53 acre Old landfill on Belchertown Road is nothing if not wide open
About the only interesting thing to come out of last night's Amherst Media live coverage of the local election was the interview of the Town Manager, who is not known for his extemporaneous public speaking skills, by former Select Board member Judy Brooks.
Bricks and mortar media reporters who cover the Town Manager should take notes.
When she grilled him about the proposed solar array on ye old landfill the Town Manager, finally, admitted the project is "dead."
Killed of course by nearby neighbors who filed a lawsuit against the town for violating an old provision with the Department of Environmental Protection not to allow anything on the cap of landfill except for passive recreation.
The state legislature, in order to stimulate the sprouting of solar arrays on old landfills, passed legislation to nix such provisions but it came too late for Amherst.
Solar array on Allard Farms Hadley, just over the Amherst border
The Town Manager explained last night that the solar market had since changed and tax incentives were no longer as advantageous, thus making the multi-million dollar green project unworkable.
This after spending $64,827 for contract negotiations with BlueWave Capital.
Score another one for the NIMBYs -- at the expense of the common good.
Amherst Woods neighbors were a tad too close for comfort
Instead, land in Hadley, used to grow food, was used.
ReplyDeleteFood is no longer grown on that land, and people are starving in this world. Now does anyone else see the irony here?
More Amherst hypocrisy at work - preach alternative energies unless, of course, it's unsightly.
ReplyDeleteActually the "state law' was overturned by the state legislature.
ReplyDeleteAmherst wouldn't have wasted the money if they had just complied with the agreement they made when they closed the landfill.
ReplyDeleteI bet 9 out of 10 of these folks think Cape Wind is a great idea and think that Cape residents were in the wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf Amherst's NIMBY"S are against solar on this scale, I wonder if they support natural gas line expansion? Doubtful. Nuclear? No way!
ReplyDeleteWhat does that leave? Our continued dependance on oil, coal, and propane for heat and electricity and our march towards global warming. Hard to explain this one to the kids.
Yes to the pipeline.
Delete"So I feel like I had ring side seats to Custer's Last Stand last night as the "fight" put up by concerned neighbors was far less effective than the blond haired General in search of glory. And the final results exactly the same. Utter, devastating, defeat."
ReplyDeleteYup, but you obviously had your scorecard upside down.
That was a fun night. Not very often Town Meeting gets it right.
ReplyDeleteIt's not "an old provision" of the law, it was the law in effect at the time of the town's action. It's a good thing courts apply laws correctly. Was town counsel's advice just wrong?
ReplyDeleteMaybe town counsel was psychic and new the state would change the antiquated provision.
ReplyDeleteWho ever thought about solar panels on a landfill a generation ago?
Times change. NIMBYs never do.
The legislature clarified it, but reality is that the regulation had been retroactively rescinded by the DEP when it advocated the use of old landfills for solar farms.
ReplyDeleteRemember that this "passive recreation" restriction had been imposed on all these closed landfills -- decades earlier in a very different world.
That landfill is town property and a revenue source - time to require a permit to walk your dog there.
ReplyDeleteSay $500 per year, per animal.
A fee that is doubled until the town gets back it's $64K. And if they don't pay it, they get arrested and their animals get destroyed.
Time for payback....
Thanks, Ed.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I always felt a little uneasy about this landfill plan, the way it was handled by the town, Everybody showed their true colors. It would have been nice to have the energy, but the claims made by Blue Wave were not credible when reviewed next to the several other bids the town received. It was clear early on that the claimed $30M in savings was never - NEVER - going to materialize.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the town's behavior was reprehensible, but utterly predictable. Amherst Woods residents who purchased homes abutting the field were assured by law that the land could not be developed for 99 years, other than for passive recreation. For this right, the homeowners paid some of the highest property taxes in this overtaxed town. Suddenly, a mirage appeared: however, it was not an oasis in the desert, but a sunshine factory atop a garbage dump. So the town moved to renege on its agreement and these nature-loving residents were then vilified, mis-represented by the town and its rabid usual torch-&-pitchfork throng as "anti-solar," for seeking to preserve the legal right they had paid for. Our local populist politicians played their parts as well. Everybody got into the act.
All this theater could not change reality: the Blue Wave deal was such a sham when proposed, and the economics of solar energy production changing so obviously even then - but the town wouldn't hear of it - that we are LUCKY the project didn't go forward. It is clear today, only five years later, that the landfill solar farm as planned by the Town Manager would have been the greatest albatross of a money-loser in town history, or - more likely - abandoned before it was ever put into operation (but after great waste and expense).
When will Musante make the trek up to Amherst Woods to apologize? Perhaps, he should be thanking the residents whose lawsuit halted his asinine, Quixotic adventure.
The one in very nearby Hadley seems to be doing just fine.
ReplyDeleteLike to know more about how the Hadley facility was built and is operated. It sure went up quickly and I assume it is generating energy now. Is it private investment, or is that the Town of Hadley's work?
ReplyDeleteThey don't own the land and that solar would offset the excessive use of power locally.
ReplyDeleteI would remind people that there is another side....who in their right mind would live that close to a capped lanfill, so...
1. Dont be surpised if they seem off
2. Have some sympathy, they pretty much live next to the filth that forgotten generations wanted to forget about.
I suggest the neighborhood be rezoned as nonresidential, since all get to be nimby, I do not want anyone in Amherst living near garbage and toxins.
I believe it's private. (Always an advantage)
ReplyDeleteNot reported here, or elsewhere Larry: did Blue Wave walk away from the deal? If so, when?
ReplyDeleteSo the town spent $65,000 of my money and yours on the legal costs to negotiate the phantom contract with Blue Wave. How much in addition did they spend fighting Michael Pill?
Yes that was just to negotiate the contract with BlueWave. I think both parties walked away.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about the legal expenses.
I'm told there really was not all that much Court time, so it is probably only a couple thousand.
What we really dodged is millions in costs to take down the solar farm at the end of its lifespan, which was at most 40 years. Being built on a landfill would have brought lots of added costs due to the need to recap the landfill. Find an open field and put the solar farm there, or better yet, put the collectors on top of some of our buildings. The landfill solar farms will turn into nightmares down the road for the towns that followed this path. The companies that sold them on the benefits will have pocked their tax breaks and long ago gone out of business.
ReplyDeleteI believe what we got for our $65,000 legal contract called for them to be responsible for taking it down at the end of its lifespan.
ReplyDeleteThat means you have to believe they will still be in business. More likely was "Who knew they would go out of business?" That's the way Amherst usually operates.
ReplyDeleteBlueWave seem to be doing just fine thus far with 500 megawatts of solar projects under development (Amherst was going to be 4.75 megawatts).
ReplyDeleteAnother testament to the continued power of threatened or actual litigation in Amherst.
ReplyDeleteThe will of the majority? Who needs it?
Let me see now -- 99 years minus 30-40 years equals how many years before the town can build an Uber-Ugly Industrial Park there?
ReplyDeleteLet's start planning now!