The Grundy County Board approved a new solar guideline Tuesday that requires solar developers to have concrete plans in place before receiving permits from the county.

It is an action that Grundy County State’s Attorney Russ Baker said would strengthen the county’s standing in a case it plans to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Third District Appellate Court ruled against Grundy County on Tuesday, March 10 in the case of Equity Solar Illinois vs. County of Grundy.

According to the court document, the dispute between Equity Solar and Grundy County arose when Grundy County rejected special use permit requests, and the plaintiffs filed a mandamus action, which was granted by the Grundy County Circuit Court.

A mandamus is a court order that directs a governmental body, public agency or lower court to perform a duty required by law to carry out.

The circuit court ordered Grundy County to issue the permits, and the county appealed. It lost its appeal, but it plans to appeal further.

Board member Deb Warning was the sole no vote on the measure, which she said bends to the state mandate.

The state’s new statutory requirements compel counties to update the renewable energy siting rules.

Development Director Alec Macdonald said while the top-down mandate limits local control even further, the county can use the process to maximize protections for residents, farmlands, roads and emergency services.

“Some key details on what has changed and why it matters to the county: The county has enacted a completeness gate,” Macdonald said.

At present, applications are now not eligible for hearing “unless state required items are submitted in final form, helping to prevent premature hearings, reducing work, and ensuring agricultural and drainage impacts are addressed before the process even begins,” he said.

Macdonald explained further that the ordinance now requires “detailed communications planning, ensuring that no interruption to public safety communications happens, and gives residents and first responders clear points of contact.”

The ordinance also requires “intensive technical and environmental studies, including sound modeling, avian and wildlife modeling, glare modeling, soil and geotechnical borings, and state historic preservation and Illinois Department of Natural Resources planning studies,” Mcdonald said.

The county will require more intensive financial and legal protections through explicit fee formulas, higher insurance limits, and irrevocable financial assurances for both decommissioning and reclamation, he said.

Hanna Udischas, a business development manager for NexAmp, a solar and clean energy company, spoke up against the changes to the solar ordinance during the public commenting period. NexAmp has three community solar projects in unincorporated Minooka.

Udischas said the ordinance change would cause undue burden on both county staff and on developers. The ordinance would require the final drainage plan, final decommissioning plan, final recycling and reclamation plan, and the final pre-construction survey of all impacted roads.

“The reason why this is an issue at this point is because another requirement, and another aspect of the ordinance, is that from the time the zoning approval is provided or approved for the project and the time when the building permit can be applied for is five years,” Udischas said.

“Within that five-year period, aspects of the project can change,” she said. “What would happen is developers are going to be coming back to it. If everything has to be final at the application, the developer is going to have to come back to the board for amendments over and over again.”

Baker said the county is fighting solar on several fronts, and that Grundy County and Winnebago are the only two counties in the state fighting to take back their autonomy.

Will County recently went through a contentious hearing on a massive 6,100-acre solar farm in the eastern region of the county.

“We’re fighting that front, trying to get our autonomy back, and we’re rewriting this particular legislation and our ordinance, so we can maintain the autonomy that we have,” Baker said.

Board member Joe Schiavone said this isn’t saying yes to solar, as Warning was worried about.

“We’re trying to toughen things up as best as we can,” Schiavone said.

Baker said adopting the new statute is important because the state has made it so the county’s current statute dies on June 26.

“We’re not trying to be anti-solar, but we’re also trying not to give it away,” Baker said. “We’re trying to be protective of our resources and our location and our citizenry, but we also have to play by the state rules and adhere to the law and the state and the statutes.”

Baker said the new statute is an evolving document: It will evolve every time there’s new legislation or lawsuits.

The county is being represented by Mahoney, Silverman, and Cross out of Joliet.

The Grundy County Board also approved a measure that requires developers to disclose detailed sourcing information for the materials used to build solar farms to ensure they aren’t being built using slave labor, citing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.