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DENTON – The Caroline County Commissioners are supporting efforts to contain solar sprawl and getting the word out to clarify their position, especially in the wake of aggressive state legislation to expand green energy, whether the counties like it or not.
At their May 27 meeting in Denton, Commission President Travis Breeding, Commission Vice President Larry Porter and Commissioner Frank Bartz discussed revisiting the county’s 2,000-acre cap on solar development.
They also encouraged residents to sign a petition initiated by Jay Falstad of Farmers Alliance for Rural Maryland (FARM) potentially to repeal Senate Bill 931 (crossfiled with House Bill 1036), also known as the Renewable Energy Certainty Act, which was signed into law by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore May 15. The law’s intent is to meet the state’s green energy goals and lower electricity costs.
“The petition … does not really restrict solar,” Porter said. “It just says that the land use should be in the hands of the counties, which I think we all agree with.”
Breeding suggested potentially amending the County Code either to stop solar development before reaching the county’s 2,000-acre cap, or to modify it to limit solar to “land that is not designated ag land or designated land of statewide importance or national importance.”
The county has 200,000 acres of agricultural land, 91,000 acres (46%) of which are classified as “prime farmland” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prime farmland is soil with the highest productivity for producing food crops “and, thus, is of national importance for preservation as farmland,” according to the commissioners’ Jan. 14 letter to Caroline farmers, who are frequently approached by solar developers seeking to lease their land for solar array projects.
The state of Maryland has classified 50,000 acres (25%) as “farmland of statewide importance” for food production.
Opponents of SB931 originally urged a cap of 2% of designated farm or forest land for solar projects; instead, the final legislation increased the cap to 5%, or about 100,000 Maryland acres.
Of particular concern to Caroline residents and others who travel State Route 313 between Goldsboro and Greensboro is the scale of the 740-acre Cherrywood Solar construction project by NextEra Energy Resources. Other smaller scale and community projects are in various stages of development, and so far, the 2,000-acre county cap has not been met.
Porter has used his personal Facebook page to clarify the Commissioners’ stance and their actions to limit solar expansion. On May 29, he wrote in capital letters, “There has been no land taken from any farmer for solar projects. Every acre utilized for solar has been negotiated, leased, or sold in a legal transaction.”
As a farm owner, Porter said he has turned down “lucrative offers” by solar companies and “will not vilify or condemn farmers for doing what is in their best interests for their families and their future.”
On May 29, the Commissioners posted a letter on the Caroline County Government Facebook page urging residents to sign the FARM petition, clarifying their position and listing seven steps they’ve taken to lead the effort.
“Caroline County has been one of the acknowledged leaders in the statewide effort to push back against solar sprawl,” they stated. “We were the first county in Maryland to adopt a commercial solar cap and to enact a moratorium on large-scale battery energy storage systems – proactive measures designed to preserve agricultural land and ensure responsible planning.”
“Although Governor Wes Moore signed House Bill 1036 (Renewable Energy Certainty Act) into law last week, the Caroline County Commissioners remain fully committed to opposing this deeply flawed legislation,” they stated. “Our fight is not over – and we are using every tool at our disposal to protect Caroline County’s farmland, zoning authority, and rural way of life.”
“Caroline County will remain at the forefront of this fight – for our land, our future, and our right to make decisions at the local level,” the Commissioners stated on May 29. “Though the bill has been signed, Maryland residents still have a voice,”
To bring the referendum to the 2026 state ballot, 60,000 valid signatures by registered voters will be needed, but a third of those signatures, or about 20,000, were to have been collected by June 1, with another 40,000 required during the rest of the month of June.
If enough signatures were collected for the FARM-sponsored petition, the opportunity to repeal the legislation could be brought to a referendum on the Nov. 3, 2026, Maryland Gubernatorial General Election ballot.
However, at 4 p.m. May 31, Falstad told the Caroline Review officials with the state Board of Elections reneged on the submission deadline it stated in writing. Since the May 31 deadline for petitions fell on a weekend, Board officials told Falstad that the deadline was extended until 11:59 p.m. Monday, June 2. Instead, at the last minute, the Board reversed its decision and told Falstad the petitions were due May 31 instead. Falstad called the reversal a “scandal.”
Collecting petitions for the referendum May 31 at Denton Elementary School were volunteers Hannah Cawley and her 12-year-old daughter Brianna. Cawley, who is vice chairman of the Caroline County Planning Commission, said she told her daughter, “This is for your future. We can’t farm if we don’t have farmland.” Cawley and her husband Matt own a farm near Federalsburg.
Brianna said she was astonished at solar arrays she saw on a field trip in Queen Anne’s County. “I was like, oh my gosh, there’s just so many (solar panels), and they don’t really provide us (in Caroline County) with electricity.”
Margie Hannawald, who is running for Clerk of the Circuit Court, arrived to sign the petition “because we have a farm, and so do my parents, and we have a lot of friends who have farms, and this is very important to us personally,” she said.
“It's a shame, because the Eastern Shore, especially, is an easy target – it’s flat land, the land is less expensive,” Hannah Cawley said. “I told a family that was here earlier, ‘You know, everybody's talking about the (Cherrywood solar project). It’s an uproar for the whole county community, and it started in 2017, … so all these projects have been approved, … and everybody's in an outrage. Well, we can't stop it now –we don't have the means to stop it.”
If the state were to approve a project that exceeds the county’s 2,000-acre cap “all the local say just goes out the window,” Cawley said.
