[Note: This informal petition has allowed community members to express their opinion publicly, but your signature is needed on a formal petition for presentation to the Will County Board. Please visit the Green Garden Township web site (address below) to get a petition form and related instructions. Thank you!]

An enormous 600 MW Commercial Solar Facility is being proposed for Will County, Illinois

A 600 MW solar utility will include approximately 1.5 million solar panels and will consume an estimated 5000 acres of local farmland.

This is more land than the acreage acquired for the footprint of the controversial South Suburban Airport.

Earthrise, a Virginia Corporation, expects to file its zoning application in Will County in mid-October, but no site plan has been provided.

Earthrise also bought the Lincoln Generating Facility, a natural gas power plant located two miles west of Green Garden Township, in Manhattan. Its highly efficient eight natural gas turbines can produce 700 MW of power, day or night, on 30 acres.

The US energy sector is discarding the agenda of solar/wind hysterics and is focused on the enormous energy appetite of emerging Artificial Intelligence technologies and data centers. Data center campuses are reaching 500 MW capacities, and energy demand is expected to double in the coming decade. Illinois is now fourth in the nation with 222 data centers. Virginia, where Earthrise is located, has over 660 data centers.

It is believed Earthrise’s pursuit to double the local energy supply is likely for construction of a mega data center, using the infrastructure of the Lincoln power facility. But, Earthrise can double its energy supply by simply expanding the Lincoln power plant on 30 adjacent, vacant acres it already owns.

This is a land use issue. Is it wiser to use 30 acres to create additional 24/7 365/day reliable energy for the local power grid or to use 5000 acres of farmland to generate intermittent, unreliable energy with a sunlight-sometimes solar utility?

Please join us to oppose this reckless Earthrise project. As a resident of Will County, please sign the attached petition to save our Illinois farmland and to protect the future of Green Garden Township and other rural Townships, so they can remain rural-residential communities and not become industrial districts.

We Sincerely Thank You.

The Green Garden Township Watershed Committee

https://greengardentownship.com/