Adair County weighs solar farm project amid ongoing talks with Azimuth Renewables

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. — Talks are ongoing between the Adair County Commissioner’s Office and Azimuth Renewables regarding a proposed 40-megawatt solar farm set to connect to the Ameren grid southeast of Kirksville.

The project remains in its developmental stages.

Adair County Presiding Commissioner Mark Shahan said, “We’ve been doing a lot of research on that and a lot of discussions on the chapter 100 and the risk of entering into such an agreement and we have not decided to do anything like that.”

Shahan noted that the agreement would span 35 years, emphasizing the potential changes over such a period.

Before any agreement is finalized, the county is requesting planning maps and travel routes to begin negotiations.

“We’re looking at the risks of what are the risks of the county being responsible for such a project,” Shahan said. “You know there is a decommissioning agreement and there’s some bonding involved that the projects do pay for, a lot of other counties have done this.”

The president of Azimuth Renewables expressed hopes to complete construction by the end of next year, contingent on agreements with the county regarding road use, decommissioning terms, and potentially a chapter 100 agreement.

“We’re working to put some certainty around the financial contributions this project will bring to the county,” he said. “It will be a significant windfall relative to the current agricultural use of the property.”

Shahan clarified that the county does not have the authority to prevent landowners from participating in green energy projects.

“We can’t really tell a landowner they can or cannot sign your land up into a green energy project that’s all up to the landowner,” he said. “We’re a property rights county. But we do engage in, when such projects are going to develop in our county we want to make sure the people who are using the roads are taking care of the roads.”

Shahan invited community members to visit the courthouse during working hours to ask questions about the project.