By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
Ottawa County commissioners are expected to decide next Tuesday whether it will enter into RWE’s application for the Silver Maple solar project as an intervenor.
Commissioners spent more than an hour at a work session last Friday hearing a presentation on the potential role the county may play as the Michigan Public Service Commission considers RWE’s application for Silver Maple. A pre-hearing on that application is scheduled for Nov. 19.
Both Zeeland and Jamestown townships have asked the county to enter into the case as an intervenor objecting to the proposed $330 million project. Those actions came after a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in May where justices ruled that all governmental units where an energy facility is proposed, including counties, may seek status as an intervenor before the MPSC. That ruling is being appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.
County corporate counsel Doug VanEssen outlined the county’s options to the board.
“If we do intervene, we’ll have to notify the MPSC that we are exercising our rights to be a party in this case, and then we’ll have to have counsel that we would select attend the Nov. 19, 2026 pretrial,” VanEssen said.
“One of the things you have to understand in the MPSC is the trial will not be in front of the MPSC. The trial will be in front of an administrative law judge, and that judge will make factual findings and legal conclusions and recommendations to the MPSC, and then the MPSC will take those recommendations and make a final decision.”
The county will have to inform MPSC by Nov. 12, one week before the pre-hearing, whether it intends to participate. The Nov. 19 pre-hearing is where the administrative law judge is expected to outline the timeline for testimony, rebuttals, filing of briefs and a decision to be made by MPSC regarding Silver Maple.
“We don’t have to declare our position by Nov. 12. We just have to say we want to be a party, and then show up on the 19th,” VanEssen said.
VanEssen said if the board decides to enter the case as an intervenor, it should carve out a unique position as to why the county opposes Silver Maple rather than simply parrot the earlier positions taken by the townships.
“We may discover that there are other things that we can do, if not to block these projects, but to alter them in some way because of some of our powers, whether it’s farmland preservation, whether it’s housing, whether it’s water (quality) … There may be peripheral things that can affect these projects that are within our bailiwick even now … to affect if not the outcome of whether or not a siting occurs, at least the appearance and the effect on the community,” VanEssen said.
VanEssen cited past litigation where the county successfully fought the solid waste industry on siting of landfills in the county after the state took control of the siting process.
Next Tuesday’s meeting will take place at 9 a.m. in the board room of the County Administration Building, 12220 Fillmore St.
Zeeland Record
Ottawa County commissioners are expected to decide next Tuesday whether it will enter into RWE’s application for the Silver Maple solar project as an intervenor.
Commissioners spent more than an hour at a work session last Friday hearing a presentation on the potential role the county may play as the Michigan Public Service Commission considers RWE’s application for Silver Maple. A pre-hearing on that application is scheduled for Nov. 19.
Both Zeeland and Jamestown townships have asked the county to enter into the case as an intervenor objecting to the proposed $330 million project. Those actions came after a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in May where justices ruled that all governmental units where an energy facility is proposed, including counties, may seek status as an intervenor before the MPSC. That ruling is being appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.
County corporate counsel Doug VanEssen outlined the county’s options to the board.
“If we do intervene, we’ll have to notify the MPSC that we are exercising our rights to be a party in this case, and then we’ll have to have counsel that we would select attend the Nov. 19, 2026 pretrial,” VanEssen said.
“One of the things you have to understand in the MPSC is the trial will not be in front of the MPSC. The trial will be in front of an administrative law judge, and that judge will make factual findings and legal conclusions and recommendations to the MPSC, and then the MPSC will take those recommendations and make a final decision.”
The county will have to inform MPSC by Nov. 12, one week before the pre-hearing, whether it intends to participate. The Nov. 19 pre-hearing is where the administrative law judge is expected to outline the timeline for testimony, rebuttals, filing of briefs and a decision to be made by MPSC regarding Silver Maple.
“We don’t have to declare our position by Nov. 12. We just have to say we want to be a party, and then show up on the 19th,” VanEssen said.
VanEssen said if the board decides to enter the case as an intervenor, it should carve out a unique position as to why the county opposes Silver Maple rather than simply parrot the earlier positions taken by the townships.
“We may discover that there are other things that we can do, if not to block these projects, but to alter them in some way because of some of our powers, whether it’s farmland preservation, whether it’s housing, whether it’s water (quality) … There may be peripheral things that can affect these projects that are within our bailiwick even now … to affect if not the outcome of whether or not a siting occurs, at least the appearance and the effect on the community,” VanEssen said.
VanEssen cited past litigation where the county successfully fought the solid waste industry on siting of landfills in the county after the state took control of the siting process.
Next Tuesday’s meeting will take place at 9 a.m. in the board room of the County Administration Building, 12220 Fillmore St.
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