In 2021, my wife and I moved from Georgia to Gold Hill and found that “gold” has been re-discovered in Gold Hill, Rowan County! In 1824, one of America’s first gold rushes occurred in Gold Hill. It was predated only by Reed’s Gold Mine in 1799 in Cabarrus County, about 18 miles south of Gold Hill.

But the gold being found now is much more valuable than precious metal. It is golden neighbors who live by the golden rule. It is the gold of dedicated efforts to preserve historic Gold Hill town and the wonderful way of life of rural North Carolina forests, streams, real farms and really great salt of the earth Americans.

We discovered that Gold Hill has a golden volunteer fire department second to none. And that fire department and many citizens are massively worried about a serious threat to Gold Hill safety and our very way of life and health.

We discovered sadly that a massive blight upon this pristine beauty is about to descend like a plague in the form of 334,000+ electrified solar panels spread across about 564 acres (that is about the size of downtown Salisbury) of beautiful forests and streams right beside U.S. 52 in Gold Hill. Tens of thousands of trees will be forever gone. Hundreds of wild of animals will be forever displaced or killed.

Toxic waste from broken and damaged solar panels will most certainly find its way into our drinking water as it has in many other solar panel fiascos across the USA. When a fire breaks out, the Gold Hill Volunteer Fire Department will not be able to fight it. There will be years and years of massive truck traffic on U.S. 52 to facilitate construction of such a monstrosity, and that giant increase in traffic will inevitably cause wrecks. Tangling with an 18-wheeler is often fatal or very seriously injuring.

Please help us fight back against this horrible solar panel invasion of environment-ruining, water-polluting, public safety-threatening, history-destroying scourge that is the reality of this solar factory threat.

Tell your Rowan County commissioners to please vote “no.”

— Ken Wiseman

Gold Hill