As you probably already know, the future of the Flint Hills is right now. Even as this is being written, there are meetings at all levels of government all over Kansas that will decide what happens to America’s last tallgrass prairie.
This article from the Wichita Eagle does an excellent job of summing up most of the issues and many of the players involved.
The best part of the article is that opponents to commercial wind power aren’t painted as unreasonable, Not In My Back Yard fanatics, which has been the case with press coverage far too often. Too often, the media has treated wind power primarily as an issue of artistic taste, and it’s hard for people outside the Flint Hills to get too worked up on that issue alone.
But what’s unfortunately missing from this article - and just about every news article from the mainstream media on the Flint Hills - are the words “America’s last tallgrass prairie,” or even the words “prairie-chicken.” The view of the Kansas Wildlife Federation is that if the discussion on the Flint Hills isn’t starting from the area’s absolute uniqueness, then it’s missing one of the most crucial components.
The closest the article gets to that point is here:
The Flint Hills, he said, belong on the list of geographic attractions that offer a truly unique look and feel - much like the Badlands, the Hill Country of east Texas, even the Grand Canyon.
“Those are areas that become defined by their nature, by the indigenous culture and history of the place,” Allegrucci said. “The Flint Hills have that.”
Sadly, if you go look at much of the Hill County these days, all you’ll see is 20-acre homesites. The drive from San Antonio to Johnson City on 281 used to be one the best drives in Texas. Now it’s an endless low-density suburb. Maybe we can avoid a similar fate in the Flint Hills, but we have to take action now.
If you’d like to get involved in preserving America’s last tallgrass prairie, there are a lot of actions you can take right now to do so. Call us here at the KWF office at (785) 232-3238, or send us an email, and we’ll find a way for you to get involved that fits the time and energy you have available.