Greenfield Recorder
Sign up for the Recorder’s FREE morning newsletter and get essential news each day.
CONWAY — At the sixth hearing on BlueWave Solar’s plans for a solar array on Roaring Brook Road, residents called for more transparency from the company before the Planning Board continued its discussion to a seventh hearing.
“We’re on the downside of this hill, but we’re not done yet,” Planning Board Chair George Forcier said of the public hearing process.
The solar array would be a dual-use system, allowing landowners to continue using the site for farming, with animals able to graze under the panels. The solar panels would be spaced with enough room for sunshine to reach the field below, according to Melinda Costello, a civil engineer with Weston & Sampson. Instead of fixed panels, the solar panels would move to follow the sun throughout the day.
The initial application for the project on Ronald Boyden’s farmland described a 4.99-megawatt system with solar panels set 10 feet above the ground, along with a battery energy storage system, a 20-foot-wide gravel access road and a stormwater basin. However, after the company agreed to remove 20% of the panels, BlueWave Solar’s latest designs show a 3.99-megawatt system.
On the web or with our app, the Greenfield Recorder provides award-winning, essential local coverage from arts and sports to breaking news and opinion. You get unlimited access to it all, including archives and our popular e-Edition.
The Planning Board continued to discuss the property’s slopes at Tuesday’s public hearing as it considers a waiver. The town’s bylaw for commercial solar photovoltaic systems requires that the systems sit on slopes with grades of less than 15% while allowing the board to issue waivers for slopes up to 18% “based on site-specific parameters.”
Costello argued that the Planning Board should grant BlueWave Solar the waiver because the panels would be installed in “well-established” vegetation on Boyden’s fields with a layer of topsoil, instead of forest that would require large-scale grading to clear a space for the panels. She added that only the proposed driveway, equipment pad for the battery energy storage system and process of moving equipment onto the solar array would lead to any erosion “disturbances” during installation.
“Actual soil disturbances are very minimal compared to the overall size of the project,” Costello said.
For Planning Board member Jeff Lacy, the waiver “might be possible in this case because it’s not a forested soil regime.”
Peer reviewer Chris Chamberland explained that erosion is the “No. 1 concern” when towns are considering the slopes of land for proposed solar projects. When developers cut down trees in forests for projects and pull out the roots keeping soil in place, the soil loosens and becomes raw, worsening erosion, Chamberland explained. He agreed that a pasture field covered in grass likely has more solid soil than a forested site for a solar array.
A local horticulturist in the crowd of about 20 attendees disagreed, arguing that construction equipment will damage the soil. In response, BlueWave Solar’s Senior Director Steve McDonough said the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources requires the company to follow standards for soil compaction.
Chamberland noted that, through the opportunity for a waiver, the town’s bylaw suggests that a permissible scenario for a solar project on slopes between 15% and 18% exists.
“If you offer a waiver, but it is impossible to meet the waiver, then that, to me, is a vulnerable part of the decision,” Chamberland said.
To gauge the impact on the land, Lacy asked McDonough what equipment will be used on the site to install the panels. McDonough said he can provide information on the specific equipment in time for the next hearing.
The Planning Board, which did not make a decision regarding the waiver on Tuesday, is also waiting on information from BlueWave Solar about the possibility of moving the equipment pad. At the July hearing, Lacy suggested the company move the proposed site for the battery energy storage system behind a barn on the property “to ease the visual burden.” After Lacy visited the site with McDonough and Boyden, Forcier said the Planning Board hoped to hear about the possibility of moving the pad, but McDonough said he has not had a chance to hear Boyden’s thoughts on whether he approves of Lacy’s idea.
As a result, the Planning Board had no new information to review from BlueWave Solar on Tuesday night.
“You guys keep missing your deadlines, you keep promising you’re going to give us stuff by specific dates, and you don’t deliver,” Planning Board member Phyllis Craine told the company’s representatives. “Why are we waiting a month since our last continuance for updated information? That, to me, is unacceptable, and there’s a pattern of this with you guys.”
In response, Costello said her team has incorporated feedback from the Planning Board, the public and Chamberland, and had taken input into account early on that pointed out discrepancies between the project report, drawings and cover letters.
“We’re not dismissing the feedback and the questions that you guys are giving to us; it just takes time to pull this information together. It’s not a quick turn of one week and we can hand it back over to you. There is technical design that goes into these analyses,” Costello said. “I just want it to be understood that we’re not doing it to be rude or waste your time.”
Throughout the meeting, several residents claimed that BlueWave Solar has not provided enough information to the Planning Board and the public.
“This isn’t BlueWave’s first rodeo, and we’ve had to pose a lot of questions that should not have been needed to be asked,” Selectboard Chair Christopher Waldo said. “It appears that they’ll answer questions when the questions are asked, not provide the information upfront.”
Similarly, resident Mary McClintock commented that she hopes the company “is hearing that there’s issues of trust already being developed.”
“How can we as a town or you as a Planning Board approve something without all of the information?” resident Priscilla Lynch added. “We need full transparency, all of the information right from the beginning — not segmented, not until we get down the line when it’s too far to turn around.”
Costello said the company typically designs projects in several phases, with details of the project’s foundation and construction coming later after special permits are granted and engineers know the limits of the project to create a “building-permit-ready level plan.”
“If this project gets denied, it’s a lot of cost on the applicant and the project team to move forward with that if there’s not even a project to build,” Costello explained. “At this point in the project, it’s hard to provide those additional details, because we just don’t know if there’s a project yet or not. I hope that provides more clarification.”
“Actually, that provides no clarification,” Craine replied. “Your cost is your cost. Conway is a town of 1,700 people — all of [whom] have an interest in this project — and it is in your interest to answer our questions. Your cost is not our problem.”
The next public hearing on the proposed solar array is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. at Conway Town Hall.
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
14 Hope St., Suite 101
Greenfield, MA 01301
413-772-0261
Customer Service
413-774-2741
circinfo@recorder.com
Help support your local news source!
You can now receive the latest newsletter from the Recorder directly in your inbox and never miss a headline.
Forgot password / Create account
