Samsung officials submitted the Richwood solar application in January, beginning the official process for the project to be reviewed by the Ohio Power Siting Board. The company is looking to put a 250-megawatt site like the one pictured above across nearly 1,600 acres in Leesburg, Claibourne and Taylor townships. Officials said the application will likely take at least 60 days from Jan. 23 to get a response.
(Photo submitted)
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The Samsung Richwood Solar project application has been officially submitted to the state, paving the way for the first hearing later this year.
Samsung submitted the application to the Ohio Power Siting Board last week and visited the Union County Commissioners on Wednesday to inform the body about the submission.
Chris Simmons, development manager with Samsung, said the company is looking forward to working with the county through the application process.
“We will coordinate with the county and update you guys as soon as they (OPSB) do set the public hearing date. It could take 60-plus days for them to determine when that will be,” he said. “We hope to work with the county throughout this application process over the course of the next year to address any of the issues you might’ve seen with the previous projects in front of us.”
According to the OPSB, the board will review the application and issue a letter to the developer within that 60-day period to determine if it contains the necessary information to proceed with the investigation.
If the project is deemed “complete,” the board will set the hearing dates, which allows either local officials or affected parties to participate. During the hearing, members of the public may offer sworn testimony for the OPSB to consider.
Those people can “participate in all stages of the application process” and may appeal an OPSB decision and, eventually, “can further appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio,” according to the OPSB.
Simmons said the company has talked with drainage consultants about coming to look at the project site and address any pre-existing conditions including flooding.
“We did want to ask the county commissioners if they could expand a little bit on what those issues might’ve been with the projects ahead of us that you guys were not satisfied with during the construction process,” Simmons said.
The commissioners elected to defer the information to future discussions with the OPSB, which will feature local representation.
“I think we’ve been fairly clear every time we’ve engaged these issues regardless of which companies, two of them have been grandfathered and we had no input. As you know, partially grandfathering creates a pathway for us to give more meaningful input. We do plan on exercising that. Commissioner (Steve) Robinson will be our designee,” he said. “If you wish to find out more about past issues you could ask the clerk to give you recordings of meetings, certainly you could attend or go to other public meetings or you could ask our friends and neighbors.”
He said there would be more clarity on that question at future OPSB meetings where other local officials, including township representation, will be involved.
Since the Samsung application was filed on Jan. 23, the next movement on the project wouldn’t be until spring.
Officials did offer an update on the Cadence project, which County Administrator Bill Narducci said has been delayed.
“The information I’ve received is that they’ve started some grating and access-road construction, but I believe the more substantial construction has been pushed back a little bit,” he said. “They’ve mobilized and are working with our soil and water group on the same issues we dealt with on the Acciona project.”
Narducci said those issues also involved drainage and providing perimeter drainage plans and a plan of action.
Previously, the Cadence project, the 275-megawatt facility that will run across York, Liberty and Taylor townships, was slated to start construction last year but ran into delays then as well.
Acciona, on the other hand, which runs across York and Washington townships, is set to complete construction on its project by spring. Earlier this month, the company informed county officials it was nearly 90% finished.