BY ADAM ATKINSON

North Country This Week

CANTON – Site plans for a large commercial solar farm proposed for 161 Meade Road will again come before the town planning board when they convene on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom.

Pam and Jim Rose, the landowners who live adjacent to the site and who own the right-of-way across their property into agricultural land slated for the solar operation, are planning to attend the public meeting to voice concerns they have about the project.

U.S. Light Energy is planning to construct a 5 MW solar farm on a 33-acre lot of primarily agricultural land, with about two acres of woodland and some wetlands, leased from Brian Brewer.

The Roses point out that the county planning board denied a special use permit for the project last November for several reasons, notably over site access, questions about wetland and agricultural land redevelopment and tree removal. The company launching the project U.S. Light Energy, brought revised plans to the town planning board in December which showed site access along the abandoned Janes Road, now a right-of-way owned by the Roses which cuts through their front yard and in front of their business next door, Boyden Brooks Bodyworks..

The couple pointed out at the town planning board meeting in December that the right-of-way in question was for ingress and egress only and only for agricultural equipment. If approved for the project, U.S. Light Energy plans redevelopment of the right-of-way to allow power from the array, which will contain about 21 acres of solar panels, to be rerouted along poles installed there. 

Legal research on the right-of-way and what it might actually allow is underway, the couple said.

The Roses are concerned with how the project has been handled thus far and what they feel, up until recently, was a lack of communication with them regarding the project by the company.

“It almost seemed like everybody was trying to keep it from us,” Jim Rose said. The Roses said they found out the project was in the works when developers began parking in their driveway to access the site, and they asked what was going on last year. In addition, the couple did not receive the company’s revised preliminary site plan for the project until the day of the town planning board last month, which didn’t leave much time for review.

Mr. Rose said he has asked the company for an MDS sheet listing materials that will be used in the array, inverter and battery banks so they could see what, if any, hazardous materials might be involved. He said documentation like that is fairly common industrial operations, but said U.S. Light Energy has not supplied that at this point. 

Mr. Rose said another issue is that the company, under the muncipality's solar energy law, is to supply the town with 1 percent of the $9 million project cost, to fund any analysis or consultation on the project by the town, but this has yet to be done.

Mrs. Rose pointed out that although the potential noise issue was brought up in the December planning board meeting, they are still waiting for better information on that as well.

The couple was told initially that the array would not produce any noise, but it was stated at the December meeting that there would be 70 dbs of ambient noise created by inverters located on concrete pads in the middle of the site.

“We don’t even know the number of inverters,”  Rose said. “They said they were going to do a noise study and get back to us.”

There are other concerns the Roses said, including the company’s proposal for a tree or foliage screen, which may only be about 12 feet high at maturity, and what they feel may be inadequate to cover the array which will be installed on an upward slope around their home and business. Solar panels there at the peak of the slope will be almost 35 feet above their property level, the couple estimated.

The planning board meeting is open to the public and can be accessed by visiting https://tinyurl.com/y5jxcsx4.

The town council was expected to convene a public hearing on Thursday, Jan. 14 at 5:45 p.m. on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81840752413, on an amendment to its solar energy facilities law which would require solar development companies to enter into a PILOT agreement with the town. See the resolution at file:///Users/Nctw5/Downloads/SolarEnergyResolution-1-1.pdf.

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