At the Sept. 16 meeting of McDonough County Board, Chair Eric Blakeley announced that there would be a public hearing to discuss plans to build a new solar farm on the west side of Colchester. The public meeting is planned for 7 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 6 at Macomb's Spoon River College campus.
The application to build was placed by the solar company, Colchester Sun LLC. While the location falls entirely within city limits, Colchester currently has no ordinances for the zoning of solar farms, so responsibility for whether to grant a permit or not falls to the county. The County Board will not vote on whether or not to approve the new solar farm until they've conducted the public hearing and allowed local citizens the chance to comment.
The Board has received some pushback regarding the new proposed solar farm. Following discussion of the solar farm during the Sept. 14 Law & Legal Committee, some Colchester appeared to pose questions. Jennifer Dailey, who has lived adjacent to the proposed site for 26 years, raised several concerns. She claimed that the area where the solar farm would be built was already prone to flooding, and she expressed that the new development could further aggravate the situation. She said that runoff from the site was already prone to drain onto her property, and expressed concern that the crop from her iris farm could be obliterated by flooding. Dailey further contended that flooding posed a public health risk to the entire area given how stagnant water enables mosquito breeding. She also cited further concerns with the effects the solar farm could have on local wildlife, visual and noise pollution from the panels and the further damage that development could do to local roads, already in poor condition.
Blakely shared that an Agricultural Impact Mitigation Agreement was in place and that the developer would be responsible for any damage to the land caused by solar panels, including flooding. He also commented regarding visual and noise pollution that they could explore options to put up fences and plant trees to dampen the sound from the solar panels and hide them from view.
“Respectfully I don’t want to see them, but fencing is the least of my concerns,” commented Dailey. “I’m most worried about the flooding.” She expressed doubt that there was anything the developers even could do to control increased flooding from such extensive development.
