SAVE OUR FARMLAND

Earthrise, a Virginia commercial solar developer, has filed a special use zoning application to cover over 6,000 acres of prime Illinois farmland with 1.5 million solar panels and utility-scale solar storage batteries. The proposed 600 MW Will County facility will span three townships, including Green Garden, Manhattan and Wilton Townships.

Please sign our online petition to save thousands of acres of prime farmland and help stop this reckless Earthrise commercial solar project (ZC-25-129) and opportunistic HW data center (PUD-8-25, A-4-25). Please help us preserve the rural character of our townships and protect the lifestyles and property investments of our residents.

We Sincerely Thank You.

The Watershed Committee re3tom@gmail.com

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These townships are NOT vacant fields. In a five-mile radius, there are almost 3,200 homes and 9,000 residents, who have invested their fortunes and lifetimes into generational farms, estates, farmettes and custom subdivision homes. Earthrise 20' H solar panels and fire-prone storage batteries will be set back only 50' from backyards, snaking throughout rural neighborhoods with no privacy berms required.

Earthrise is NOT a "community-based" project. Of the 36 landholders involved in this phase, more than 2/3rds are corporations or parties that do not live in the townships where they have leased properties to Earthrise. Just two parties account for 35 of the 100 parcels involved.

Some properties are sale leasebacks to Accelerate Infrastructure Opportunities, a Texas business that manages solar leases and data centers. In the same month that Earthrise held its only public meeting, another Texas corporation, HW/Hillwood Technology Park Development, announced a nearby 24-building data center on 795 acres. Expected to be the largest in Illinois, the proposed data center site is just south of the Chicagoland Speedway Race Track.

Today's rising electric bills are directly caused by enormous power consumption of data centers. Our PJM power grid is currently overloaded with data centers, with 231 in northern Illinois and 667 in Virginia, where Earthrise Corporation is located. PJM is now proposing that new data centers provide an independent power source. This Earthrise solar project will power the HW data center. It is NOT power for the people.

6,000 acres of farmland are needed by Earthrise to generate 600 MW of energy from solar panels. That same energy can be produced on just 30 acres with natural gas turbines or on 80 acres with modular or cold fusion, emerging clean energies that are replacing the fading solar industry.

Earthrise's stranglehold on these townships will convert rural real estate into commercial and industrial zones. Earthrise solicitations continue, and 10,500 acres of farmland with solar lease options span over 20 miles in six townships, from Route 66 to Interstate 57, from Dralle Rd. south of Frankfort to the banks of the Kankakee River.

This Earthrise project will bloat and metastasize under the 2023 solar laws passed by Illinois and Will County that grant the solar industry, above all other commerce, business or citizenry, the ability to erase 75 years of Illinois zoning rights, disregard local comprehensive plans, silence local decision-makers, and so corrupt the “special use” privilege on farmland that 100 parcels scattered in three townships will be included in a single land use case.

This is a zoning abomination, caused by untested solar laws, driven by ideology and not sound energy policy. Utility-scale solar facilities are industrial uses. This mass industrialization of local farmland will destabilize Will County’s largest remaining farming district, devalue area homes, destroy rental farmer incomes, end new home construction and further reduce the declining school district student population. No one will build their dream homes here, ending a 50-year trend of rural residential growth.

For decades, Will County was warned not to over-industrialize, to avoid depleting its drinking water supply. Undeterred, Will County's rampant industrialization will now deplete its own aquifer in five years, with a one billion dollar price tag to pipe in water from Lake Michigan to Joliet and nearby communities.

Please sign our online petition to save thousands of acres of prime farmland and help stop this reckless Earthrise commercial solar project (ZC-25-129) and opportunistic HW data center (PUD-8-25, A-4-25). Please help us preserve the rural character of our townships and protect the lifestyles and property investments of our residents.

We Sincerely Thank You.

The Watershed Committee re3tom@gmail.com