Experts weigh in on drainage, environmental details for proposed 5,000-acre solar farm

DIXON – The Lee County Zoning Board heard testimony on drainage and environmental aspects of the proposed 5,000-acre Steward Creek Solar project.

Steward Creek Solar LLC, being developed by Virginia-based Hexagon Energy, is petitioning the county for a special-use permit to build the 600-megawatt solar farm across Alto and Willow Creek townships near Steward and Lee.

The footprint in northeast Lee County borders Ogle and DeKalb counties as well as Interstate 39 and Highway 30.

Tom Huddleston, of Rochelle-based Huddleston-McBride Land Drainage Co., testified on the preliminary drainage assessment for the project during the Lee County Zoning Board’s second meeting in the hearing process.

He said during the 35-year life of the project, the prime farmland will be preserved and improved over time, likely to be in better shape when it’s returned to farm use, alleviating soil compaction.

They plan to install plastic drainage tiles, replace clay tiles and any tile that could be damaged during construction or is in the way or solar panels.

“I think these best management practices where we put in state-of-the-art systems, where we repair older drain tiles, where we plant deep-rooted grasses – native grasses – where we control the weeds, where we eliminate soil erosion, where we actually decrease run-off,” he said. “These benefits allow the land to pause or rest for a period of time, to build up nutrients, to build up soil structures and for the drainage to perfect.”

Amboy farmer Adam Lusz, who’s in the footprint of the 1,300-acre solar farm approved last month near Eldena being developed by Geronimo Energy, said more than half of the Steward Solar project, 2,897 acres, is classified as Class A prime farmland and asked Huddleston if he thought taking that farmland out of agricultural food-use was a good idea.

Huddleston said he personally thought that all prime land should be used for food production, but it doesn’t hurt to pause and improve the land.

Scott Billings, a senior project scientist of SCI Engineering, went through a preliminary natural resources assessment of the project and said there shouldn’t be an environmental impact on endangered animals and plants in the area and that waterways would be avoided.

The company is also planning to have a landscape, weed and vegetation control plan for the project, including pollinator-friendly grasses, he said.

If approved, the goal would be to begin construction in fall 2022 and become operational in 2024. The first year of property taxes is estimated to be about $3.5 million, and total around $77.8 million across 35 years.