The Greene County Board of Supervisors met Monday in regular session.

During reports, County Engineer Wade Weiss addressed the Board. He mentioned the retirement/resignation of Jay Tasler in the Secondary Roads Department and commended him on his 28 years of service. He also talked about purchasing an over $446,000 maintainer to replace an older model. The Board agreed to move forward with the purchasing process, due to the vehicles being over one year away from receiving them because of supply chain issues. 

County Attorney Thomas Laehn also addressed the Board. He said there were 70 pending criminal cases and that he would briefly fill in as the Guthrie County Attorney on Tuesday for their part time county attorney Brenna Bird, who is campaigning for state attorney general. 

The Board then approved the second reading to extend the moratorium for utility-scale solar energy projects to October 24th at noon or when the Supervisors re-codify its code of ordinances. The Board then waived the third reading and finally adopted the amended ordinance. 

Next, the Board discussed a petition to intervene with carbon pipelines, as part of an overall survey by the Iowa State Association of County Supervisors. The question the board needed to answer together was whether or not they would contribute to the cost to intervene on the pipeline projects. The Board chose undecided because they didn’t know the full amount or what position ISAC was going to take. 

The Supervisors then heard an update from Summit Carbon Solutions. The 12 mile stretch into Greene County that also involves Louis Dreyfus plant north of Grand Junction was about 78-percent complete on land acquisition, and around 50-percent statewide. The project is to include five Midwest states to capture liquid carbon dioxide and carry it through an underground pipeline to North Dakota where it will be stored underground.

The Board also discussed its solar utility-scale solar energy ordinance with suggestions from NationalGird Renewables. NationalGrid representatives asked the Board to reduce its setbacks for dwellings from 600 to 400 feet, non-participating properties from 150 to 50 feet and other buildings from 250 to 150 feet. Supervisor Chair John Muir said the Board wasn’t going to change their minds on those setbacks. However, they would allow for a change for the entire solar system to be counted as part of the 1,000 acre per project limit. 

The Board will be reviewing this ordinance one more time next week, before setting the public hearing as part of the overall re-codification of the code of ordinances.