Farmers Weekly Review

By Nick Reiher

Residents in Reed and Custer townships on edge about a proposed 3,590-acre solar farm will have to wait until February for a decision from the Will County Board.

Following dozens of mostly opposed landowners who spoke on the issue, the board at its November 21 meeting voted 12-8 to postpone the issue once again until the Feb. 20. 2025, meeting.

Although he called the current plan “awful” in its current form, Land Use Committee Chair Frankie Pretzel, R-New Lenox, insisted he wanted to give the applicants –           AEUG Will Solar, LLC, and Brian Dunneback of Acciona Energy USA Global LLC, doing business as AEUG Will Solar, LLC – the opportunity to meet with landowners to try to work out some of the concerns.

He suggested that might include soil and water testing to make sure there would be no leakage of toxic materials into local wells, as well as rectifying the situation where the solar farm would be 250 feet from a landowner’s property, instead of the required 1,000 feet.

The proposed solar farm would be located south of Smiley Road, east of Essex Road (Excepting two properties in Reed Township), north of the Southern Boundary of Will County of County Line Road, and along both sides of Ohlhues Road in County Board District #1.

Pretzel and other County Board members also noted the state changed the legislation for solar farms, taking away much of the power from county boards.

It was noted the County Board’s Legislative Committee already is working to change the solar farm legislation. But in the meantime, rejecting a solar farm proposal could mean the project would end up decided in the courts, Pretzel said, “and (the applicants) may get what they want.”

Others believed having the issue go to court would help put it back in the Legislature’s court.

But delaying the vote on the issue, as the board already did in September, is putting those landowners through even more stress, said Board Member Julie Berkowicz, R-Naperville.

County Board Chair Judy Ogalla, R-Monee, said she as a resident in the footprint of the long-discussed South Suburban Airport, knows how the landowners in Reed and Custer townships feel.

She also was instrumental in helping the Will County Farm Bureau draft the county’s initial solar farm ordinance before the state restructured it.

“(The new state regulations) are not good legislation,” she said.

Still, the Will County Farm Bureau did weigh in on this solar farm proposal. After some discussions with Dunneback and Victoria Bill on the Acciona Solar LLC project, Farm Bureau Manager Mark Schneidewind said he recommended a farm specialist to review tile work and sediment control work, as well as review seedings of perennials and management of the site until the growth has become a solid stand for ground cover minus the weeds.

“We see the need to provide a reinforced silt fencing in the high concentration areas of flow and we have discussed the need to contact upstream and downstream landowners about drainage and concerns they have with the development possibly affecting their farming operation,” Schneidewind wrote in a letter to county Land Use officials.

He said the applicants agreed to look at and address these items discussed.

Nick Reiher is editor of Farmers Weekly Review.