County and township officials are taking steps to acquire legal representation for potential opposition efforts against the Samsung Richwood Solar project.
Officials with Union County, Leesburg, Claibourne and Taylor townships decided to seek counsel as a group, rather than approach individually.
County Administrator Bill Narducci said that the group, through assistance from Prosecutor Dave Phillips, is putting together a list of possible attorneys that could represent them collectively.
“The decision was made, which makes a lot more sense, to pool all our resources,” he said. “I think everybody feels the same way in terms of the opposition to the project.”
Last month, Samsung submitted its formal application to the Ohio Power Siting Board for the planned 250-megawatt site. Plans have the project crossing nearly 1,600 acres of leased land south of Richwood.
According to projections, Richwood Solar could bring more than $93 million to the county over a 40-year allocation period. That would bring more than $40 million into the North Union school district and more than $6 million into both Marysville and Tri-Rivers Career Center. Other allocations include $17 million to Union County, $1.5 million for libraries, $12 million for county health, $500,000 to each township in the project area and $3 million into the local fire district.
Now that the application has been filed, per state requirements, the board now goes through a 60-day period to determine if it contains the necessary information to proceed with the investigation.
“There’s the review period on the Power Siting Board and then they’ll provide a certificate of completeness or acceptable application to us and that’s when we can, basically, intervene or enter as an intervenor into the case,” Narducci said.
The state outlines two types of intervention: intervention as a right, which says “certain affected municipal and county officials can formally intervene by placing an appropriate intervention notice on the docket.”
There are also interventions by motion that states, “Any affected party may file a motion to intervene. The affected party must demonstrate good cause to be approved to intervene.”
According to the OPSB, as parties to the case, intervenors can participate in all stages of the application process.
“An intervenor may appeal an OPSB a decision. Once they have exhausted their appeals, they can further appeal to the Supreme Court of Ohio,” according to the OPSB.
“David Phillips provided a list, he had reached out to some counties and some other groups on ‘who have you worked with, do you recommend anyone?’ And now we have a decent list,” Narducci said. “There is an attorney that has worked successfully with resident groups and property owners in opposition to solar projects and he has suggested a couple different firms as well.”
Last fall, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from Vesper Energy, a Texas-based solar developer, to re-hear a case on the company’s rejected Kingwood Solar project application in southwestern Ohio, near Yellow Springs.
Similarly to Samsung, Vesper applied to the OPSB in 2021 to construct a 175-megawatt facility on 1,200-acres in three townships in Greene County but faced backlash from vocal area residents who expressed their concerns in public hearings.
Oppositional stances mirrored many of the concerns Union County residents expressed in the various public meetings held by Samsung and local representatives.
According to the decision from the OPSB the “overarching issue from project opponents was a concern that the project is incompatible with local land use plans and would unalterably change the rural nature of the community.”
“Related to this concern, numerous community members disagree with the project’s plan to remove large tracts of land used in agriculture and worry about the implications that such development could have on food supplies,” according to the document. “During the nearly six-and-one-half-hour local public hearing that was held on Nov. 15, 2021, opposition testimony (76%) outweighed support testimony
(24%), with 51 of the 68 witnesses expressing opposition to the project and 16
supporting it.”
While the report outlined that the project plans complied with nearly every state requirement ranging from environmental and ecological concerns to stress on the electrical grid, the project was ultimately rejected because of the overwhelming opposition from officials in the county, townships and nearby Village of Clifton.
“In consideration of the public interaction and participation surrounding the
project, staff concludes that it does not serve the public interest, convenience and necessity due to the general opposition from local citizens and government bodies,” according to the document. “Accordingly, staff concludes that the project will create negative local community impacts that outweigh its benefits.”
Samsung filed its application for Richwood Solar on Jan. 23, which means a response from the OPSB could come sometime in April.