Who are we?

Protect the Flint Hills is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information and education about issues that affect the Flint Hills of Kansas, the last expanse of tallgrass prairie on the continent.

Who are our officers?

How can you contact us?

If you wish to contribute to this cause or correspond with us, please write:

A message from our president:

I am the 5th generation of my family to live and work in the Flint Hills, one of the most unique landscapes in Kansas and the last remaining significant Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem in the world. Please allow me to explain why so many landowners have concerns about the development of large scale commercial wind energy complexes in the Flint Hills.

Almost everyone is perceptive enough to realize that any large-scale industrial development will have a lasting negative effect on our endangered landscape. Even the wind energy corporations acknowledge that their turbines have a certain amount of negative ecological and visual impact, yet developers continue to search for ways to justify their pursuit of profit at the expense of our environment. They say we need to develop green energy in order to protect the environment, yet they intend to damage the endangered Flint Hills environment by constructing wind energy factories here. This contradiction defies logic. The obvious conclusion is that wind energy companies are more interested in making money than protecting our Kansas environment … or any environment.

We Americans have always been infatuated with technology that will accelerate what some see as our Manifest Destiny to conquer the land in the name of progress. As a culture, we have been too quick to abuse our natural environment in order to make money.

It’s amazing to most stewards of Flint Hills land that anyone who is concerned about preserving the environment could consider destroying a vanishing ecosystem that at one point was being considered for a National Park. How many of us would endorse the placement of wind towers in the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or Yosemite? Rational thinking Kansans know in their hearts it’s wrong to destroy a one of a kind landscape. Only about 3% of our nation’s original Tallgrass Prairie remains undisturbed and most of it is in the Flint Hills. Other acceptable sites are available for wind development. Placing hundreds of 400’ turbines in the Flint Hills shows no regard for the natural beauty or the environmental significance of Kansas.

Our elected officials at the state and federal level have created an extremely friendly business climate for industrial wind energy development by establishing generous tax exemptions and incentives that are not coupled with environmental responsibility. The state of Kansas must craft a responsible wind energy policy which sets limits for industrial development in unique environments such as the Flint Hills. We must take immediate action to protect our scenic, endangered ecosystems from being sacrificed for the sake of short term corporate profit.

Larry R. Patton