Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Dark clouds on the Solar Farm horizon?

DEP requires Amherst to regrade undulations at old landfill

Dave Keenan, a long-time thorn in town officials side, although once a town official himself, is baaaaaack.

Now he's lobbing a stink bomb into the middle of Amherst public officials picnic over turning our old abandoned landfill into a cash cow solar array farm that will produce enough renewable energy to supply all municipal needs, saving the town almost $1 million per year in electricity costs, and pay up to a couple hundred thousand dollars annually in property taxes.

Government tax incentives have stimulated these sunny public/private partnerships springing up nationwide like weeds after a summer rain. And it's not as though old landfills are good for much else.

Mr Keenan blew the whistle to his old acquaintances at the Department of Environmental Protection claiming three retired DPW workers told him about 20-30 barrels of hazardous wastes--allegedly lead based paint from UMass-- they were ordered to bury back in the 1980s.

While I cannot corroborate that particular story, I can verify first hand that hazardous materials were indeed tossed into the smelly pit. Yes, I admit it; 50 years ago my dad and I threw old paint, solvents, dirty motor oil, leftover cleaning products, insecticides, fertilizers, outdated medicines, etc. As did most of the citizens of bucolic Amherst.

To say there are hazardous wastes buried in the old landfill is like declaring there's bear dung in the woods of Maine. That's why the town spent a considerable amount to cap the site with an impermeable protective cover: to keep water from mixing with the dangerous contents and forming a hazardous cocktail that could could migrate downstream. Monitoring sites were also installed to test for that scenario and a system to handle methane gas.

But after 20 Years of fermentation the contents down under have settled causing the cap to sag in spots, allowing pools of water to form on the surface. The DEP ordered the town to fill in the depressions and regrade the site to its original aircraft carrier flatness--all without disturbing the cap of course. As you can imagine, that is a tad expensive.

Fortunately the town is in the middle of a road construction boom. The Atkins corner project, with two roundabouts coming soon, has already generated massive amounts of dirt. Only one slight problem: 6,000 tons of it is contaminated with lead arsenate, a common insecticide used on apples orchards between 1892 and the early 1970s when it was banned by the EPA.



The contractor can either spend a fortune hauling the contaminated soil to a special handling facility or bring it to the old landfill to use as fill for DEP required site remediation. Everybody saves a ton of money. The DEP approved the idea, but will require a three foot layer of non-polluted soil to cover the contaminated soil and numerous other safety precautions.

But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. If a project--like the Bluewave Captital Solar panel farm on the old landfill--is "part of a site remediation or restoration under a Mass/DEP enforcement action/order" it is eligible for "fast track status" when negotiating the local permitting process.

And while the long-term contract with Bluewave will have to be approved by town meeting it will only require a simple majority vote, unlike a zoning change that requires two thirds.

Who says money doesn't fall from the sky? Now it will--whenever the sun is shining.



Christmas '07: After the town took Dave Keenan's humble abode for $50,000 in back taxes he camped out in his former front yard. DEP fines for ten years procrastination cleaning up an oil spill also amounted to $30,000. Mr. Keenan eventually repaid Amherst over $63,000 in back taxes and legal fees.

Business West profiles the Amherst Solar farm

15 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what your point is in posting the picture about Mr Keenan. He paid back the taxes he owed, so why bring it up again?

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  2. And the piles of dirt uncovered at Atkins are filled with toxic chemicals blowing ....? Shouldn't they be covered?

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  3. thanks for the heads up, larry. seems like every once in a while this town does at least one thing that makes some sense. and it seems a redeeming gesture to turn a dump into a "green" power source of sorts. i'm curious, was there any discussion on the viability of wind power?

    not being an engineer i wonder the pros vs. cons of either, but surely, we have enough professors in the five college area to power a wind farm! (sorry, i couldn't help my self.)

    ot: by the way... they are called a rotary in the 'states. a roundabout is what them british types in the uk call the endless circles of hell.

    where are the sage minds of amherst planning on putting these monstrosit... i mean traffic aids?

    ~ecosse

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  4. I believe both of them are going in pretty close proximity to Atkins and I've heard them described as rather small whatever that means.

    I'm kind of curious about windpower as well. My wife and daughters ski at Berkshire East and they recently put up a wind turbine (over neighbor complaints naturally) that supplies all the power they could ever need and then some.

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  5. What happens when it's not windy?

    Do the ski lifts stop?

    BTW, I'm all for wind power, but most don't realize how tall those mills are.

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  6. Dave's talent for turning rundown houses into a piece of political performance art is being wasted in little Amherst.

    Detroit needs him!

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  7. Wind power and Amherst town government.......now there's an opportunity we should not pass on.

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  8. so there is present subsidence at the landfill. what happens when there is future sinkholing and there are massive infrastructure units parked on top? sounds like trouble to me.

    bach

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  9. Or arsenic laden soils left in open mounds as the rain pours onto it, running off into....? What are people thinking?

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  10. If we set up wind turbines inside the Middle School Auditorium for all of Town Meeting, we can run all the lights in town for how long?

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  11. Well Thanks larry, I am sorry I didn't give you a copy of the permit. It states that the contaminated soil to be covered by 6 inches of loam and seeded.Your readers are Great, I especially enjoyed the one about performance Art!The picture with the Christmas tree and Banner with Paid in Full also a nice touch to your Blog... I was told about this post by the media so I guess the tail IS waggin the dog (weekly waste of ink!). Keep diggin, it only gets better Larry. Just imagine Free power, "for the children"!Dave keenan citizen,taxpayer,Seasonal urban camper.

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  12. Hey Dave,
    I found a copy of the DEP permit on the town website (and just now created a hotlink back in the body of the article to it):

    D) "The contaminated soil shall be graded and shall initially be covered with at least 6 inches of secondary fill material.

    But they go on to say in F): "As proposed, a minimum of 3 feet of soil fill shall be placed over the entire area of contaminated soil."

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  13. Wind power and town meeting....

    good common sense!

    use it up, make do or do without...

    Harry T

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  14. So why can the contaminated soil be left out uncovered at Atkins Corner now?????????

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  15. I think you have missed the part about the capped landfill. It is not just a barren wasteland, but a sledding hill (used by local residents all winter), a meadow and forest. It is not, as the article stated, "not good for much else."

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