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CONWAY — The Planning Board reviewed changes to BlueWave Solar’s plans for a solar array on Roaring Brook Road last week, and discussed the property’s slopes and screening methods before continuing its discussion to an eighth hearing.
“There’s more ahead,” Planning Board Chair George Forcier told attendees on Thursday.
The proposed 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 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, the latest designs show a 4.05-megawatt system.
The design also includes an equipment pad. In response to Planning Board member Jeff Lacy’s request at the July hearing, BlueWave Solar moved the proposed site for the battery energy storage system from the middle of the array to behind a barn on the property and added plantings to screen the north side of the equipment pad.
Lacy said he is happy with the change and asked if the BlueWave Solar team could add similar screening to the south side of the equipment pad.
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“I’m just trying to buffer the south side as well as the north side,” Lacy said. “Since we’ve lucked out and have a barn presented to us to work with, why not make the most of it, use a little screening to really make this invisible?”
While BlueWave Solar’s Senior Director Steve McDonough reiterated that the engineers cannot render the equipment pad “invisible,” he plans to run Lacy’s idea by Boyden given that the farmer must still have sufficient access to the barn.
“What I would hope is that we find a balance between his access and screening it from that corner [of Roaring Brook Road],” Forcier said.
Forcier pointed out that BlueWave Solar’s latest plans did not include the former screening along the corner of Roaring Brook Road.
“My biggest concern was the general view of the panels coming down the corner,” Forcier said. “If you put vegetation in that corner, you go a long way in softening the impact of the arrays for folks traveling through there.”
McDonough said the BlueWave Solar team can likely add that screening back in as long as Boyden approves.
The Planning Board also continued to discuss the property’s slopes 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.”
According to BlueWave Solar’s written request for the waiver, approximately 9.3% of the solar array includes slopes between 15% and 18%, which “demonstrates the applicant’s efforts to minimize development on the steeper slopes to the greatest extent practicable.”
The letter argues that the project is a “good opportunity for the board to grant a waiver” due to the area of the panels lying in a field with “existing vegetative cover” and the applicant not proposing “major clearing or grubbing.” The letter claims that disturbances from construction will be limited to the foundations of the panels and BlueWave would restore any damage to the ground through decompacting soil, topsoil and seed. The letter also adds that the slopes fall within the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)’s maximum recommended slope of 33.5%.
Peer reviewer Chris Chamberland then read a memorandum with information to help the Planning Board in its determination of whether to grant BlueWave Solar the waiver. Chamberland mentioned the fact that the project maintains the agricultural purpose of the site and the town’s solar bylaw requires that solar facilities “should be located to minimize impacts to existing agricultural land.” The lack of grading proposed for the project and BlueWave Solar’s latest Stormwater Management Report showing reduced stormwater runoff after development are also considerations that may support the waiver, he said.
Still, Chamberland emphasized that the waiver is “discretionary” and the Planning Board may find that the applicant’s justification for the waiver describes “any well-designed array on an open field,” as opposed to particular conditions to the site. Based on soil mapping, the solar panels with slopes between 15% and 18% sit within “Hydrologic Group C soils” with “moderately low infiltration rates” that generate more runoff than other soils.
The Planning Board decided to look over Chamberland’s comments before the next hearing, when members plan to discuss the waiver further with town counsel. The board plans to discuss the safety concerns that residents and members have raised with the battery energy storage system with Fire Chief Christopher Herrmann at a future hearing after reaching a decision with the slope waiver.
Planning Board member Phyllis Craine also brought up a concern from a past hearing that the construction of the array would disrupt the Conway Grammar School students across the street. In response, McDonough said the pile driving would last four weeks or less due to the sandy soil at the site. At a minimum of 722 feet away from the project, the school would hear the sound of the machinery at about 56 decibels, the same level as a household refrigerator, according to Yale University’s “Decibel Level Comparison Chart,” without taking barriers like the array’s vegetation and building’s walls into consideration.
The next public hearing on the proposed solar array is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 27, 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
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