Iroquois County approves text amendments for solar, wind and battery ordinances

At it’s April 8 meeting, the Iroquois County Board approved text amendments for the solar, wind and battery ordinances.

During the meeting, board member Doug Geiger, chair of the tax and zoning committee, read from the minutes of the committee’s April 1 meeting about the ordinances.

He said the committee met with Andrew Kent, who is with the law firm Heyl Royster, and was retained by Iroquois County State’s Attorney Michael Quinlan to help in the adoption process for the three ordinances.

“Keyt explained the process of a text amendment statement the county already has a code of ordinances in place and an established board of appeals,” he read from the minutes. “Keyt said he has been working with Geiger on creating draft ordinances for the county board to consider. The tax/planning and zoning committee will make a recommendation to the county board on whether to move forward with the text amendment process for the three ordinances. From there, the county board will make resolutions to apply for the tex amendment and submit and an application to the planning and zoning office to amend the ordinances. The zoning board of appeals will hold a public hearing and publish the information. A recommendation will be made to the county board and the county board will make their decision to adopt the ordinances or send the ordinances back to the zoning board of appeals.”

It was noted that Keyt said the goal is to have the ordinances in place by May 13. The committee minutes Geiger read indicate that the committee recommended “the county board apply for the text amendment in accordance with the language reflected in the draft” solar ordinance, wind ordinance and battery ordinance.

At the April 8 meeting, the county board approved those recommendations, with board members Jody Munsterman, Jamie Bakken and Mitchell Bence voting no on the solar energy facility ordinance, Munsterman, Bakken and Bence voting no on the winter energy facility ordinance, and Munsterman, Bakken, Bence, Jed Whitlow and Charlie Alt voting no on the battery energy storage facility ordinance.

The public hearing is set for May 5 at the Iroquois County Administrative Center.

In the April 8 meeting, board member Kathleen Perkinson said that the attorney had noted “there is a statue enacted by the state in 2023 that established standards or views of renewable projects and county boards cannot be more restrictive than those state statutes, which effectively takes local control out of the equation. So we’re mandated by the state to have standards that we can’t be more restrictive for. So I think it’s important to note that. That’s why we are having this discussion and why we are back peddling quite a bit from the ordinances that we’ve been looking at for the last few months. I would say they are watered down but they are watered down the way the state is mandating that they be watered down. A point I have is if the state can take away local control can the federal government take away state control of renewables and is there anything we can do about state control of what is going on in our communities to give us more say in what we have here.”

Board chairman Paul Ducat said, “The constitution states the state takes care of the state, the county takes care of the county. I do think certain things need to stay the way they are and we need to stand up because they don’t care about the people of Iroquois County.”

Ducat went on to say that Gov. J.B. Pritzker does not care about the people of Illinois, noting that he has been “running around wanting to be president”. Ducat said, “We do what we have to do. There are some things we have to follow. At the same time, we have to take a stand.”

In the minutes Geiger read into the record, some of the reviews in the ordinances Keyt looked at include:

“Solar ordinance

- page 9 — application fees: any unused fees shall be reimbursed to the applicant upon issuance of a building permit or 18 days after the decision of the county board, which ever is later. The applicant may apply unused conditional use permit application fees towards the building permit fee.

Solar Ordinance

· Page 9 – Application Fees: Any unused fees shall be reimbursed to the applicant upon issuance of a building permit or 180 days after the decision of the County Board, which ever is later. The applicant may apply unused conditional use permit application fees toward the building permit fee.

· Page 10 – reviewed application requirements.

· Page 13 – The facility owner must enter into an Agricultural Impact Mitigation Agreement (AIMA) with the Illinois Department of Agriculture and participating property owners prior to the date of a public hearing on the conditional use permit application.

· Page 14 – Application Acceptance: The application filing date shall be the date on which the County determines the application is complete.

· Pages 15 & 16 – reviewed setbacks.

· Page 16 – reviewed road use agreements.

· Page 18 – reviewed landscape plan. A living buffer of evergreen trees must be planted and maintained during construction. An alternative buffer may also be considered.

· Page 23 – reviewed noise levels and inspections.

· Page 24 – reviewed decommissioning plan. Decommissioning financial assurances shall be compliant with the AIMA and the decommissioning agreement must be approved by the County Board.

· Page 25 – reviewed defaults and remedies.

· Page 27 & 28 – reviewed factors for consideration.

Wind Ordinance

· Page 10 – reviewed application fees. Prior to processing any conditional use permit application for a CWEF, the applicant must submit a cashier’s check, or electronic funds, made payable to the County for the conditional use permit application fee equal to $5,000 per megawatt of proposed nameplate generating capacity, up to a maximum fee of $250,000.

· Page 14 – reviewed coordination with local fire departments.

· Page 14 – reviewed road use agreements.

· Page 17 – reviewed interference.

· Page 19 – reviewed shadow flicker. Shadow flicker shall not affect any occupied community building or nonparticipating residence more than 30 hours per year under planned operating conditions.

· Page 19 – reviewed lighting. Applicant shall apply for an Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) or other similar technology to reduce light pollution and visual impacts caused by the CWEF. If approved by the relevant federal authorities, the applicant shall install the ADLS system and operate said system during the duration of the project, except such time necessary for testing and repairs of the ADLS system.

· Page 21 – reviewed power and communication lines. J.U.L.I.E shall be contacted before commencing any excavations or digging.

· Page 25 – reviewed decommissioning plan.

· Page 26 – reviewed insurance requirements.

· Page 27 – reviewed defaults and remedies.

Battery Ordinance

· Page 6 – reviewed battery energy storage system (BESS). Tier 1: A BESS that has an aggregate energy capacity less than or equal to 600 kWh and, if in a room or enclosed area, consists of only a single BESS unit. Tier 2: A BESS that has an aggregate energy capacity greater than 600 kWH or is comprised of more than one BESS unit for the primary purpose of storing electricity for wholesale or retail sale.

· Page 13 – reviewed coordination with local fire departments.

· Decommissioning agreement and road use agreements are similar to the Wind and Solar Ordinances.

County Board Chairman Paul Ducat said after the meeting that there are counties that have several lawsuits with regard to ordinances. “They changed some things. This was probably the right thing to do because we could be like Grundy County, which has 30 lawsuits on one side for it and 30 lawsuits against. I heavily feel we are protecting the people of the county. That’s ordinances and resolutions that have to get passed. “

He said there are people on the committee who voted against the ordinances. “I’m with them but we have to pass them because if we don’t any law over what they are going to do and we would probably get lawsuits because we have nothing set up in time and then B, we’d have to follow the state and I’m not one for following the state.

“We’re doing the best we can for the people to protect them. That’s the biggest, simplest way to put it. It’s a nightmare of all the laws we have to go through.”

Earlier in the meeting, Ross Cluver, who lives north of Buckley, said he is concerned about the solar farm that is going on north of Buckley.

“I think our farmland should be preserved instead of covered with solar panels. But people own the farmland I guess they can do what they want with it,” he said. “Last week we had in southern Iroquois County a couple of tornadoes that went through. If you’ve seen the damage it’s just spread over miles. There’s building material for miles. If we get this 300 acres solar farm, what’s going to happen with that stuff, when a tornado goes through and it spreads it out for five miles.

“I guess there’s funds for when the solar farm is finished to clean it up and they can farm it again, but what kind of funds are there to clean up storm damage when it’s spread out around half the county,” he said.

Clover said a representative of the company stopped by his house and said a transmission line that will go past his house. “I stepped it off and it’s like 100, 110 feet. I don’t think that’s right to bring a big transmission line basically through my front yard.”