Solar farm approved in LaPorte County (2024)

Stan MadduxTimes Correspondent

LAPORTE—A plan to produce electricity from sunlight on more than 3,300 acres of farmland was given final approval Tuesday by the LaPorte County Board of Zoning Appeals.

By a 3-2 vote, the BZA granted a special exception to the current agricultural zoning to allow RWE Clean Energy to build a solar farm that it projects will produce enough electricity to power 68,000 homes annually.

The Chicago-based firm has 130 solar projects operating in the U.S.

The $500 million dollar LaPorte County facility will stretch from Kankakee to Wills and Pleasant townships. Construction of solar panels and other infrastructure for it will begin early in 2025, according to the plan.

The BZA voted without any discussion among its members and without any public comment after listening extensively to both sides during a May 21 meeting and at workshop sessions in previous weeks.

“We already heard evidence and remonstrance,” BZA President Melissa Mischke said Tuesday.

The BZA voted to table the plan last month to give members time for a final review.

Farmers like Mike Ekovich, whose dairy farm is just 400 feet from the site, were among the project's opponents at the packed meeting.

“It borders us on all three sides,” he said after the vote.

Ekovich said one of his concerns is the site becoming an eyesore, particularly for him and other nearby farmers.

“You got the farm landscape your whole life and then you got to deal with this,” he said.

The company has agreed to provide setbacks of at least 250 feet from other properties, vegetative screening from homes and to bury cables three and four feet below ground within and away from site.

Other requirements include managing glare from the solar panels and designing the facility to control storm water drainage.

“I have two and a half pages of conditions set for the solar project and many of them mirror what I believe will be additions to our solar ordinance,” said BZA attorney Craig Biege.

Ekovich said one of his concerns hasn’t been addressed, though. He’s worried about the possibility of low volumes of electricity straying from the site and coming into contact with some of his 1,000 cows. Ekovich said electricity can jump from things like bad grounding of the solar panels and loose wiring.

He said cows drinking water on wet concrete surfaces, for example, would feel a tingling sensation and could produce less milk from contact with any stray voltage.

“That’s a very big concern of ours,” he said.

According to Emily McDuff, an engineer and project manager with RWE Clean Energy, the power from the solar farm would help replace the electricity to be lost when coal-fired generating plants in Indiana, such as the NIPSCO generating station in Michigan City, shutdown in the next couple of years.

She also said about a dozen land owners will no longer have to worry about selling their properties for future financial security with the supplemental income they’ll be paid for use of their ground under lease agreements.

McDuff said the solar farm would also mean about $100 million in property tax revenue for local governments over the lifetime of the operation.

After 35 years, McDuff said the solar farm would be decommissioned and the property restored to farmland.

BZA member John Carr said he saw no downsides to the project, calling some of the concerns “myths” after doing extensive research about solar farms.

He said the remainder of the concerns were addressed to his satisfaction by the company.

“With the amount of tax revenue this project is going to generate and the amount of jobs that it’s going to generate to build the solar farm, it’s a win-win,” he said.

Carr also said local governments shouldn’t tell people what they can do with their land as long as neighbors aren’t going to be harmed.

“At the end of the day I think it comes down to personal property rights,” he said.

Farmer Steve Holifield, who lives a few miles from where the solar farm is planned, said he’s concerned about the loss of farmland and even more if the decision attracts other solar farm projects.

His other fears include the soil not being as productive once the site is restored to farming, along with loss of property value and quality of life.

Holifield said he respects the rights of property owners as long as nearby land owners are not negatively impacted.

“We’ve never argued they don’t have the right to do what they want, but you don’t have the right to devalue or take away the enjoyment of another person’s rights on their private property. That whole thing was ignored,” he said.

Biege said construction, expected to begin early next year, is projected to be completed in 12 to 18 months.