Walnut Ridge included in enterprise zone

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PRINCETON — The Bureau County Board has approved an ordinance to include Walnut Ridge wind farm in the Bureau/Putnam Area Enterprise Zone.

At Tuesday’s county board meeting, spokesperson Ben Wilson with the North Central Illinois Council of Governments explained what the inclusion of Walnut Ridge would mean to the enterprise zone and the benefits to the Walnut Ridge developers. Wilson said the 150-turbine wind farm is spread over 15,000 acres in Ohio, Walnut, Manlius, Bureau and Greenville townships. However, slightly less than 45 acres are directly affected by the wind farm, through the placement of things like access roads and the tower bases themselves.

With the addition of Walnut Ridge, the local enterprise zone still has 1.9 square miles left, which amounts to about 1,170 acres, Wilson said. That’s still a good amount of territory left for future enterprise zone expansion projects, he added.

The primary benefit sought by the Walnut Ridge developers is a sales tax abatement, Wilson said. The developers are not asking for any property tax abatement. The same arrangement was made with the developers of the Crescent Ridge 1, Crescent Ridge 2 and the Big Sky wind farms, he said.

As required by the enterprise zone, a new business or project must be contiguous with an existing enterprise zone business or project. For Walnut Ridge, that requirement is met by the neighboring Big Sky wind farm, which runs, in part, between Ohio and Walnut.

Walnut Ridge is expected to produce enough electricity for 100,000 customers and to also pay $1.5 million each year in lease agreements to property owners, Wilson said.

Once approved by all eight governmental bodies in the local enterprise zone, the application will be sent to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunities for final review and approval.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the county board unanimously approved 24 conditional use permits for overhead electrical transmission lines for Walnut Ridge.

In other wind farm business, the county board heard from County Engineer John Gross on a possible revocation of conditional use permits for the Providence Heights wind farm in rural Tiskilwa because of difficulties with road repairs.

Gross said the difficulties have been resolved, but he would like to reserve the right to revisit the issue again this spring when the time comes for the road repairs. Hopefully, revisiting the issue won’t be necessary, Gross said.

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