TONICA — Marybeth Van Buren isn’t against solar farms, but she is against putting solar farms on prime farmland, the Tonica resident said.

A proposed solar farm, if approved by the La Salle County Board today, would surround her home along East Eighth Road.

She wanted to start a petition to discourage putting solar farms on prime farmland, and instead use brownfields (property affected by a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant). She knows of people who would sign it. She’s also in favor of putting solar farms on top of municipal buildings, she said.

The company proposing the solar farm near her home is Tatum Solar LLC (parent company is Cypress Creek Renewables), and the owners of the farmland are Michael and Beth Smith, no specific address given, according to the solar farm’s application to the county. At the zoning board meeting, zoning board members voted unanimously for denial, but the final vote is up to the county board.

The project, a proposed 2-mega watt solar facility, would be along East Eighth Road in Tonica and be approximately 20 acres. The anticipated power output of the project is approximately 3.9 million kilowatt hours annually — enough to power about 300-400 single-family homes, according to the application.

The land near her home already has flooding issues, and she thinks this new solar farm would make it worse. From everything she’s read, solar panels need to be cleaned off with mass amounts of water. And the land near her home isn’t flat, she said.

“This one would definitely affect our property value,” she said about the potential solar farm.

Tourists come to the Illinois Valley to see wildlife, not solar farms, Van Buren said.

She’s also concerned how solar farms affect wildlife. “Lake effect” is what happens when polarized light produced by PV solar facilities triggers behaviors in birds and other wildlife to land on solar panels as if the panels were water to land on, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Wildlife could experience injuries from the collision, the survey says.

“I’m all for going green,” she said, adding that her family recycles, owns a smart car and does everything they can to be environmentally friendly.

La Salle County Board member Tina Busch (R-Tonica) said she isn’t just concerned with this solar farm — which would be near her home if approved — but all solar farms.

“I’m not against solar,” she said. She’s against using good farmland for solar farms, and she thinks those getting into solar farms should look at land that’s not so useable, like sand mines or roofs.

If land continues to be taken from farmers, there won’t be farm left, she said.

And then who’s going to be around to farm? she asked.

She will be voting in concurrence with the zoning board, she said.

“I’m always going to support the zoning board,” she said.

In the past year, five solar farms have been approved by the La Salle County Board; three farms are up for vote today by the county board; three more are on the agenda for May 16 zoning board and three applications have been submitted for the June zoning board meeting.

Even if solar farms are approved by the county board, that doesn’t mean the solar farm will happen.

“As always, not all projects come to fruition due to a multitude of issues.

In this case, there are pending rules for the State of Illinois program that will determine the process for how sites are chosen by the power providers in the program,” said Brian Gift, director for the county’s Environmental Services and Land Use Department.

Van Buren wanted to bring the petition to the county board, and she contacted the assistant state’s attorney for La Salle County Mark Anderson, who told her she could not present the petition to the county board.

Anderson confirmed he did tell her this because no new information is allowed to be brought forward after the zoning board meeting has finished. The county board is not supposed to consider information not presented during the zoning hearing, Anderson said.

Ali Braboy can be reached at (815) 220-6931 and countyreporter@newstrib.com. Follow her on Twitter @NT_PutnamCo.