WENDELL — Abutters of a proposed 2.79-megawatt, ground-mounted solar array and a 2-megawatt battery storage facility on Lockes Village Road voiced concerns about environmental contamination of the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed, as well as the facility’s potential negative impact on the view from their homes, during a hearing this week.
The discussion came less than two weeks after Special Town Meeting voters opted to let the Selectboard negotiate and enter into a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with the company behind the proposed facility, Nexamp, which is doing business as Wendell Solar LLC.
Abutters and other concerned residents lined the walls of the Wendell Town Offices meeting room Monday night for the Planning Board’s continued public hearing on the request for an amended special permit and site plan approval for Wendell Solar LLC.
Nick Santangelo, of Beales and Thomas Inc., the civil engineering firm behind the project, along with Mike Cucchiara and other employees with Nexamp, told the Planning Board about their plans for a 9.5-foot-tall black rubberized sound barrier for the facility. However, the aesthetics of the project inspired pushback from the public.
“I’m just wondering if this is my new view, this rubber monstrosity,” abutter Kristen Andrews said.
“I don’t want to look at a solar field out my window,” resident Kathleen Leonard added. “That’s not why I live in Wendell.”
As a potential solution, Planning Board Chair Stephen Gross asked Cucchiara and Santangelo about planting additional vegetation stretching as high as the noise barrier to help cover the structure without shading the solar panels.
In response, Cucchiara said, “I think that this is something that we could evaluate, if that’s what the Planning Board deems necessary.” Cucchiara added that planting the tall trees in the near future may prove to be difficult as fall temperatures continue to drop.
“I think ringing this with further vegetation is probably overkill, but in certain areas, maybe that is reasonable,” Cucchiara noted.
Santangelo mentioned Eastern red cedar trees as one potential tree option to address concerns about the visual impact of the proposed facility.
Abutter Linda Hickman called for a larger buffer between the facility and its neighbors.
“To me, 45 feet of trees and 55 feet of gravel is not a 100-foot buffer, and the zoning laws at this point do clearly call for a 100-foot buffer,” Hickman said.
Hickman also stressed the importance of maintaining vegetation on the property.
“Too many projects I’ve seen where they plant some vegetation, they say, ‘OK, we’re done,’ and then most of those plantings die,” Hickman said.
Resident Lisa Hoag raised concern over the facility’s impact on the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed. She said the facility falls within the watershed, citing an email from Richard Carey of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection regarding regulations in the Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards that she said apply to this project.
Fellow abutter Ben Schwartz expressed concern over the substantial amount of water that would be needed to extinguish a fire at the facility seeping into the ground and, as a result, the watershed, bringing with it potential contaminants.
“That is state drinking water supply and there’s regulations around it for a reason,” Schwartz said.
In response, Santangelo said Beals and Thomas Inc. addressed the watershed concerns in prior communication with the Planning Board and the Conservation Commission.
“The project does not propose work within surface waters or the discharge of pollutants, including untreated stormwater runoff, into surface waters, and therefore, these standards are not applicable,” Beales and Thomas Inc. wrote in a letter to the Conservation Commission, referring to the Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards.
The letter claims that the majority of the proposed facility falls “within the outer 100 feet of the buffer zone,” outside the jurisdiction of the Watershed Protection Act and surface waters or wetland resources areas. The message also states that the stormwater management system was “designed to include stormwater infiltration [best management practices that] will detain, treat and infiltrate stormwater prior to discharge.”
“The [best management practices] that we are proposing are consistent with the zoning, and we are aware of the Quabbin Reservoir area and everything around that,” Santangelo said during the hearing, adding that he feels the concern would be “better discussed” with the Conservation Commission.
Wendell Fire Chief Matthew O’Donnell said the Fire Department’s actions while mitigating immediate hazards are exempt from the Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards, but, he added, “I also don’t want to be the fire chief that polluted the pond.”
O’Donnell encouraged the Planning Board to seek an opinion on the Massachusetts Surface Water Quality Standards “not just to protect me personally, but to protect the town.”
As an abutter, Andrews requested stipulations that her property’s water be tested before and repeatedly after the facility is constructed, along with a plan to resolve any issues if the water quality turns out to be unsatisfactory.
The next hearing will be Monday, Dec. 1, at 7 p.m. In the meantime, town counsel will review several points raised over the two hearings for the battery storage facility, including a legal disagreement between the lawyer for the project and attorney Michael Pill, representing abutters Hickman and Schwartz, regarding whether the special permit applicants were correct in requesting an amended special permit application, as the applicants believe, or if a new special permit application is necessary, as Pill claims.