PEORIA (25News Now) -The Fulton County Zoning Board of Appeals Wednesday recommended denying a zoning change to allow for a proposed solar farm and data center near Canton.
That unanimous vote came after a very long meeting in which a packed house in Lewistown heard the proposed developer does not plan high water use and could sell power to Ameren Illinois.
Dozens of questions came in during public comment as the Fulton county zoning board met for some five hours in Lewistown.
Two representatives from Sol-America explained the goal is to collect energy that could then be sold directly to Ameren.
Neighbors though produced a petition that garnered than 1,200 signatures in opposition.
“What I am against, is the reckless industrialization of our rural agricultural communities in the name of building data centers. Is this what we want our city of Canton to look like? Is this what we want our county to look like?” said Lindsey Larson of Fulton County.
The project was proposed by Donato Solar and other, connected companies.
“What our two buildings are, that we are building here…. there are two, 2,100 square foot buildings. It’s about the size of a 2-3 car garage. So when you kind of back that out from how much energy we are producing, which is 5 megawatts of energy, most of our energy that we are generating at the site is going back into the grid,” said Nick Mahoney, a project spokesman.
The spot in question is off of West Hickory street in Canton.
The project is projected to run for 30 years, before being torn down to, potentially, be used as farm land again, according to Mahoney
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