Cynthia Martin leaned against a folding table and addressed the 20 people in front of her. She projected her voice so her words wouldn't be lost in the whirring of the two floor fans set up in the local community center. "This week, I'm gonna pull that one last magic rabbit out of the hat," she said.

She was speaking to a neighborhood group of mostly ranchers, farmers and retirees who meet once a week in Dike, Tex., an unincorporated community two hours east of Dallas with a population of about 1,000. The area is largely undeveloped and is part of the Post Oak Savannah, an “ecoregion” of 8.5 million acres that runs along East Texas from the Red River to south of Houston. The land that hasn’t been cleared and converted to Bermuda grass for cattle grazing is covered in dense forest, or native grasses like little bluestem.

There are few areas of old-growth post oak trees left in Texas. They’re snapshots of what this region used to look like when bison, black bears and wild turkeys roamed. In addition to clearing, fire suppression has reduced the number of towering hardwoods that have been there for hundreds of years. Without heat to knock out invasive species, undergrowth has sprouted up around the trees, and shorter mesquite trees have taken over the landscape.

Under the canopies of the post oaks, wildlife like bald eagles and white-tailed deer take cover. In fields where milkweed grows, monarch butterflies lay their eggs. The potential loss of part of that wildlife habitat is what prompted the group to first gather under a tent in March. More than 100 people attended that meeting. After that, they pooled their resources to make it a concerted effort. One resident sent mailers monthly to everyone on the local postal route. Another took drone photos of the area. They formed a Facebook group to get information out quickly. And Martin hired a law firm.

Theirs was a battle of green vs. green. A French energy company called Engie, with an annual revenue of $70 billion in 2019, is in the process of leasing acreage from landowners in Dike with the intent of installing solar panels on the ground. The company has already secured contracts to use 1,850 acres. Those who sign on will receive $500 per acre annually. Residents who are against the project worry it could have unintended environmental impacts, such as increased runoff to nearby parcels of land, and the release of carbon gases stored in the trees that would need to be cleared to make way for the panels.

That’s what Martin argued in the lawsuit she filed against Engie the day after the meeting on June 28 — the magic trick she’d promised the group. According to a study that Martin commissioned with $5,000 of her own money by Austin-based water planning and engineering firm Aqua Strategies, Engie’s plan could have serious consequences. If it goes ahead, creeks that snake between the trees could rise, and runoff to parts of her 283-acre property could increase by 43 percent. The court denied Martin’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt the construction, but she is still seeking damages of $250,000 from the company.

Engie completed environmental studies of its own, company spokesman Kevin Phelan told me via email, and came back with “no findings of concern.” (He answered questions about Engie’s plans, but would not comment on the pending litigation.)

Martin says she was wooed by Engie earlier this year in hopes that she would lease her land for the project. She says she asked about potential logging, as her property is heavily wooded and some of the trees are more than 100 years old.

One acre of post oak trees stores about 313 tons of carbon dioxide, according to Fred Raley, tree development coordinator at Texas A&M Forest Service. When trees are cleared, the gases are released back into the air. Phelan told me the company would log no more than 100 acres, not including Martin’s property.

The company’s final proposal to Martin included a $25,000 signing bonus. She turned it down. “It’s certainly not a policy of our firm to stand in the way of alternative energy, but you can’t just be free rein, where you go in and overturn the land that is already in place,” says Chris Bell, Martin’s lawyer.

Trees in Texas. (Michael Pickens)

There’s no question that Texas has an energy problem: February’s deadly winter storm paralyzed the grid and left millions without power. Two weeks before the community center meeting this summer, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the electric grid operator in the state, asked Texans to turn up their thermostats to reduce the load on the system. A lack of wind in West Texas slowed the turbines there; other power plants went offline for unknown reasons. The one thing that “kept the lights on” during that time, says Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, was solar energy.

Since December 2018, Engie has held two town hall meetings with residents. The company recently sent an information packet to everyone whose property is adjacent to the proposed project. In it, the company says the facility will create as many as 400 short-term construction jobs and four permanent positions, and will generate enough electricity in the first year to power more than 78,000 homes.

But that’s not enough to convince some in the area. “Everybody around here already has a job, so who is that paying? It’s paying people outside of our community and giving them more money,” Dike resident Michele Barnes told me. “We’re not getting anything, and they’re taking everything away from us. It’s basically going to ruin Dike.”

The group has another trick up its sleeve if the lawsuit doesn’t work. Members have compiled enough signatures in support of incorporating Dike as a city. To start the process, they’d need to hire a surveyor, which would cost $12,000. The group has $3,000 saved and plans to hold a cookout to raise more money. If the vote goes their way, the residents hope to annex land that has been leased for the solar facility. “We’re just going to tax them out,” Barnes says.

Dike resident Ronny Joslin’s 18-year-old daughter Riley has Down syndrome and is highly sensitive to sound. She sleeps with earmuffs to block noise. The Joslins’ property is on the north end of the proposed solar facility; panels would be installed about 200 feet from their house, and an inverter, which converts the electricity, would be 900 feet from the home, according to Engie.

“We are well aware of the needs of the Joslin family and have been in contact with them on several occasions,” Phelan wrote in an email.

One Dike resident told Joslin that he believed people could do whatever they want with their land. Now, says Joslin of his neighbor, “Me and him don’t even wave when we pass on this county road out here.”

Mary Beth Gahan is a writer in Dallas.