The Massachusetts Legislature and Gov. Maura Healey are turning up the heat on solar and battery storage permitting, burning toward a July 31 legislative deadline to pass a bundle of bills that put clean energy and local municipalities hurtling toward a meteoric collision.

At a Western Mass Solar Forum in June, the governor’s Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting recommendations “to accelerate siting in permitting clean infrastructure” were debated. The commonwealth is attempting a giant energy leap: to deploy up to 1,600 megawatts of new solar installations annually through 2050.

The state Legislature has three major decarbonization bills based on recommendations from the energy infrastructure commission. Energy & Environmental Affairs Undersecretary Michael Judge says it can take the state up to four years to approve an energy project before seeking local and state permits.

Communities feel trapped by a 1985 state law known as the “Dover Amendment” (Chapter 40A.s. 3), which allows solar and battery developers to bypass local zoning bylaws entirely — except for health, safety and welfare reasons. “I know this is a concern particularly in a lot of the western Mass communities,” Judge acknowledged. “That has led to a lot of municipal bylaws being struck down, a lot of court challenges.”

“Communities often feel they don’t have sufficient input or impactful input into the siting of these projects,” Judge said. “They may not have the resources to fully engage in the permanent [appeal] process. So not only is the process not working for developers, it’s not working for communities.”

Judge’s comment at the June gathering that “allowing large storage projects to apply for an Energy Facilities Siting Board certificate in the interim period before these new rules are in place” upset local control advocates. The “interim” before new laws and regulations are in place could be two years away.

Allison Gage, senior land use planner at the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, told the forum audience: “I’m sure many of you are aware of the proposed large-scale battery energy storage facility in Wendell, that has led to a regional outcry against the project because it would require cutting down 11 acres of forestland, and would sit on top of an aquifer that could be a water supply for the town. If site suitability was considered for that project, it probably would not have been proposed.”

Josie Alburg, a legislative analyst for the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said the Legislature’s bill “has a potential to severely limit the ability of a community to deny a permit.” She described these bills as a “massive paradigm shift for our municipalities.”

Article continues after...

Yesterday's Most Read Articles

Driver taken to Springfield hospital after 18-wheeler rollover in Shutesbury

Removed Bridge of Flowers plants to have second act through annual plant sale

My Turn: ADUs — The owner is gone, and so is granny

Greenfield native Kate Bitters runs Boston Marathon to support Dana-Farber and late father

Hilchey bests Wolfram for Deerfield Selectboard seat

Northfield man dies in Erving motorcycle crash; Bernardston man injured in Deerfield crash

Your Daily Puzzles

Cross|Word

Flipart

Typeshift

SpellTower

Really Bad Chess

Municipal association legislative analyst Adrienne Nunez added: “The proposal limits the municipal voice to the submission of advisory opinions … (which) are … essentially suggestions with no requirement for the developer to actually follow them. These details do threaten to disempower municipalities.”

Sen. Jo Comerford has been lobbying energy officials for months. She wrote to the secretary of energy in early May explaining that “Western Mass is used to being exploited for our resources.” She recommended “one state map to establish ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ areas for clean energy projects. This way, the state, developers, municipalities, and community groups would all be referencing the same map.”

The senator wants towns with 7,500 residents or fewer to receive financial support from developers if they intervene to challenge a permit. “Small municipalities in my district currently do not have the bandwidth to become an intervenor … nor do they have the funding to hire legal help.” The senator wrote her constituents: ”The state must make a plan for equitably siting clean energy across the Commonwealth that prioritizes siting infrastructure on the built and disturbed environment and that recognizes that local governments know best how and where to site infrastructure within their borders. It’s clear that the current process is not working, as municipalities in our region grapple with their solar bylaws being struck down. Even when their bylaws are approved, developers can pursue exemptions to those bylaws.”

The Senate finished its debate on its clean energy bill, S.2829, on June 25. The Dover amendment was not repealed, and municipalities have no protection from projects that will skip local permitting during this “interim” before new regulations take effect.

“We need a clean energy revolution. Yesterday,” Comerford warns, but: “Move too quickly and without sufficient nuance and we will be left with infrastructure that is not sited thoughtfully — where our invaluable natural and working lands once were.”

Based on legislative bills thus far, Paul Revere can unsaddle his horse and shut down his cellphone. There is no “nuanced” revolution coming any time soon.

Al Norman’s Pushback column appears twice monthly on Wednesdays in the Recorder.