Moss Road, have you heard what the status in on the solar farm east of North Liberty? Across from Potato Creek State Park I think.
Nope. I know 'they' (the county) is doing something with the rules regarding solar and wind farms. However, they have to grandfather in companies that already started projects.
To my knowledge, it's supposed to go in to the south of the park. I own property in the township that borders the north of the park. The hills and woods are so thick that it would be hard pressed to see anything like that from more than 1/4 mile away. And treelines and windbreaks would hide it from view within a few years.
- The land ownership is retained by the farmer.
- The farmland gets to rest.
- Crops, pollinators, and sheep can be raised under the solar panels.
- A huge reduction in the amount of chems and fertilizers over the life of the solar installation.
- A huge reduction in soil erosion.
-cA hedge against subdivisions.
- And a bond has to be posted to remove it all at the end of the lease if the lease is not resigned by the property owner.
I'd much rather have a landscaped solar farm next to me VS a wind farm.
Many county residents are currently on tech burnout. There's an $11 BILLION dollar Amazon data center under construction west of town. A LOT of people voted for it. Now that it's going up, they are having buyer's remorse... IT IS HUGE! 800+ acres of buildings. It's gonna suck water, lots of people are going to move here, property taxes will go up, food prices, energy prices, etc...
Directly across the highway from it, a GM battery plant is going up at a cost of $3.5 BILLION.
Then just recently, another proposal for another data center north of that has come up. Another $12 BILLION. People have had enough. That one got an unfavorable recommendation from the area plan commission. Which means diddly doo, because they don't have the final say.
Meanwhile, right in the middle of all of that, there's a huge solar farm passively running away that no one says a peep about because it's surrounded by corn fields. You can't even see it about 6 months out of the year.
