County solar study committee preps to tackle issues of big green energy and rural land use

MUNCIE, Ind. — The committee charged with studying issues with big solar farms and developing changes to the Delaware County solar zoning ordinance will have to accommodate nearly opposite opinions among some of its members.

To committee member and farmer Joe Russell, planting fields of solar panels on his land wouldn't be all that different than doing the same with acres of corn.

"I'm collecting energy from the sun and turning it into a commodity," Russell said and the similarity between the crop and the panels that make electricity. He would get paid for both.

But solar represents a world of difference to many others who want to keep Delaware County's landscape near them producing acres of green crops, as it has from hundreds of years, rather than green energy, with steely solar panels potentially stretching across the horizon.

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"I think industrial solar is bad," said Reese Collins, a committee member and farmer near Gaston, who was part of the groundswell of opposition to a large solar farm in Washington Township proposed by Invenergy, a global renewable energy corporation based in Chicago.

Collins said he has been studying more about solar since his initial opposition to the Meadow Forge project, aimed at the farm fields between Gaston and Matthews.

"It's inefficient," he said, and doesn't approach the practicality and reliability of coal or other clean technologies like hydrogen or nuclear power generation.

Both Russell and Collins serve on the Solar Study Committee, formed after the Meadow Forge controversy that split much of the Gaston community and led county officials, who had initially approved of the project and granted it tax abatement, to place a moratorium in February on the development of all solar farm proposals for a year while awaiting the work of the committee.

The moratorium applies only to the unincorporated areas of Delaware County and does not impact plans by the Muncie city administration to develop a solar array on contaminated acreage at the former site of a General Motors transmission factory on Eighth Street.

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The committee conducted its first meeting in April and dealt with its organization, according to Marta Moody, Delaware-Muncie Metropolitan Plan Commission director.

Moody is chairman of the committee but is a nonvoting member. Other members include nine people who, to this point, represent varied and balanced viewpoints of solar farms.

Three members opposed to large utility-scale solar installations are: Collins of Washington Township; Tim Niccum of Harrison Township and Lucas Wright of Delaware Township.

Three members who are proponents of large utility scale solar installations are: Jason Donati, MSD Stormwater/Recycling Educator and Planet Muncie chairman, John Taylor, Ball State University biology, land manager and restoration ecologist and Russell, a farmer and board member of the Delaware County Farm Bureau.

Members representing a neutral position about the large solar farms are: Jim Clevenger, a retired fire chief and resident in the Albany area; Joe Hamilton, Farmer and Soil and Water Conservation District board member and John Coutinho, executive director of Delaware County Emergency Management Agency.

The processes will be similar to those used by a study committee from 2018 that examined and developed regulations for establishing confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Delaware County, according to information provided by Moody.

"The members will also identify speakers who will be invited to present information to the committee," the information stated.

The committee can identify desired information sources and, if desired, conduct tours of existing solar farms.

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Russell said local farm income was impacted by the CAFO regulations. He said the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined production on farmland in Delaware County was about $1,100 per acre less than in Jay County because Delaware County CAFO rules had made setbacks impractical for large livestock operations.

Meanwhile, solar farm developers are waiting to see what sort of solar ordinance comes out of the study committee. Moody said a planned solar development near Albany by Hawthorn Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of National Renewable Energy Corp. based in Charlotte, N.C., is still expressing interest.

Smaller than Meadow Forge, as of last fall that project would place $88 million worth of equipment on roughly 355 acres bisected by Ind. 67 south of Albany in the vicinity of Muncie Dragway. The application by Hawthorn calls for the development of a 75-megawatt facility that will require two to seven permanent employees at the site after construction. More than 300 people are expected to be employed for the construction. After $3 million in tax abatement approved by the county, that project was expected to produce $19 million in new tax revenue to Delaware County. Before the moratorium, Hawthorn was planning to start construction this year.

The original solar ordinance did not provide for notice to neighbors of plans for the developments prior to their approval. That was changed by county commissioners after Gaston area residents said the were blindsided by the Meadow Forge project after a handful of property owners agreed to make about 1,000 acres available for the solar project.

Collins said he would support letting solar operation be developed if they would not ruin the landscape and be more limited in scale until can prove their long-term viability in Indiana.

"We should allow them a little bit so we can let them fail," he said.

The solar study committee plans to meet monthly. Its next meeting is 6 p.m., May 25th on the second floor of the Delaware County Building downtown.

David Penticuff is the local government reporter at the Star Press. Contact him at dpenticuff@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Developers wait for committee to redo solar zoning ordinance in county