The Yearners’ Veto – A Bogus Noise Statard

Maysville saw the need for sound regulation years ago. They studied it and enacted Section 190.45 — a fair, enforceable standard that has served residents and businesses well ever since.

For generations, Mason County saw no need to impose noise limits on any land use. That changed only when solar farms were proposed.

The moment renewable energy appeared on the horizon, those who yearn for days now past found their voice. Suddenly, Mason County needed a noise standard — but only for solar. Not for anything that was already here. Only for innovative land uses.

Those who yearn for the county of the 1960s lobbied for a 30 dB(A) standard. That is a standard not even the current rural countryside can meet.

It was not designed to regulate solar. It was designed to stop it.

The Logic Is Unavoidable

Three facts. One conclusion.

1. Maysville — which has studied noise regulation carefully — sets its most protective residential limit at 46–50 dB(A), and that standard has served its community well.
2. Mason County has never imposed a noise limit on any land use, commercial or agricultural — until innovative land uses became possible.
3. Rural Mason County’s ambient noise already averages 45 dB(A) at night, with peaks of 54 dB(A) — yet solar farms would be held to 30 dB(A), a level that is just 20% of rural Mason County’s existing noise level or that of a normal conversation.

A noise limit applied only to solar, in a county with no other noise standards, set at a level that Mason County’s rural countryside already exceeds, is not a regulation. It is a ban in disguise.

The Stakes for Mason County

Mason County cannot afford another decade of Yearner economics. Tobacco is almost gone. The dairy barns are empty. Many industries are gone. Worse, many of our youth have left. Every project the Yearners veto is a payroll that goes somewhere else, a tax base that never materializes, a young family that leaves because they cannot afford to stay.

The Yearners have a ready answer for every innovative land use: not here, not now, not ever. They stopped the wind with a one-mile setback. They are attempting to stop data centers with the same litany. They hope to stop solar with a noise standard that can never be met.

The method changes. Their desired outcome does not.

The Question That Demands an Answer

Before you vote in November, demand that every candidate and commissioner who supports the 30 dB(A) standard answer one question publicly:

“If Mason County has no noise standard for any other existing land use, and Maysville — which has a detailed, tested noise ordinance — sets its most protective residential nighttime limit at 46–50 dB(A), what is the legitimate basis for requiring solar to meet 30 dB(A) at its own fence line?”

There are only two honest answers:

1. The first is that 30 dB(A) is an error — a number inserted without reference to any engineering standard, ambient measurement, or comparable jurisdiction — and it should be replaced with a legitimate framework like Maysville’s Section 190.45.
2. The second: the limit was never intended to be met. It is a ban dressed as a regulation, advanced by those who romanticize the past, and insulated enough financially to not care what the current trends cost the rest of Mason County.

The Simple Fix

Replace the solar-specific noise provision with a general noise ordinance rooted in Maysville’s proven standard — Section 190.45. Protect all neighbors. Hold all operators to the same rules. Let solar compete on its actual merits.

That is not a gift to the energy industry. It is basic fairness. And it is the minimum Mason County owes the next generation of residents who are watching to see whether their county has a future — or only a past that is no longer here but yearned for with a profound form of denial.