Adams Planners Grant Approval, Waivers For Solar Array
 Alan Benvides of Woodard & Curran engineering consultants explains how the panels would be sited on the landfill. The panels will installed on 3-foot-square, foot think concrete slabs. |
The board unanimously approved the site plan for the 4,000-panel facility that is expected to save the town betweek $130,000 and $190,000 in energy costs annually over the next 15 years but could not completely agree on the waivers.
TectaSolar, the developer for the $5 million project, had asked the board to waive a zoning ordinance that would require an environmental impact report as well as the requirement for a performance bond.
Alan Benevides, senior vice president for Woodard & Curran, the engineering consultants for TectaSolar, said the project would cover about 5.36 acres but it was decided to round up to six acres for application purposes. That triggered the zoning ordinance that calls for an EIR for projects greater than five acres.
However, the project will not require any digging; it will consist of 6 inches of gravel over the capped landfill to provide drainage and support for the concrete slabs that will support the solar panels.
Benevides said the project does not have to go through Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act review but will have to go before the town's Conservation Commission and the state Department of Environmental protection.
"Because it is on a closed landfill, it will be going through a very thorough environmental review at the state level," said Sharon Barr, senior developer and project counsel for TectaSolar. "So the concerns about the use on the landfill will be, in addition to any concerns you have, will be going through DEP as well."
As for the performance bond, TectaSolar pointed to the lease agreement with the town to use the land and the power-purchase agreement to sell power to the town as providing assurance for the completion of the project, estimated to take six to eight weeks to install.
 Planner Sandra Moderski said the town needed assurance the project would be completed properly. |
Chairman David Rhinemiller and Planner Sandra Moderski, in particular, asked about both companies' experience and stability.
Benevides said his company was not expert in installing solar arrays on landfills, but rather was expert in landfill projects in general, including capping them and building on top of them. "Our job is to work with Tecta to figure which part of the site is appropriate to put the panels on," he said.
Barr said Tecta has been working in solar for five or six years and its parent company "is the largest commercial roofing company in the United States."
Attorney Jeffrey Grandchamp, special counsel to the town on the solar matter, said the town's position was that the contracts ensured the project would be completed. He noted no roads, infrastructure or buildings were involved; rather, the only thing before the board was a site plan so what the performance bond would actually cover was questionable.
"It would be a substantial sum of money," said Grandchamp of a possible bond, but he could not give an estimate. Town Administrator Jonathan Butler offered that some $50,000 had been put in escrow by the company to cover certain consulting and legal fees for the town and, if some insurance was needed, less than half had been spent.
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Moderski, however, said the unknowns in the project were too great and she couldn't support a waiver of the environmental impact report. "I also believe that the town should have a performance bond. This is a big project; I know it's going to benefit the town," she said. "But I really think that we, as a Planning Board, we have been elected here to ensure that the inhabitants of this town are taken care of, not just the company that's putting it up."
Both waivers passed 4-1 with Moderski voting in the negative. She voted with the rest of the board in approving the project in total.
Barr said Tecta was in the process of submitting permits to the DEP and would be filing with the Conservation Commission. Dependent upon the permits and weather, installation could begin by November.
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