Allen County Commissioners agreed to a 180-day moratorium in regards to a proposed battery energy storage system (BESS) in the southeast part of the county at their meeting Tuesday.
Zoning Director Terry Call discussed the project with the commissioners. The current proposal is for a 300-megawatt storage facility near Savonburg and Elsmore. An estimated 15 to 30 acres would be needed for the facility and it would cost $300 million.
Call said he talked with the planning and zoning board. “They would like to see a temporary moratorium put on this for 12 months,” said Call. He explained that the moratorium would allow the board time to make amendments to the zoning regulations. “It will help them address it, specifically, instead of just having a meeting, telling them no or yes, and not having something on paper to back it up,” he added.
The proposed facility is being spearheaded by Mission Clean Energy, with plans to put an application in for the project in mid-March, according to Call. “I assume they have to go through all the environmental studies for the ground and historical studies,” said Call. He noted that these kinds of studies can add a considerable amount of time to the process. “If they put in a request for the rezoning of this, it would take place before they do all of that,” he added.
Commissioner Jerry Daniels said he understood where the board is coming from, but feels a 12-month moratorium may be a bit too much. “I’m OK with a 180-day application process to slow down the process a little bit,” he said. “A moratorium for a year? I don’t think we need to go to that extent.”
Call pointed out that the wording of the 12-month moratorium allows for some leniency on the length of it. “It would end whenever the board got the amendments done,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a full year unless it actually took a year.” The importance of the moratorium, Call explained, is to make sure that all the regulations are in place before the project is potentially approved.
Halstead, Kan., is currently working on a BESS facility and Call has been referring to their regulations. “I tweaked it, made one up, and sent it out to the planning board,” he said. “But, they still want to do further research.” Daniels inquired whether there were any other counties who have done a similar moratorium they could use as comparison. “There have been several that have done six month moratoriums,” Call said. “Anderson County did six months, and then they extended it another six months before they got done.”
Daniels emphasized the importance of due diligence. “We want time to look into it to make sure it’s a good thing and make sure it’s done the right way,” he said. Commissioner John Brocker agreed. “I definitely think you need to research some of the others,” he said. “Just looking at one isn’t going to work because you don’t know if it’s good, bad, or indifferent. We need to look at several of them and that takes a little bit of time.”
A concern with the proposal, according to Call, is that there are no water lines within 3 to 4 miles of the proposed site location. “The BESS facility would need to have water for fire suppression,” as well as for its operation, he explained. “Lots of water.”
As it stands today, in the case of a fire, it would be a volunteer fire department responding with no on-site water source available. Call noted he doesn’t know what the requirement is for the amount of water that has to be available, but it is part of the research that would be done during the moratorium.
County Counselor Bob Johnson added the moratorium isn’t meant to prevent Mission Clean Energy from applying and beginning the process. “You can do a moratorium for six months or six years, but you can also set it aside next Tuesday,” he explained. “The moratorium is just until the zoning board feels like they have everything in place.”
Daniels suggested they start with a 180-day moratorium. After the initial 180-day moratorium is over, if they need another 180 days, they can add them. “Or, if everybody’s happy in three months, we can set it aside,” he said.
The commissioners unanimously agreed to change the 12-month moratorium resolution to a 180-day moratorium and approved it.
IN OTHER NEWS, Bo Garrett with the Allen County Fair Board requested funds to install more pens at the fairgrounds. “Our sheep and goat numbers have been going up and we’re running out of room,” he said. “We need more pens. They would actually like to replace all the pens down there.”
Garrett said he believes there are still funds available that were earmarked for the rejuvenation of the fairgrounds. “If that assumption is correct, we’d like to request some be used to purchase these new pens,” he said. “We have an estimate from the Northeast Gate Company for roughly $25,000.”
