Hundreds of area residents turned out to Earthrise Energy’s open house to catch a glimpse of the proposed 5,400-acre solar development project and learn more about the project that just recently was made public.
Word began spreading online that a huge solar project was coming after Green Garden Township Watershed Committee member Tom Becker made a post that began circulating on Facebook in early September, though no one knew the exact details.
That’s how Dr. John Tricou, of Green Garden, found out. He’s a radiologist and also owns Sojourn Therapeutic Riding Center, which would be near the proposed solar development. He was posted at the entrance collecting petition signatures against the project.
“It’s inefficient, and there’s more energy in a power plant,” Tricou said, expressing he wanted the “prime farmland” to stay farmland and felt the development was short-sighted.
Inside, Earthrise offered visitors the opportunity to sign a petition of their own, in favor of the project, to be submitted to the Will County Board.
In the weeks leading up to the open house, crews were spotted pulling core samples, heightening concerns among neighbors who posted pictures online. Despite the recent action that garnered the attention of locals, Earthrise’s Talya Tavor said the land campaign began shortly after they acquired the Lincoln Generating Facility in 2019.
Roughly a month following Becker’s warning, the Village of Manhattan shared an event flyer for the open house online on October 2. Earthrise representatives had also gone door-to-door to notify residents near the project in the days preceding the open house.
The Village of Manhattan, however, did not have much advance notice, Mayor Mike Adrieansen said. Adrieansen, Development Director Marc Nelson, and Village Administrator Jeff Wold, were invited to a meeting called by Earthrise at 2:30 p.m. the day before the open house.
They were able to view the map as part of a very brief presentation, but were not provided any hard copies, nor given any logistics information, Adrieansen said. At that time, they also were given the flyer for the open house scheduled for the following evening. The village shared it online.
Though the project spans 5,400 acres, only about 100 of those acres are in the Village of Manhattan, which is in an industrially-zoned area next to the Lincoln Generating plant owned by Earthrise.
“After reviewing the project maps and hearing from residents, I will be scheduling a meeting not only with Manhattan Township officials, but also with representatives from Green Garden and Wilton Townships,” Adrieansen told The Vedette.
“As I have stated previously, the village receives very little benefit from large-scale solar projects. In my view, this should be a regional discussion, as the recent open house did not provide residents with enough clear or detailed information,” Adrieansen said.
Adrieansen said he attended the open house to get a better idea of what Earthrise was planning and actually inspect the map. Several other Village of Manhattan board members and area township members were seen in the large crowd of residents.
“I was very disappointed in meeting with Earthrise, because I was talking to the gentleman and explaining our resolution and ordinance and [the township] wants you to be 500’ from residents and 100’ from roadway. His response was they’re not interested in what our ordinances are because they have to follow Will County guidelines, but county guidelines are a lot more lax than ours,” Manhattan Township Clerk Kelly Baltas said.
Baltas’ claims were echoed by Earthrise representatives, who frankly said they would meet with those who had discretionary entitlement, like the road commissioner.
Manhattan Township did not meet with Earthrise before the open house, though Earthrise contends they had reached out to the townships. Manhattan Township officials said they preferred to meet once they had maps and more information, but never heard back until the open house was scheduled.
The packed event, held at the Hansen Community Center in Manhattan on October 8, was intended to provide information to the public and answer questions. Another one would be held the following day in Crete.
At times, three to four rows of people clamored to view the single map of the project located in the back corner of the room, many drawing ire from the lack of accessibility to the one thing nearly everyone came to see.
“Everybody walked into a room and had to file in the back of a corner room to be able to see a little map that shows us losing the farmland,” Kathleen Roemer said.
Her generational homestead sits between two parcels of solar panels, colored purple on the map. She and her husband moved from Oak Lawn into the home her parents built nearly 30 years ago, wanting to be surrounded by farm fields and enjoy rural life.
Roemer fears the noise from the inverters will be a nuisance, and she’s worried about whether they’ll stand by their word if the panels are destroyed or need to be decommissioned.
Like Roemer, Manhattan Township resident John Kieken shared the concerns about the noise generated from inverters.
Earthrise representative Talya Tavor said the inverters generated about as much noise as an air conditioning unit. Though when asked, she did not know how many inverters would be spread throughout the project.
“I left the open house with more questions than I started with,” Kieken said.
Kieken wasn’t alone. Many who left the open house were dissatisfied with the responses given by Earthrise representatives.
Kieken inquired about the total cost of the project and said an Earthrise representative told him they didn’t know.
“How can they be in the approval and land acquisition stage of the project and not know how much this is going to cost? This is truly unbelievable,” Kieken said.
Many residents feared the solar development would be for a data center, especially with a new data center proposal announced in Joliet just days before the solar development announcement.
Earthrise contends not only are the two projects unrelated, but they have no intention of pursuing a data center.
Rob Kalbouss, the project’s Director of Development, explained that although he personally is a fan of data centers, the company just isn’t in that line of work.
Another concern was the presence of lithium battery storage, which Kalbouss and Tavor both denied was part of the project.
Instead, they focus on doing solar a little bit differently by connecting to existing power plants.
“We’re the only developer who builds the way we do. We connect to the grid through the [peaker plants]. We have more certainty on interconnection when we already own the infrastructure. We know the ATC, when other developers bet on it,” Kalbouss said.
He added they started out paying taxes immediately because they came to this larger project already owning the Lincoln Generating Facility peaker plant.
“The company currently owns 1.7 GW of natural gas-fired power plants and is planning 1.5 GW of complementary solar projects across the Midwest,” the flyer read.
Ryan Solum of Kimley Horn explained the environmental work to determine suitability for a solar development, like core sampling, is the same as for a data center, but the permitting would be different. Solum said they hadn’t been contracted for anything to do with a data center for this project — it was all for solar.
Still, solar generates significant concerns, such as the panels potentially contaminating groundwater and land, becoming unkempt, and being unsightly neighbors.
Ryan Dunfree, another Earthrise representative, added that the panels can sustain up to 106-mph winds and have a flat mode for inclement weather.
“We only use solar panels made in the United States, and our panels are made from silicon, aluminum, and glass. There is no risk of these materials leaching into the groundwater,” Tavor said.
She went on to say there was an older type of panel made from cadmium and other toxic materials that would leak, but Tavor was emphatic they don’t use those. She also said they don’t use pesticides and are invested in creating a natural habitat for native plants in and around the solar panels.
Earthrise is big on agrovoltaic plans, where agriculture and solar uses are combined, Tavor added. She gave the example of using a herd of sheep to keep grass low, but followed that up by saying there is a “surprising shortage of sheep,” to do the work.
Tavor explained they won’t build on wetlands, for example, so they have more land than what they’ll be using.
However, neither Tavor nor Kalbouss, nor other representatives could reveal how many acres of the 5,400 acres would have panels, how many inverters there would be, or where (outside of being installed in the center of the panels) or if there were other exclusions.
Kalbouss and Tavor both emphasized their business model is a PBLLC, a subset of limited liability corporations dedicated to offering public benefits.
Tavor said that while they plan to continue to generate funds for the community through tax generation, pointing to a map highlighting the breakdown, they’re more focused on finding out specific projects and community needs, like the dog park and firefighting gear recently donated through RISE grants the company offers.
The map Tavor pointed to illustrates exactly how its $3.9 million tax benefit would be split among taxing bodies.
Still, Manhattan Tax Assessor Joe Oldani couldn’t determine how they arrived at the figures they displayed. When he used the state’s solar energy valuations and calculation formula, he came up with a much lower amount.
Undoubtedly, the open house drew significant criticism from many who attended, but the room was not solely filled with opponents. As is common with any project that could generate a union job, there were supporters among the attendees.
Some left the open house without signing the petition against (whether they didn’t want to sign any petition, hadn’t made up their minds, or were proponents of the project was unknown), and a few people were engaged in healthy debate about the pros and cons.
Regardless of the answers the open house provided, or lack thereof, Earthrise says they will begin the permitting process with Will County within a couple of weeks and intend to begin construction in 2026.
Stephanie Irvine is a freelance reporter.