I generally have great respect for his informative and balanced style. It appears, however, that he has recently become an advocate for the resistance to the proposed Kansas Sky Energy Center.

The headlines “Stormwater and the solar farm” on April 7 and “Planning leader: More work needed on solar project flooding concerns” on April 10, give the impression that there are serious documented problems with flooding associated with solar installations. There is no such evidence and none is provided in the articles.

Instead, numerous quotes by opponents to the project are emphasized in the articles while much less space is devoted to evidence. By emphasizing in both articles that the County Commission “could be just a few days from approving the project” Lawhorn leaves the clear impression that approval would be a mistake. Not until the very last paragraph of the April 10 article does he acknowledge that it is “quite possible” that the solar farm could reduce the risk of flooding and that the current farm fields create large amounts of runoff. There is indeed substantial evidence that perennial grasses produce much less runoff than the bare soil of corn fields.

A balanced discussion of evidence rather than an emphasis on danger and fear of flooding would be much appreciated by those of us interested in this historically significant subject.

Wayne A. White,

Lawrence