The Greene County supervisors spent close to an hour at their July 11 regular meeting discussing what should be included in an ordinance regulating utility-scale solar energy installations.
The new language would be an amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance. It would set the metrics to be used by the county board of adjustment in considering applications for special use permits for solar farms, just as the county now requires a special use permit for wind turbines.
County zoning official Chuck Wenthold provided the supervisors with solar energy ordinances from Webster, Adair, Muscatine, Clayton, Louisa, and Union counties. He suggested the solar ordinance could be similar to the county’s wind ordinance in regard to road use, drainage, emergency plans and decommissioning plans. He suggested completion of a glare study – determining how glare from solar panels can potentially affect motorist, pilots, and nearby residents – as a requirement for the special use permit.
Setbacks from residences was a big part of the discussion. The Webster County ordinance calls for a setback of 150 ft from the nearest edge of a residence. The Adair County ordinance sets a 1,000 ft setback.
The project proposed by National Grid Renewable, doing business as Grand Junction Solar, for about 1,000 acres south of Grand Junction includes setbacks of 300 ft from a residence.
A handful of residents joined the conversation. As the discussion continued supervisor Dawn Rudolph passed a note around the supervisors’ table and later revealed it was her suggestions for setbacks. She suggested setbacks as follows: 1,000 ft from an occupied structure; 75 ft from the road right-of-way; and 1,000 ft from wetland, wildlife management or state recreation areas.
“I think we all understand solar farms are going to happen,” board chair John Muir said. “There are things in place for that to be allowable. We have no place to stop it.”
County attorney Thomas Laehn said the county is required to provide “reasonable access for solar power energy.”
“If your requirements were so stringent you couldn’t develop a solar power farm in Greene County, you’d be violating the law,” he said. “You have to have reasonable opportunities… The public policy issue is protecting agricultural land on the one hand, while allowing a property owner to use his property as he wants to. There’s a liberty interest there. That’s a policy issue, not a legal one, as long as you’re providing reasonable access.”
Laehn advised the supervisors not to base an ordinance on the proposed Grand Junction solar project.
Kim Rueter of Grand Junction asked if the county could set a maximum CSR (crop suitability rating) for ground in the project to assure the best crop ground isn’t taken out of production. Shelly Fouch of Grand Junction asked if the ordinance could set a cap on the number of solar projects and/or a distance between projects of different companies. “Otherwise, it’s just going to keep stacking right on there. It’s going to be a game of Tetris to see how many of these you can get on here,” she said.
Laehn will draft the amendment, which will be included in a recodification he began earlier this year. Laehn hopes to have the recodification completed before the expiration of the 6-month moratorium on solar projects the supervisors approved last March. The expiration date is Sept. 26, 2022.
An ordinance must be published in an official newspaper before it goes into effect. That moves the deadline back to Sept. 21-22. Before approving an ordinance the supervisors are required to hold a public hearing.
Muir directed the board to determine setbacks and whatever else should be in the ordinance by the end of July.
“That gives us a couple of weeks to do our homework,” Rudolph said.
In other business, Jon Wells, environmental health and safety manager of NEW Cooperative, updated the supervisors on the coop’s plan to build a pair of 45,000-gallon anhydrous tanks on 40 acres on the south side of Highway 4 east of Churdan. The new tanks will be 2,500 ft from the nearest acreage and 1,100 ft from the nearest hog building. Access will be from the north-south gravel road. The property must be rezoned from agricultural to commercial before construction begins.
Wells said the facility will be operational some time in August.
Jefferson city administrator Mike Palmer gave his monthly update including progress on second story apartments downtown and beautification of the entry to Jefferson on E. Lincoln Way.
