Better questions we need to ask about the soccer complex and every other development
When it comes to talk of development in Fayette County, there are usually only a handful of concerns addressed by those brokering the deals: What are the economic advantages and disadvantages? Will it bring in tourism dollars? What will it cost? Who will pay for it? How much of a hassle will construction be? What about parking?
While it has undoubtedly made some sense in previous years to give weight to these types of questions, Fayette County’s ongoing and accelerating housing crisis coupled with ongoing and accelerating climate change requires that we ask and answer different questions entirely.
Take the recently proposed Lexington Sporting Club youth soccer fields. In addition to a pro soccer stadium, it would also include 12 youth soccer fields, numerous facilities, and 750 parking spaces. To accomplish this feat, the proposed development would remove 147 acres of undeveloped land off Russell Cave Road, most of which is currently used for training horses.
By now, most of us have heard of climate change, and many in Lexington are concerned about environmental sustainability. What many don’t know, however, is that through excavation and earthmoving, i.e. “development”, the very greenhouse gasses (GHG) responsible for our increasingly warming and unstable planet — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide(N2O) — are released from soils where they are otherwise safely stored.
What does 147 acres provide in terms of carbon storage? While it’s not possible to know exactly given that every bit of untouched soil is different, a general estimate of carbon sequestering per acre is .3 metric tons. That means just turning over the soil in these 147 acres will release somewhere in the ballpark of 44.1 metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Add in the burning of fossil fuels and accompanying emissions that dozens of machines across years will require to build the complex, plus that of the countless fossil-fuel-powered cars that will be on our roads coming to and from soccer tournaments, and it’s not hard to conclude that a giant youth soccer complex might just be a sustainability enemy.
While it is undoubtedly true that many young people would benefit from soccer games at these fields, and that there are likely economic benefits (at least in the short term) around development like this, because of where we find ourselves in history — namely, at the intersection of excessive planetary harm and a chance to reduce it and reverse it — we have to have different concerns and ask different questions when we talk about developing our agricultural land.
Development projects like this one need to face scrutiny like: What are the environmental costs of this? If we decide to do this, how can the release and burning of GHG be offset somewhere else so that we in Fayette County aren’t worsening our already alarming climate crisis and what commitments do the developers make toward this end? Is this the best use of good soil — that takes decades to build by the way — and carbon release when we also don’t have anywhere near enough housing? What are we doing to increase public transportation to and from this development in order to reduce traffic and fossil fuel emissions from the individual vehicles that will otherwise have to be put to use to reach it?
Perhaps these concerns are a stretch for many. Too often, we think of climate change as “out there”, a global problem rather than a local one. This is dangerously short-sighted. After all, every one of us lives somewhere, and it is in that somewhere that the deleterious effects of a warming and imperiled planet will do us and our neighbors harm. Our partner in tackling climate change is the Earth itself, but with each bit of development, each acre turned up and ruined, our opportunities to keep damaging GHG in the ground, while maintaining healthy soil diminishes. It’s time we start acting like it.
Reva Russell English is an organizer, farmer and artist in Lexington.