To the editor:

Last week I looked out to the edge of our property to see a spray rig stopped on the road. I figured it was the farmers taking a break, but it wasn’t one of their units. I walked down to check, finding it was a crew from the tree company Asplundh, which normally clears high up around power lines. Evergy had hired them for “vegetation management” by spraying herbicides on growing oak trees — 10 feet from the adjacent waterway.

Adding this to the fact that Evergy’s sludge pits aside their power plant are contaminating surrounding groundwater, I can no longer be ambivalent about the solar farm planned for across the road that Evergy will own. It will consist of thousands of metal pillars (pipes) driven into the soil. Evergy assures the coating to keep them from rusting is inert, but how can we trust the compound will not eventually dissolve and contaminate the groundwater?

We depend on a well to bring water from the aquifer for all our household uses. If it becomes contaminated our property value will be zero. Two years ago a crop duster sprayed directly over our house. I complained to the farmer who obviously listened. This year the duster’s flight path was modified and it didn’t happen again. Evergy should not be given stewardship of the 1000-plus acres of land on which the solar farm is to be built. Any claim it’s committed to the environment is simply PR.

John Naramore,

Lawrence