- Public Act 233, signed into law late last year, curtails power of local ordinances over large-scale energy projects
- Farmland is being prepped for conversion to solar farms in Hillsdale County and across Michigan.
- "Citizens for Local Choice" is gathering signatures to put the question of primacy of local zoning over industrial-scale energy projects on the ballot in November.
- Hillsdale County Commission fails to adopt a resolution in support of the initiative, but commissioners think rewording will pave the way to approval.
- Video shows sites of future solar farms in Hillsdale County, operating solar farms, and Hillsdale County Commission meeting.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
All across our state farmland like what you see behind me here in Hillsdale County is being prepped for industrial-scale solar and wind farms — see the trees being cut down. How much of a say neighbors have over such projects has been curtailed…and this has many hoping to put that question to voters in November.
Ashley Risher's home in Litchfield is surrounded by fields where a large solar energy farm is planned.
She spent months working with her township on an ordinance that would put, as she sees it, locally-specific protections in place.
"I looked into the ordinance that we have on file and realized it was severely lacking in protections both for the people that would live near these facilities as well as our local waterways and local wildlife", says Ashley Risher.
All of her work, it turns out, may have been for naught.
Public Act 233, signed into law late last year, overrides local ordinances any stricter than rules for such projects at the state level.
The idea: to limit local impediments to the large energy farms that will be needed to be fully clean and green by 2040.
Risher and others say what it actually does is run roughshod over local concerns...in the name of speed and scale.
Risher adds, "Now the local governments are going to essentially lose that right to do something like that for their own communities — to make sure that these facilities are included in a way that best fits the townships rather than the decisions being made by the appointed members of the Public Service Commission."
The result, she says, is a "one-size-fits-all" policy without due consideration for local environments and concerns.
Risher is not standing still. She is now captain of Hillsdale and Calhoun County "Citizens for Local Choice" — a petition drive to put restoration of local zoning for industrial energy projects on the ballot this November.
Hillsdale County Commissioners considered support for the petition at Tuesday morning's meeting. The resolution fell one vote short of passing. But Commissioners I talked to are optimistic it will be endorsed after a revision that makes clear the County is not against renewable energy — just in favor of letting voters decide who should have final say over their zoning.
Hillsdale County Commission Brad Benzing says, " think there's collective support for the overall idea of local control and I believe that with that amendment that probably this resolution would pass at its next go with the board."
EARLIER VERSION OF THE REPORT:
As a movement to put control over large energy projects back in the hands of local government gathers signatures, Hillsdale County Commissioners took up the question of whether to support these efforts.
Hillsdale County Commissioners considered support for the "Citizens for Local Choice" petition Tuesday. But a vote on the resolution split the Commission, falling one vote short of passing.
Hillsdale County Commissioner Brad Benzing's district is home to an operating wind farm. He says he objected to language that, he believes, sent the wrong message about renewable energy projects that benefit the County.
Commissioners I talked to were optimistic it will pass after a revision that aims to makes clear the County is not against renewable energy.
Benzing adds, "I think there's collective support for the overall idea of local control, and I believe that with that amendment that probably this resolution would pass at its next go with the board."
Commissioner Steve Lanius, who introduced the resolution, says he doesn't want a vacuous one but is willing to change the language.
"It's appalling to me that we had, I believe, 57 counties wrote resolutions against the state…and they did it anyway. So, they're not listening. So, it's time that we step up and make a resolution and get their attention", says Steve Lanius, Hillsdale County Commissioner.
