Great Barrington — In lock step with the Selectboard at that group’s meeting in late November, the town’s Board of Health came out on Thursday, December 4, against a planned solar energy facility at 53 Van Deusenville Road.
Both boards reviewed the special permit application ahead of a Planning Board public hearing to decide whether to approve the facility proposed by Lodestar Energy of West Hartford, Conn.
The 20.8-acre Van Deusenville Road property, owned by Jeanne Bachetti of County Road in Great Barrington, is zoned in the R2 Acreage Residential district.
According to the town’s zoning regulations, solar energy systems that are roof mounted, with an accessory use of up to a 750-square-foot project area or larger, are permitted uses in the R2 zoning district; however, commercial-scale projects must be approved through a special permit by the Planning Board.
The board was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the special permit application on Thursday, December 11. However, Health Agent Rebecca Jurczyk told the Board of Health that the Planning Board’s special permit hearing was postponed until Thursday, January 8.
At the Board of Health’s December 4 hearing, the group discussed whether or not they should send a positive or negative recommendation to the Planning Board concerning the solar project.
Company Project Developer Mike Vittiglio and Tom Brooks, senior noise consultant with VHB of Watertown, Mass., presented Lodestar Energy’s plans.
Vittiglio told members of the board that the company planned to use a central location on the property for the project’s 17 solar inverters and transformers. He said that the closest western abutting property line and the closest residence along Van Deusenville Road are both approximately 500 feet away.
Vittiglio said that, when completed, the project would generate sound only during the daytime when the inverters are active and that there would be no sound during the nighttime hours when the equipment is shut down. He added that the sound generated from the inverters would be roughly 20 to 22 decibels from a distance of 500 feet.
When asked by Chair Michael Lanoue, Vittiglio said that the company had not conducted any ambient noise testing on the property and that a test would be conducted within “the next couple of weeks.”
Later in the meeting, in deciding whether or not to recommend the project to the Planning Board, Board of Health members said that they were concerned that the company had not conducted a sound study before submitting their special permit application. “Not having [this] information is enough for us to say that [the board] should make a negative recommendation,” Chair Lanou said. “If this draws out longer, and if the Planning Board wants to hear a deeper, more thorough recommendation from our board, and if we had a sound study at that point, we can do that. But from my experience, we usually get one crack at this. And I know from other projects that it’s best to comment when we have the opportunity rather than to wait.”
“The one concern that I do have is the fact that this is in the planning stages, and [the company] knows that sound and noise are issues with the Board of Health,” Board member Ruby Chang said. “Yet, they did not do anything to help satisfy our needs to understand noise testing results. They didn’t come up with any kind of final testing to support their application. I’m just surprised that they would come even before the Board of Health without any evidence that sound is not an issue. To me, this is very audacious of developers to come to us without any evidence. I think it’s a waste of our time.”
All through the meeting, residents and members of the board referenced current sound issues with an existing solar farm, built in 2018, at the former Rising Paper Mill site off of 255 Park Street, developed by Kearsarge Energy.
While Vittiglio said he understands the concerns about the potential solar project in light of the issues with the Park Street project, he acknowledged that the company did not conduct a sound study partly because “the way the [town] ordinances read, it does not mention that a sound study is required.” “This is where we were hoping we [had enough data] from describing the decibel level of the inverters from what the specifications mentioned,” he said. “We were hoping that would be enough evidence that sound is not going to be an issue here.”
Vittiglio said that the earliest the company could conduct a sound study on the property is in the third week of December. “That’s what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re trying to provide adequate noise data here, but I would say that a noise study isn’t explicitly called out in the zoning ordinance.”
Lanoue insisted that the board needed hard data to make an informed decision “one way or another.”
Board member Peter Stanton said that while he was fine with voting for a negative recommendation on the proposed project, he would encourage the company to come back to the board with data results from a sound study.
All three members of the board eventually voted to send a recommendation against the proposed project to the Planning Board.
