GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A plan to install solar panels at a massive former Grand Rapids landfill site to help power the city’s buildings, street lights and signals in the coming years got a state funding boost.

The state allocated $3 million to help the community-serving solar array project in its Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) budget. Solar panels will be installed at the former Butterworth Landfill site, a nearly 190-acre landfill about 10 minutes southwest from downtown that shut down in 1973 and placed on the U.S. Superfund National Priorities List in 1986.