What a great turn out we had at the St. Croix County Community Development meeting on June 19th, 2025. Many residents made great public comments at the beginning of the meeting. Among them was John VanDyk, the Town of Erin Prairie board chairman of 24 years, who spoke about the mission of Erin Prairie and their comprehensive plan.
“Our mission statement for the town of Erin Prairie is to conduct the business of the town and preserve and protect the wellness and safety of our residents.” -John VanDyk
He went on to state that the towns comprehensive plan is to remain an agricultural community. That it doesn’t make sense to put an industrial solar complex on 2600 acres of high productive soil. In addition to that in the past 24 years Erin Prairie has had many major wind and hail storms, one tornado and one flood. He points out that the solar panels will not be able to withstand the type of weather this area experiences. This will result in shards of plastic getting into the soil and if any cattle graze on that pasture the shards will kill them.
In light of this comment I want to ask Xcel, how can you claim that the land will be back to it’s prior state and will be able to be farmed again after the project is decommissioned? If any of these panels are damaged the shards will get into the soil. According to John VanDyk their equipment has metal detectors but not plastic detectors. And to add even more gloom, that’s not even taking into account any heavy metals that could leach out of the damaged panels.
The update about the Joint Development Agreement (JDA) wasn’t really anything revealing. They couldn’t go into any specifics about what the JDA said and admitted that at this point the draft is very vague. The committee decided on touring one of Xcel’s solar complexes in Moticello, MN on July 14th to better understand the project. An interesting fact that they shared was, even though this is only phase one at 300 megawatts, Xcel does have 100% of the land leased for the entire project, which in total they plan for 650 megawatts.
Staff along with chairman Bob Long met with Xcel on June 12, 2025. Xcel had more comments for St. Croix County in regards to the JDA from the previous meeting. Chairman Long also had suggestions for Xcel to consider. Xcel took note of those suggestions and it sounds like Xcel is going to get a final JDA draft soon, maybe in July by the next committee meeting.
It was decided at this committee meeting that once the JDA was complete the Community Development Committee would:
1. Be the first to look at the JDA draft, give it consideration, and determine the general guidelines
2. Take formal action and recommend a path forward at the Board of Supervisors meeting
3. Get together with the townships of Erin Prairie and Hammond to get more feedback. This would be open to the public.
The frustrating part is that we as the public don’t even know any details about what is in the JDA at this point. The Xcel update was a very general one. Staff isn’t negotiating anything at these meetings with Xcel, they are just working with formatting the document. The general topics that are in the JDA are road access agreements, emergency responder training, financial assurance, set backs, screenings, and a community fund for things like schools.
Chairman Long did take issue that the JDA is very vague and wanted Xcel to provide more details when they met in early June. It was reported that Xcel will have more information once they get into the design of the project with landowners but as of right now they don’t have more specifics. I find that hard to believe. How can you as a utility company ask a county to enter into an agreement when you don’t even know the specific design of your own project?
The meeting reached a boiling point with the public after hearing the update and many in the crowd had more questions for the committee. A few people in the crowd asked if they could make public comments in light of this new information. Since public comments were taken at the beginning of the meeting how are we supposed to respond to the information during the meeting? They were told there would be many more meetings and discussion about this topic and you are welcome to also email the committee your public comments. The crowd was also concerned about the timing of more meetings and feeling like the committee didn’t have a sense of urgency as Xcel said they will be applying for the certificate of public convenience and necessity in late 2025.
What can you do? Go to all of the St. Croix County Board of Supervisors meeting and The Community Development meetings. Bring you family, friends, and neighbors. Make respectful public comments at these meetings. Keep solar top of mind. Email your district supervisor and the members on the Community Development Committee to educate them on the issues we face with the JDA and the Ten Mile Creek Solar project. Share on Facebook and keep talking about solar with people in the community.
The next St. Croix County Board of Supervisors meeting is August 5th at 5:00 pm.
The next Community Development Committee meeting is July 22 at 5:00 pm.
St. Croix County Website: https://www.sccwi.gov/
Contact your supervisor here: https://www.sccwi.gov/483/Districts-Supervisors
Below is the video from the meeting. The meeting starts at time stamp 18:30 and public comment shortly after. The Xcel update starts at time stamp 3:20:00.