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Little did I realize plans were afoot last fall to turn the polluted Johns Manville property along Waukegan’s lakeshore into a massive solar farm. I had proposed exactly that.
It was a no-brainer, several readers pointed out, following news that the city is now home to a major solar farm on a 40-acre Superfund site at the old Yeoman Creek Landfill. Installed on the former garbage dump bounded by Sunset, Lewis, Western and Glen Flora avenues, there are now 20,000 solar panels.
Some even said clean energy suppliers might consider a wind farm along the city’s Lake Michigan shoreline. Yet, solar panels, like those placed next to the Almond Road Campus of Warren High School, seem more benign than heavy-bladed, multi-storied wind turbines for future energy needs.
Plans offered by Solarge, a solar panel maker based in Weert in the southwest of the Netherlands near the Belgian border, are one of two Dutch treats projected for Waukegan. The other is the announcement that global coatings manufacturer AkzoNobel, headquartered in Amsterdam, will invest $58 million at its lakefront facility near Waukegan Harbor.
The tabs for each of the proposals aren’t being picked up separately by the companies and Waukegan, which normally happens on a Dutch-treat date. We’re also not talking about those scrumptious stroopwafels, the waffle-like cookies with caramel filling, the Dutch are so fond of with a warming cup of koffie. Or a Dutch baby, a tasty popover-type of pancake.
Instead, these are solid job-producing investments — for a change — in the core city of Lake County’s county seat. It’s a welcome turn of events.
Waukegan is one of two sites being eyed by Solarge — the other is in bland Kansas — for a factory employing 500 workers. They would produce some 2 million solar panels annually next to a 125-acre solar farm and a 40-acre pond on the old Manville property, according to a front-page News-Sun story last week by Steve Sadin.
All that needs to be done to seal the deal is for city, Lake County and Illinois economic development officials to fine-tune inducements to lure the Dutch firm to Waukegan. It surely would be an upgrade for the desert-like, dystopian site on Waukegan’s far North Side.
Ironically, the site is across from the fading NRG coal-fired power plant where Greenwood Avenue dead-ends east of Pershing Road. Solar power is something we’re going to need in the quickly moving future as Illinois weans itself from fossil-fueled energy supplies by the targeted date of 2050 under the climate measure signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in 2021.
Especially considering reports last month that Illinois is less than a decade away from energy shortages and soaring electricity bills, which jumped 11% last year. Fueling the surges are power-sapping data hubs — one is planned for 160 acres in Grayslake — and the growth of artificial intelligence.
At the same time, clean energy sources are failing to replace fossil-fuel power supplies in a timely manner. A 222-page report issued by three state agencies last month warned ComEd, the region’s chief electric supplier, currently won’t have sufficient resources to bring electricity to homeowners and businesses less than five years down the road.
Which brings us to the highest and best use of the Manville property, a continuing Superfund site rife with the dregs of the company’s asbestos manufacturing process. Mitigation of that industrial legacy will need to be done to make the site right for development, and that undoubtedly will take state funding.
That remaining pollution doesn’t seem to bother the Dutch company’s officials, one of whom said they are “excited” to turn a Superfund location into a positive action. However, the cost of doing business in Kansas is cheaper, something Illinois officials need to address in the way of tax incentives.
Meanwhile, AkzoNobel, founded in 1792, plans to increase capacity at its Waukegan location, the firm’s biggest aerospace coatings production site, by installing new machinery and introducing more automated processes, according to the company’s Dec. 18 news release. The two-phase project also includes occupying a warehouse in Pleasant Prairie in Kenosha County, just over the Wisconsin border, which frees up additional space at the Waukegan facility.
The company has a long history with its Waukegan plant, which employs some 200 workers, on East Water Street at the lakefront. It began as Midland Industrial Finishes Co. in the early 1950s, and was sold to the Dexter Corp. of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, in 1963, becoming the Dexter-Midland Corp. Dexter sold the coatings business to AkzoNobel in 1999.
Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham greeted the news with relief. The company could have bolted the lakefront location. The expansion plans “will strengthen our city’s economy and create new opportunities for our local workforce,” he said.
If the city lands the solar panel manufacturer, it will be a double Dutch treat for his administration.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
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