PLEASE Write a Letter

Last August, a chance phone call about local flooding exposed a multi-year, clandestine effort by a global corporation to industrialize Will County’s largest remaining farming district.  Public records revealed property agreements for a massive 600 MW, 1.5 million solar panel utility spanning six rural townships, extending south of Frankfort for twenty miles, all the way to the banks of the Kankakee River.

In October, after a contentious public meeting in Manhattan, Earthrise admitted having over 11,000 acres of farmland in play.  Outcry about project size resulted in Earthrise submitting a reduced Will County zoning application in November with 6000 acres and 100 properties in Green Garden, Manhattan, and Wilton Townships (see maps attached).  These maps also include more parcels not in the zoning case that retain Earthrise agreements.  We believe there are actually two Earthrise phases, with the outcome of the first zoning case determining the expansion of future solar sprawl.  Earthrise’s incomplete application remains under review, and no public hearings are yet scheduled.

Earthrise claims it has support of the farming community.  This is false.  Most local farmers have rejected Earthrise solicitations, even when offers reached 15 times the value of farmland.  Why?  Farmers have stressed that they will not abandon their farming traditions and can never replace in their lifetimes the generational investments of their family farms.  Importantly, two-thirds of property owners in this zoning case do not live in the Township where they are leasing land to Earthrise.  The majority of participants are land investors.

Also, last October, plans for an 800-acre mega data center by the Hillwood Corporation surfaced briefly before being pulled from public view.  This 20-billion dollar project is proposed about a mile west of Manhattan, just south of the Speedway Racetrack.  The infrastructure of the dormant third airport by Peotone, the proposed I-57 interchange at rural Eagle Lake Road, the stalled 4000-acre NorthPoint industrial site, and this Earthrise mega-solar site cannot be ignored as a long-term plan for area industrialization.  Yet, a FOIA request to the City of Joliet for information on the data center resulted in more than 1300 fully-redacted documents.  We have appealed this attempt to block public access to data center records.  But, clearly, Earthrise solar is not here to power our homes but to serve the data center complex.  Earthrise is merely the environmental window dressing for what will become an expansive, industrial airport district that will erase the iconic, rural landscape of Southern Will County forever.

Even the most generous interpretation of solar photovoltaic panels does not change the reality that the highly-subsidized solar industry cannot replace fossil fuels, natural gas or nuclear technologies.  Today’s upgrade for the US power grid includes 1300 new natural gas plants, and modular fusion and cold fusion (nuclear energy produced at room temperature without radiation) are now realities that will power the energy future.

Here in Will County, Earthrise bought the natural gas peaker plant on Pauling Road but refused the PJM Grid offer to upgrade it to 700 MW of reliable energy.  That upgrade of our local power plant, located on 30 acres, would have eliminated the need for a single acre of prime farmland to be covered with Earthrise solar panels.  No one can justify consuming 6000 acres of farmland to generate the same power available on a 30-acre footprint.

Likewise, even solar companies admit their panels rarely produce maximum MW capacity.  Solar panels, which optimally work only a few hours each day, drop to 50% productivity on cloudy days, and, in Illinois winter months, can drop to 10%.  Solar panel energy does not merit a transition from rooftops to farm fields, and it is only from inflexible ideology and Illinois laws crafted to enrich the solar industry that this charade continues.

Earthrise has filled its zoning application with letters of support from profiteers who signed solar leases and recipients of the millions of dollars of “donations” Earthrise is spreading throughout Will County to buy favorable influence.  We have contacted the Will County Land Use Department, and letters in opposition to Earthrise may be emailed to: kkruczynski@willcountylanduse.com.  Your letter will be included in the official staff report provided to all decision makers.

We suggest your letter share why you and your family love living in rural Will County, about your home, your property, animals, hobbies and quality of life.  Also, please share why you object to this project, whether it is the ugly blight of solar sprawl, close proximity to your home, health and environmental concerns, data centers, area industrialization, damage to property values, the loss of our farming district, an end to rural-residential growth, etc.  We have set a tentative deadline for submissions to the county by February 2, 2026, to ensure your letters will be in the staff report before public hearings begin.

You can also sign and share our signature petition:  https://greengardentownship.com/home-page/watershed-committee/ as well as our online petition:

You may sign both petitions.  The signature petition verifies residency, and the online ipetition is for expanding awareness.  Also, a sign campaign has begun, and yard signs to oppose solar sprawl on prime farmland will soon be available for a nominal fee.

Finally, should we not gain enough county board votes to stop Earthrise, litigation will be filed to challenge Earthrise and dismantle the county and state solar laws that have eliminated our rural rights.  We are truly fortunate to live independent, rural lifestyles, and we are blessed to call this place home.  Earthrise Corporation has no priority or any roots here.  We do.

Sincerely,

Thomas Becker

Chairman, The Watershed Committee

7600 W. Monee-Manhattan Rd.

Green Garden Township

Monee, IL  60449