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NORTHFIELD — After hearing from experts in water resource management who called for updated data, the Planning Board decided to continue its public hearing on a solar array being proposed for Pine Meadow Road to Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The proposal by BlueWave Solar calls for a 4,316-panel solar array within a fenced-in area, and while the company currently does not have a farming contract executed, the proposal calls for a local partner to produce vegetables within the array. BlueWave Solar had previously gained approval in 2021 to construct a three-array, 26,000-panel, 10.9-megawatt project on the same road.
To address the board’s concerns with the solar panels exacerbating flooding, the members reached out to three experts in the field of water resource management, including Scott Horsley, who has 30 years of experience in the field and founded Horsley Consulting, Tufts University professor Jim Limbrunner who specializes in hydrology and water resources systems and hydrologist and lecturer Stephen Garabedian.
Horsley told the board that he and the other scientists used two different models to project the array’s impact on the flow of rainwater. Limbrunner used the first model, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses to determine that the array would increase the flow of water in the floodplain by a “minor raise” of 0.05 feet per-second during a 100-year flood event.
“That’s pretty slow,” Horsley said. “Jim (Limbrunner) did not find significant effects from the structures that are being placed in terms of how it might deflect floodwaters or raise floodwaters.”
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Tad Heuer, legal counsel for the applicant, BlueWave Solar, confirmed with Limbrunner that his analysis did not determine a “floodplain-related basis” for the Planing Board to prohibit the project.
Horsley and Garabedian used HydroCAD, the second method for stormwater modeling that Horsley mentioned and the standard model for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)’s stormwater standards, according to Horsley. Under MassDEP’s Stormwater Management Standards, “Stormwater management systems shall be designed so that post-development peak discharge rates do not exceed pre-development peak discharge rates,” meaning stormwater management systems must not increase the flow of rainwater.
To predict whether the solar array will increase flow, scientists use “curve numbers” that take into consideration the land cover on the ground. The higher the curve number, recorded as a percentage, the higher the water flow. For example, according to Horsley, the curve number for a forest that catches water through the plants that cover the land, is typically around 50%, while parking lots have a 97% curve number.
For Garabedian, the “crux of [his] critique” was that the data BlueWave provided followed a curve number for a meadow, 58%, instead of pasture, grassland or range, which has a curve number range of 61% to 79%. For his own calculations, Garabedian used the 79% curve number. According to the hydrologist, while BlueWave determined that rainwater flow would decrease by 10% in one area of the site and 27% in another area of the site after the array was built, Garbedian’s analysis found that the development of the array would increase flow by 15% in one area and 66% in another area.
“Given that we don’t know how they’re going to farm this, what is going to be done as far as the soil’s concerned, how they’re going to manage it, it is my professional opinion that the most conservative number for this given land cover should be applied,” Garabedian said. “That is the bottom line here, I feel that they are not using a conservative approach, if they do, they will see that there is the potential for the design as it is now to not meet standard 2.”
Instead, Garabedian said the field analysis BlueWave Solar provided reflects the “best-case scenario.”
Garabedian said the worst-case scenarios can occur. As an example, he mentioned the $1.14 million settlement solar company Dynamic Energy Solutions LLC paid after the office of Gov. Maura Healey, who was the attorney general at the time, alleged that the company disregarded “fundamental pollution control requirements” for construction sites under federal and state law when it constructed an 18.5-acre solar array on a steep hillside above the West Branch Mill River in Williamsburg, according to the former AG’s office.
“These failures can and do occur,” Garabedian said. “These are not hypothetical.”
According to Tad Huer, the attorney for for BlueWave Solar, and BlueWave Solar Project Director Mike Zhe, the updated plans for the project as of September 2024 propose row crops and hay under the arrays, leading Huer and Garabedian to disagree over whether the characterization of the array as a meadow and corresponding curve numbers mischaracterize the project’s effect on rainwater flow.
During their discussion, it arose that BlueWave has not provided a revised stormwater report to reflect the row crops.
Field engineer Richard Ricci agreed to create a post-development analysis incorporating the latest plans for the site of the array, the experts’ comments and the “sensitivity analysis” Horsley recommended. The Planning Board hopes to review the new numbers at the next hearing and further discuss the three experts’ responses.
During public comment, John Buxton, an abutter of the array, listed rainfall data from past flooding in Northfield, including six inches of rainfall during the 2023 flooding and six inches of rainfall over only two days during Tropical Storm Irene, according to Buxton. During the 2023 flooding, Buxton said he was ready to evacuate his home, with his family’s “few personal items that [they] cared about most” packed.
“There’s at least the opportunity for a reasonable denial (of a solar array proposal) where necessary to protect public health, safety and welfare,” Buxton said.
He emphasized the words “to protect.”
“You don’t have to prove it’s a threat, just use your best judgment to protect the public,” Buxton told the Planning Board. “Am I part of the public? Is my family part of the public?”
The next hearing for the proposed solar array will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 6 p.m. in the Town Hall and over Zoom.
Aalianna Marietta is the South County reporter. She is a graduate of UMass Amherst and was a journalism intern at the Recorder while in school. She can be reached at amarietta@recorder.com or 413-930-4081. More by Aalianna Marietta
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