Copyright Chicago Tribune
A decades-long financial drain on Waukegan Community Unit School District 60, and a source of pollution potentially threatening Lake Michigan, is now environmentally friendly and a revenue source for the district offering savings for 1,000 low- to moderate-income families. Now connected to the Commonwealth Edison power grid, the Yeoman Creek Solar Farm owned and operated by Clean Capital is primed to generate electricity, which will reduce the electric bill by approximately $400 a year for families and the school district’s buildings. City, school district and CleanCapital officials cut a ribbon officially opening the Yeoman Creek Solar Farm on Monday in Waukegan on a 45-acre parcel of land which was once a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham has lived in the city his entire life, but this was the first time he set foot on the property. It once represented problems generated from the city’s industrial past, but is now part of its modern future. “This site represented the kind of environmental burden too many working-class, industrial communities carried,” Cunningham said. “It’s a community solar farm, producing clean, renewable energy, lowering costs for families (and) supporting our schools.” CleanCapital and District 60 are in the final stage of negotiations to make the city’s public schools the farm’s anchor tenant. Cara Proszek, the company’s vice president of communications, said the district will receive 40% of the savings generated by the farm. Along with the district as anchor tenant, Nick Devonshire, CleanCapital’s cohead of investments, said at the ribbon-cutting that 60% of the benefits will go to 1,000 subscribers — there are still openings for community members — who will save around $400 annually on their electric bills. Subscribers must be low- to moderate-income families. If they live in a census tract where a majority of people are low-income — 68% of Waukegan’s residents do — they need not prove their income. Cunningham said they only have to show a copy of their monthly bill. “Waukegan families will save 50% on their electricity supply costs, with no upfront costs or credit checks,” he said. “That’s real relief for real families.” District 60 will benefit both from lower electric bills — approximately $400,000 a year — but Proszek said it will also receive rent from CleanCapital as one of the property owners. “Think about that for a moment,” Cunningham said. “The same site that once posed a threat to our community’s health is now powering opportunity … literally. This project is what progress looks like when we work together and lead with vision and collaboration.” Containing 17,000 solar panels, Paul Curran, CleanCapital’s chief development officer, said they will generate clean, renewable energy for the community. The panels reflect the sun on both sides, which is helpful when there is snow on the grounds. District 60 Board of Education President Michael Rodriguez said he first got involved with the project during his initial term in office in 2011. At the time, it was a “very big problem.” The district was given the onetime landfill and hoped to build a high school there. Then things changed. “We soon found out afterward the site was heavily contaminated,” Rodriguez said. “Water was running into Yeoman Creek, and that water was running into Lake Michigan. We had to keep it from contaminating the water we drink.” Rodriguez said the idea for a solar farm was first spawned nearly a decade ago, but it took time to remediate the site, get city approval and start construction. In the meantime, it was “costing the school district tens of thousands of dollars.” “We have taken a piece of property that was a danger to the community and a drain to the taxpayers, and we have turned it around,” he said. “It is now going to provide financial benefits to the school district and the citizens of Waukegan.”
