(Radio Iowa) – Construction will begin later this month on a seven-million dollar solar installation that will provide power for Grinnell College. Rob Hach is C-E-O of Storm Lake-based Trusted Energy, the firm that’s installing more than 10-thousand solar panels in a 30-acre field.

“The project is located to the northeast of the Grinnell campus,” he says. “It is being connected to the Grinnell campus with a 3500 foot transmission line underground.” Estimates indicate the solar field will provide about 30 percent of the electricity for the campus and reduce the carbon footprint of Grinnell College by about 20 percent. “This is definitely something the students want from Grinnell…to be a carbon neutral college,” Hach says. The solar panels will stand about nine feet above the ground.

The 30-acre field will be seeded with native grasses and Hach says the plan is to have sheep graze among the solar installation. “Once in a while we’ll put some goats out there in order to get the weeds out of the pasture ground, so a solar field, previously a corn field, will be a grazing field,” Hach says. “…It’s a nice rolling hill. The solar field will follow the terrain. It’ll be very complimentary to the landscape.” Sensors in each panel will help guide it to positions that best capture the sun’s rays.

“In the morning they’ll be pitched to the east and then midday they’ll look flat,” Hach says, “and then at the end of the day they’ll be facing the west.” Hach expects construction to be completed by the end of the year. In 2019, Grinnell College signed an agreement to buy power generated by the solar field. Hach’s company estimates the college will save about three million dollars in energy costs over the 20 year contract.

Des Moines – The Iowa Department of Corrections, Sunday, reported 29-year-old Erica Shales, who was convicted of Assault with Weapon–Peace Officer and other charges in Boone County, failed to report to work from the Des Moines work release facility as required, Saturday.

Shales is a white female, height 5′ 7″, and weighs 167 pounds. She was admitted to the work release facility on 5-10-2021.

Erica Lynn Shales

Persons with information on Shales’s whereabouts should contact local police.

The CAM School Board will meet in a regular session beginning at 6:30-p.m. on Monday, June 14th. The meeting takes place in the CAM High School Superintendent’s Office. Discussion and/or action items on their agenda include:

• Award Audit RFP (Request For Proposal)
• Consider agreement with Casey Computing for the 2021-22 school year
• Sharing Art Agreement
• Staff Handbook
• Facility Update.

The CAM School Board will also act on any Open Enrollments, Resignations, Contracts and/or Letters of Assignment.

Police in Red Oak, Saturday afternoon, arrested 40-year-old Daniel Lee Mattox, from Red Oak. Mattox was taken into custody at around 2:45-p.m., on an Adams County warrant for Contempt of Court/Failure to Appear. He was brought to the Montgomery County Jail and transferred to the Adams County Jail, where Mattox was being held without bond.