GREEN CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Mich. Jim Chapman is a former police officer, a grandfather and a Republican. Until recently, he was also the relatively uncontroversial, twice-elected supervisor of this rural town, where his family roots go back five generations.

But that was before the war over Gotion.

Gotion (rhymes with motion) is the U.S.-based subsidiary of a Chinese company that manufactures lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. It wants to build its next factory on a parcel of land in Green Township where, supporters promise, it will bring 2,350 workers to a region thats been bleeding people and money, while producing material essential for the fight against climate change.

Discussions appear to have started sometime last year, leading to negotiations over what financial incentives state and local officials were willing to offer. Approval required a series of votes, including a September resolution that Chapman and the rest of Green Townships board supported unanimously. Chapman called Gotion a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

But the project kicked up angry opposition as the process moved forward. It started with concerns about the companys ties to China, followed by skepticism over all the promised economic benefits. Then came the fears legitimate, unfounded or somewhere in between, depending on who you ask that the components and solvents of battery-making would contaminate the local water supply or pollute the air.

Opponents may not be able to stop the project at this point: Gotion can break ground as soon as it gets permits, which the state environmental protection division and other agencies have authority to grant on their own. But residents angry about the plant have gathered enough signatures to force a November recall vote for the Green Township board.

Theyve also made it clear how they feel most memorably in a two-hour-plus April town hall that the board had to move outside, next to a playground amid darkening skies and falling temperatures, to accommodate the large crowd and their protest signs.

At the meeting, streamed online by the right-wing media site The Midwesterner , some Gotion opponents literally screamed. Others spoke more deliberately, relying on prepared text.

You should feel sick to your stomach for what you are doing, said one speaker, a veteran wearing a Top Dad T-shirt who mentioned that his land was just east of the Gotion site. When that thing goes off, whos going to be sucking on them toxic fumes? Ill tell you who: my two little girls.

Several people accused Chapman and his counterparts of misrepresenting community sentiment when promoting the project to state officials, and of accepting bribes (a charge with no evidence that Chapman has strongly denied). Its very clear that, from the start, you intentionally tried to railroad this project past us, one opponent said. We count on you, our elected officials, to look out for us. But instead, you have all chosen to completely betray us.

Its impossible to know whether opponents like these outnumber the plants supporters, or whether they are simply more vocal just as its impossible to tell how much of the opposition began organically, or how much was stirred up by outside agitators with their own political agendas. But the debate has created a deep rift in the community dividing neighbors, friends and families, spawning protests and maybe even an act of vandalism .

Its a case study in just how complex the realities of implementing a green economic agenda can be, and the political effects for next November and beyond.