 Okay. You are now recording. Great. Thanks, Stephanie. And welcome everybody. Thanks for being here. This is the. February 17th meeting. For the solar by low working group town of Amherst. Thanks again, everybody. Thanks Stephanie for putting our agenda together. We do. We certainly have a court now. So great. So. First order of business is to look at my list here. And I believe it's Martha. Your time has come. If you're available to do the minutes. Oh, okay. It isn't Dan. Oh. Did it last time. Last time. I don't know. Okay. I guess I'm. Guess I can do it here. My next then. Yeah, I guess I can alert people ahead of time. So. Jack is, yeah, Jack's next after. I'm going to have to get mentally prepared. Okay. It's best for me not to know. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you, Martha. Yeah. All right. Sorry, just getting my desktop and position here to. Get the agenda. In my, in the position I like. Okay, great. So. We will see if we can catch up on, on minute approvals. Because now we do have the minutes from. January 6th. As well as the minutes from last meeting. February 3rd. So they were distributed in the packet. Any. Comments or. Discussion on those minutes. Otherwise I'd like to see if we can. Move to have those approved. Yeah. And let me before I go on. Yeah, we don't have any, any presentation or anything like that. So. We can get through this first. So. Martha, do you have a comment on that? Yeah. The January 6th minutes. When we had Chris. Baskham from the fire department. I have one question. Are Chris. Chris breast drop. Mentioned that the proximity to. Adjacent forest land allowed is no closer than 10 feet. 10 feet. Pardon. Is that correct? Just 10 feet. Maybe you can reference where in the minutes. Oh, it's, it's, it's, you know, at the end of. Chris from the fire department's presentation, there were comments from different people. And so. Chris. I think that the proximity to adjacent forest land allowed was no closer than 10 feet. And I wondered if the 10, that 10 feet was. Correct. I would have. Naively thought it was bigger. What page is that on? It's on the last page. The second page and last page. In the set of questions per captain. Baskham. Your name is there. I don't remember saying that. I can. I can. I can go back to verify it. I jump in too. Cause I was going to raise a question about that. Yeah, go ahead. So my notes. Unfortunately, I had, there were two CBs. But I remembered that Chris had recommended a hundred foot buffer from the forest and my notes say. Chris Baskham 10 feet for combustibles, 10 feet for forest. Thinks we need more than 10 feet. By a large tree or canopy of trees. He wants a 10 foot path around the fence line. Or outside the fence line. Keep quote, keep as far as possible. Something shading, keeping out of view, reasonable distance. And so. I think. So somebody said a hundred feet and it could have been Chris Baskham or Chris Presto. So maybe it's a good time to go back and listen to that. Cause I think that's a big difference. Yeah. Why don't we just hold these off then and I'll go back and watch it again. That's okay. Had a complication, but no, it's, no, it's good. It's better to be accurate about who said what. So I'll make sure. Okay. Okay, great. And Jack. Yeah. I was just going to say, I remember the prior chief or. I forget this title, but I remember him saying that because I thought it was. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we'll get. Get it straight. I guess. I'll just verify it from the recording. Yeah. Then we can just put these off until the next. Once again. We'll just hop to the next thing. Yeah. Cause if it really is 10 feet, it might be something we want to put down for discussion 10, 10, 10, some time, whether we would want to. Change that. By law. There is a reference to a hundred feet earlier. In the minutes. From directly from the captain. They're required to be a hundred feet from any other structure or public way. Yeah. Okay. Would that be worth the. Clarifying. And so thanks, Stephanie. So. Is that okay with everybody? If we verify that and then, and then return to these minutes. Yeah, again, next. Meeting. Great. Any other thoughts on this set of minutes before we turn our attention to last meetings minutes. Great. Okay. So any. Thoughts, discussions on the minutes from. Last meeting February 3rd. When did we get those? I don't have that. They're in your packet. They were all sent. Okay. They're all sent together. Well, suffice to say I haven't read them. Sorry. Do you want to take a minute for me to put them on the screen and go through them? I don't think they're that long. Okay. That'd be great if people don't mind. Otherwise I can just take a pass. Just bear with me one second. Thanks. I've read the first page. All right. Any. Thoughts or comments. Yeah. So I wouldn't, I would like to add. That to the section when we were discussing the questionnaire. That I wanted to discuss questions seven and eight. And then I found the discussion of question 10 useful. And that was the only question we had really discussed in depth. Is that something you would be fine with Stephanie adding after a vote? Yes. Yeah. You just do it as amended. Okay. So. Do the words missing right now. No, I'm not going to do it right now. You just tell me. That's the language we'll put in. I tried to make it as brief as possible. Thank you. It's concise. Okay. With that. Amendment. Included. Is there a motion to. Accept these minutes. Thanks, Shannon. And a second. I'll second. We'll stick so hard. Okay. And by voice vote. Jim sec. Can you give me a yes or no vote? Sorry. Yes. Okay. Hannah. Yes. Corcoran. Yes. McGowan. Yes. Breger. Yes. Brooks. Yes. Okay. Minutes are approved. With a. As amended. Thank you. As amended and a thank you to Dan for. Putting those minutes together. Okay. So we'll go through a few of the. Routine sort of a part of the agenda. I did just want to sort of lay out the. Schedule for the day. We're going to focus mainly. On our work at hand, which is the bylaw itself. And great appreciation to Chris for. Providing. And a new section. Draft for the. Bylaw on the submittal requirements. But we're going to go through sort of the, what we'll call sort of the second reading of the monitoring and maintenance. Which is not so much a read through again by Chris, but a. Opportunity to hear. Any thoughts, discussion, suggested edits. From the. Reading through that we did in the first read through last, last time. Get through that. And then we'll do a first reading of the submittal requirement. Section. Where Chris can literally read us through. To understand. That language. Offer some initial thoughts. And ideas. And then that will tee us up. And then we'll have the. Period of time to review it in depth ourselves. And come back for a second reading on that next. Next time. Great. And then we do, we do. Following that. I will take a little time to talk about the ecac. Letter. That was in our packet. To provide some. A sense of, of scaling. And ideas from ecac with regard to. How ecac is looking at this in terms of the potential. Need and thinking about how to think about land use. Neat potential land use needs for solar in Amherst. And then we'll talk about future topics for discussion. Janet had. Put forward some ideas that she can. Go through and then open that up to anybody else as well. And then we'll. Close out with public comments and so forth. So does that sound. Sound good with everyone. Great. Let's start then with, with staff updates. From Stephanie and Chris, if there's anything. Beyond the. Okay. Final that we'll jump into later. Okay. Thanks, Dwayne. So I, we have a. Probably one of our final. Tech meetings after this meeting this afternoon to look at the. Final draft of the solar assessment. It will be presented at your next meeting, which is March 1st. So March 3rd, I'm sorry. So it will be presented to the ECAC on March 1st and to you all on March 3rd. And I have booked the. Woodbury room for the two community workshops. Right now they're scheduled for March Saturday, March 18th. From noon to two, and then on Thursday. March 23rd from 6 to 8 PM. I just have to ensure that I can confirm that second date with Adrian. The original date that we had proposed wasn't available. So those two are moving forward. And then we're going to have a conversation about the large sort of introduction information session, which will be prior to those two meetings. So it'll probably be either the week. My guess is the week or two before might even be sooner. To have a big community session. So. Originally we had said the community session would be, I think on March 3rd, but we've had to. We've had to move forward. Because we sort of took more time with the survey than we had anticipated. It's kind of moved us back by a week. However, it doesn't change the community sessions. Workshops are about when we, we said we were, we were going to, to do them. So we're pretty, pretty much on schedule. All right. Great. Any thoughts or questions for Stephanie? Yeah. Go ahead, Martha. Yes, Steve. What about then the GCA's. Actual land survey at one of the ECAC meetings that I listened to in January. The statement was made that that survey wouldn't be ready until some time in April. And yet Dwayne on your work plan and our schedule. I'm not sure which land survey. I think it's the assessment. Yeah, I think, I think. It's the assessment. So you're going to get it March 1st. Yeah. March 3rd. I keep confusing the two. It was between the assessment and the, and the survey. Okay. So the, So the assessment is just about ready. Yes. So we're, so today is kind of our final sort of look at, at the final draft. Oh, terrific. So you'll get it at the next meeting. Yes. Yeah. But the solar survey, then. We never did see. Anything final after we'd had the discussion of question 10. And a couple other things last time. I think you're at the last meeting. I think it was revised based on final comments. And there weren't many changes beyond what you all asked for. And Adrian said she would do. So I can, I can certainly send that to you. You know, just to sort of have in your packet, I'll try it. I'll, I'll include that for next time. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. All right. He's on the assessment. All right. Good. Okay. Janet. So, so is, I have like three quick questions. One is it to the G. Gza survey questions are going out in April. Is that correct? No. No. The survey questions are going out soon. They were, they were meant to be soon after the. Big community information sessions. So that's going to kind of launch. Getting the survey out. And it will be open for a few weeks. So that will be, and then the, you know, the website will be made available. So all of that is going to happen at the very end. Okay. So it's going to go out after the sessions. So that is kind of April, but maybe a little earlier. No, it's going before it's going in March. It's not going in April. It's going to be closed by April. The survey. The survey itself. The survey, you just asked about the survey questions. Yeah. Okay. The survey questions are going to be. Available in March. And for, because we have two community workshops scheduled, the ones that I just, the dates that I just said, which are March 18th and March 23rd. So the survey is going to be available prior to that date. And there's a website that they have that they're putting up. That will also have the survey. So people are going to be directed to that. They'll have an opportunity to answer questions during the, or the surveys during the workshops. So. That's all happening in March. Okay. I thought you said it was going out afterwards. So that was my first question. No. Okay. And then we're, we're going to work on the presentation. Like background materials for the. Community meetings in a subsequent meeting. Right. To this. I don't. I don't believe so. I know that Adrian and I will be working on. The materials for that. I mean, you all are focused on the bylaw. We're working on the workshop. I think we'll share what we're putting together. But. That wasn't to be heavily sort of. Directed by this committee for the workshops. That's something that GZA was hired to do. Yeah. I think that's a really important point. About how the information, the community gets and the framing of it. So I think it'd be great for us to take a look at that. And, you know, put it in the context of the state. 2050 plan and our own. You know, climate action plan and information. So I think it'd be great to have that. You know, the framing, I think we'll help set the table for what people are going to discuss. So. Well, that's exactly what, yeah, that's what we're, we're doing. So we'll have a conversation and share that information. With you, but we, I mean, we can't wait for your meetings. I mean, we need to be moving this forward. So. At this time, you know, We've spent a lot more time on the survey than we anticipated. So. You know, we're just trying to sort of move that along, but we'll share that information with you for sure. Yeah. I'd like to second that, that it's very important what background information gets given because that sets the tone for the survey. And so it's very important that. Say all aspects of the state's. Decarbonization roadmap. Get. Presented there. And, you know, kind of a balanced picture. So it, I, I would like to really formally request that we get a chance to at least review those materials in advance and make comments. There's going to be, so I do want to emphasize. That there is a website that the consultant is putting together where all of the materials are going to be made available. I'm already reviewing some of that now. So all of that information is going to be on the website. The community sessions are specifically to engage residents. In a more. Sort of interactive process. So we're not going to be. Necessarily giving a whole bunch of materials to people at that time. It's more to sort of introduce people to what the town is looking at in terms of solar and to get a sense of where people. You know, can understand how that relates to the map. So the, so the assessment. That map layer will be made available. And it's just to kind of understand. Where that sort of falls. And then there'll be an opportunity, obviously. To access the survey, but information will be available for sure. It's just that there's not going to be a stack of materials. When people into the room to be going through. I just want to be clear about that there's, you know, we'll be directing people to the website. And everything will be there. It's a lot of information. And it's all on the website. Well, I would, I would still like to repeat the request. You say you're going to have this community information session. First. And that's, you said that that was the time you were going to give out information. And so that's where I think it's important for us to at least know. You know, what's going to be presented. And perhaps a chance also then to review the website before it goes public. Don't we have an opportunity to at least see what's there. See if we feel that it's a complete. Well, I can certainly, I mean, depending on the timeframe, I'm sure we can make sure that we share that information. We're not trying to hide it. I just, I'm trying to move it along. So I will, you know, I will. See to make sure if we can get this information. To you in the ECAC, because I think they're interested as well. It's again, I, it's both committees that I'm trying to respond to. So I will share that information. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. All right. Good. Okay. Okay. Yep. Okay. So great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Okay. So great. Chris, obviously your main update is the first and second reading of the sections, but any other updates from planning? Yeah, I should mention that we did receive a, an application for the zoning board of appeals. And it's going to be a public hearing on, I think it's April 6th. And it's for a battery storage facility on Sunderland road. So people may be interested in finding out about that. It's a standalone battery storage system. And it's going to be reviewed by the zoning board of appeals. It's already been reviewed by the conservation commission. But each time we go through these things, we understand this whole process and industry better. And so you may be interested in. Following that project. Right. Yeah. Great. Again, I want to focus on, on our job here, which is the zoning bylaw, but any, any quick response to that, Janet. So, because I meant to ask this previously on, in terms of battery storage, you had talked about, or you had talked about hiring a consultant to help draft that part of the solar bylaw. And I know that I know your situation is beyond dire in terms of time and work. Is that still going forward or cause I, you know, part of what the ZBA was kind of, when I heard about that at the planning board meeting Wednesday night, I thought, you know, we've been learning a lot about battery storage and looking at some bylaws. And so I thought maybe we should pass that information to the ZBA, but then I remembered the consultant. So I wondered. So, yeah, so Stephanie may be able to talk a little bit more about the consultant, but I am not currently planning to incorporate anything about battery storage into this current zoning bylaw. We've been tasked with the, the task of putting together a zoning bylaw dealing with large scale ground mounted solar installations. And that does not include standalone battery storage. They're treated differently in state law. The large scale ground mounted installations are exempt from certain parts of zoning, but the battery storage is not the zoning board of appeals has every right to review that and deny it if it feels like it's not satisfactory. And I feel like we don't know enough about battery storage yet to put together as a bylaw about battery storage. So that will come, but I'm not planning to put it into this section of the bylaw dealing with large scale ground mounted solar arrays, other than anything having to do with the battery storage that goes along with the array. So for standalone battery storage, we're not planning to include that in our solar bylaw at this time. Great. Okay. Recognizing that many, if not all of the larger scale ground mounted arrays will have batteries at this point. So we'll deal a lot with battery storage in terms of zoning, but in, in context with the ground mounted solar array. All right, good. Martha. Yes, just quickly, I was very impressed by Chris from the fire department who came and talked with us. It seems to me he's very knowledgeable. You know, really has things under control and so on. So it seems we don't need a separate consultant and it would seem that he's the one really that to rely on for, for any specific things we might need in terms of the bylaw or and so on. And so my question just to Chris is in the process for this application that you have now for a standalone battery. Is it just a matter of course that the fire department also reviews it. May I. Yes, please. Yes. We do make a transmittal to all the town departments. We have a long list of departments that we transmit applications to. And so we will certainly. Transmit it to Chris. And we will probably want to have a meeting with him before the. Application goes to the zoning board of appeals just to get his. His comments on it directly. Rather than just relying on a memo. So. Yes. Yeah. And Stephanie. Just really quick in response to Janet's question and Martha's comment. Chris and I spoke internally and after Chris's. Presentation realized that he is in fact the expert. And so it was really kind of unnecessary to do. To go beyond. Outside of the town for that expertise. So. That's why we decided not to. Go with another hiring another consultant. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Impressive and not only was he like really interested in. In this topic, but also it's unlike he was well engaged with what's going on statewide and nationally. On on the topic. And staying up to speed on the issues. Okay. Great. Something new Janet. Yeah. Our, our charge says that we're supposed to do. Battery storage. In our bylaw. So that I'm a little startled by the conversation here, but. That's battery storage related to large scale ground mounted. Solar installations. So that's different from standalone battery storage. Yeah, I'm, I think we're maybe we're talking past each other. Yeah. I'm wondering if we're going to hire an expert to help us on. Battery storage bylaw sections that regulate battery, battery storage along with the solar. Large mounted ground systems. If we need to, we will. We have some money available, but we don't know what the questions are yet. So if we need to, we have some money. But right now we feel that we have a pretty good handle on. The battery storage that's associated with a large scale ground mounted solar rays because we have Chris Baskin. As, as our local expert. Okay. So we're going to be drafting some sections based on his knowledge. Yep. Okay. Sorry. Good. Okay. Let's move on to the next agenda item. I don't know if you have any comments for any updates or, or comments from any of the, of us who liaise with committees. I'll just mention that I'll have an update from ecac, but that sort of is will be covered in agenda item five with regard to the letter that we circulated. But any other comments from, from any of the other committees. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm a little, okay. No, thank you. Okay. Nothing for planning board. All right. Good. Okay. Seeing nothing. Let's move on to the next agenda item. And sort of why we're all here. Quite frankly, which is drafting the bylaw. And so again, thanks so much, Chris. I do know. I'm not sure if that's, if you appreciate that, but we recognize the, the effort and the. Resource issues that you're working under. So really appreciate your continued. Perseverance through, through this drafting. And so let's, does that sound okay? If we sort of go through as a second reading. To sort of just see what any. What the, the. The current draft of the, of what we looked at last time looks like. And entertain any discussion on that. From folks that have looked at it. We don't necessarily need to, we don't need to read through it, but to review it. To see if there's any. Comments recognizing again that this will not be our final. Look at this section will be looking at all sections in the, in their entirety. As we get towards the end, but let's. Yeah. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Stephanie sharing screen. Yeah, good. So may I say a couple of things? Yeah, please. This document was revised once based on a meeting that we had in January, and then it was revised again. Just the other day. And so actually it was not just the other day today is the 17th. I think I. Anyway, so there are two sections here. One section is something that we've been over before. And the other section is something that we haven't been over before. So do you want me to start with the part that we haven't been over before? I think so. You mean the most recent edits that you did. Two 15 say. Yeah. I mean, I can do those. The most recent edits based on a previous meeting of this group. Great. Which would be starting with abandonment or decommissioning. Or any substantial part there of not used in the production of electricity. For a period of one continuous year or more. Without written permission from the permit granting authority, PGA. Or is operating at low level. So that would be on the bottom of page two. So. Abandonment or decommissioning any large scale ground mounted solar bow take installation. Or any substantial part thereof, not used in the production of electricity. So that would be on the bottom of page two. And then the next item that we have here is the decommissioning authority PGA. Or is operating at less than 25% of its nameplate capacity. Or that has reached the end of its useful life. Or has been abandoned consistent with the abandonment section of this bylaw. Shall be considered discontinued. And shall be removed. I know that I don't have. The copy that I think it was Bob Brooks. I don't have that copy here, but. He did note that the word abandonment. The first paragraph should not be capitalized. So. I do remember that. Yep. And then there were concerns about whether this would. Make trouble for. A battery installation or excuse me, a solar installation. And then there were concerns about whether or not. If it needed to be repaired, or if someone for seeing circumstance came and, and you know, it had a bad accident or. Damage as a result of storms. So I added this section, which was based on our conversation last time. And this, it says this section shall not apply to the temporary cessation of operation. Due to standard and expected repairs. Or for reconstruction due to unforeseen events, and I think, you know, we've talked about storms before, but you can imagine there could also be an accident. Some truck could go by and, you know, damage some of these arrays. So we have to make. You know, room for that to happen. So we're saying here that. If this thing goes down for a certain amount of time. Because of repairs or reconstruction that it won't be counted against this. This installation. Does everybody understand that? Yeah. Okay. All right. Moving on. Let's just see what Jack has to say. Yeah, I'm just saying we have like a huge rooftop solar. So I know how solar generation goes. And I'm just wondering if it's clear. That when we say it's operating at less than 25% of its nameplate capacity accounts for. You know, snow cover cloudy days overcast day. I mean, I. There's a lot of days it's, it's. It's less than 25%. But I understand what you're saying here. And. I guess. Over, you know, over a period. Over a period of over, I don't know, qualify it somehow maybe, but. Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit worse. Nothing there is. Might be helpful. I think. You want to put a period of time in there? Well, I guess if we look in that room, you're mirror, and it's like goes for, you know, for several months. I would think that then we can start taking a look at, you know, taking a look at it, but. I'm not, I don't really have an answer. Maybe you would have a good idea. I'm sorry. I know you can't really see Dwayne. So can I just jump in? Cause I have maybe a suggestion. Yeah, please. Perhaps you want to say operating less than 25%. Of its nameplate capacity that is not due to. Cloud cover. Snow cover, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I guess the, you know, technically a solar panel, solar collectors operated at what, what is called a capacity factor of well under 25%. It's usually about 13, 14%. In Massachusetts. Because it. Well, it's nighttime half the time. And it's cloudy, a good, good amount of the other time. And so the average for the state is about 13 or 14%. So I think that. I mean, a lawyer could, it could read that 25% of nameplate capacity and be a lawyer for the solar developer could be concerned about that to say, oh, we can never operate at 25% of nameplate capacity on a full time basis. So maybe there is some tweaking of language there of 25% of its. Normal. Of its. Well, I'd have to think about the language there, but. So maybe we can flag that for. There's some, yeah, I guess what I was going to, I was going to suggest also just as a protocol is maybe that as we go through this, and if there are issues that linger and remain and need to be addressed, we kind of just highlight those sections in a little bit more detail or something to give us, give us all the recollection and opportunity to come back. At a later date, be it, you know, Chris yourself over the next couple of weeks or us when we go through this as a final time as well. And I guess I did have another question, Chris, for you on this, on the additional sentence you put in for, in red there is like, do we need to sort of specify who's making that call. I think that would be the building commissioner. In terms of. That, that. That there was a sufficient storm. Or, or, or accident. Is that, would that be the. Permitting. Granting authority. It would probably be the building commissioner. As determined by the building commissioner. Yeah. Janet, I didn't call on you yet. And you're muted. So, but now I will. Thank you. And I'm sorry. Chris, I think you told us the last time that. That each. Installation will be reporting annually on its production. That's my understanding. Okay. Just. So that might help with the snowy days thing. I don't know. It could be like operating on less than 25% of its norm. It was expected annual generation. But I think that's a good point. Okay. Let's move on though. All right, I'm taking notes. Yeah. All right. Next paragraph upon written request from the building commissioner addressed to the contact address provided and maintained by the owner or operator as required above the owner or operator shall provide evidence to the building commissioner. The owner or operator shall provide such evidence within 30 days of such written request shall be conclusive evidence that the installation has been discontinued. So in other words, if the building commissioner sees that this facility is not in his opinion is not operating, he would reach out to the owner or operator with a letter with written communication and about, you know, what's going on here? Are you operating? Okay. So if the owner or operator is not aware of them, then he can take that as evidence that the installation has been discontinued. Okay. The next paragraph, this is something that Laura brought up a question about. The owner or operator or landowner. And she was not sure that landowner should be included there. She'll physically remove the installation no more than 150 days before the installation. So the question is, what are the conditions? The owner or operator or landowner shall notify the town clerk, permigranting authority, and the building commissioner by certified mail of the proposed date of discontinued operations and plans for removal. So I don't know what to do about that question. I haven't had time to research whether landowners should be included in there or not. So, you know, that, that question is remains open. So maybe that should be colored in yellow. The two words, landowner, landowner. Yeah. Jen has a comment and then I actually have a comment as well. Thank you. Isn't it the opera, the owner of the, the solar panel or facility or array, they're the ones who are putting up all the performance bonds, right? And they just, so I think it would, to me, it just makes logical sense. It would be whoever owns the system. But, you know, maybe making them both responsible and make sure it gets done, but I could see how you wouldn't, if one per, if the operator or the owner of the arrays is putting up the performance bond and they kind of cut and run, that might just leave the landowner kind of liable for something they never expected. So I think, you know, I always like to think of the malfeasance scenario, you know, because that's what we always see in court and stuff like that. There's probably something, if the landowner is different from the owner or operator, there's probably something in their lease that holds the landowner harmless if the owner or operator cuts and runs, as you said. Hopefully. Yeah. But they're probably the landowner might be the least knowledgeable person about what is going on or what could go. So I think he'll help protect them. Okay. I guess I just had, I mean, this isn't necessarily for you, Chris, but just for discussion. I mean, I am wondering about the, you know, you know, always saying about every potential scenario here, but like the scenario where there is something like that really malfunctions with the solar panels themselves and they have, they, they're not operating sufficiently. And there's this trigger that, that the array needs to come down to be removed. But there may be the situation where, you know, the company or another company might want to come in and put up, replace the panels with, with new panels, but keep the, keep the mounting structure. And so, you know, it would be a shame to require all the mounting structure to be removed just to put it back up. And so I'm wondering if there can be something here about. That the, the, the extent and the, and the decision about the removal. Be. Reviewed and approved and approved by the. Hound the building. Building. Building was commissioner or whoever it would be. To, you know, in the circumstance where there's a good case made that we're going to leave the structure or something else leave the structure, but take the panels away. That that can be accommodated. Okay. I will look into that. Great. Okay. Okay. And this is where the second half of this paragraph is where Bob had some language that does not, is not reflected here. So he may be able to share it with us as we move through this. Removal shall consist of a physical removal of all large scale ground mounted solar full take installation structures. Equipment security barriers and transmission lines from the site. Be recycling of all possible materials and removal of all remaining solid and hazardous waste in accordance with local, state and federal waste disposal regulations. See stabilization or revegetation of the site as necessary to minimize erosion and prevent impacts to wetlands or water bodies. The permit granting authority may allow the owner or operator to leave landscaping or designated below grade foundations provided there filled in to minimize erosion and disruption to vegetation. This requirement may be waived if the landowner submits a plan for reuse, reuse of the site. Now that's kind of what Dwayne was talking about. So if the landowner wanted to, you know, keep the structures and reuse the site, then he could submit a plan to the town, probably to the building commissioner and maybe it would have to be approved by the zoning board of appeals for reuse of the property saying that he's going to come back in and put new panels in or something like that. D, any site that was deforested for the installation shall be restored to encourage native tree growth, including the planting of seedlings if necessary to establish growth. Now, Bob may be able to tell us what language he wanted to put in here. I don't have a copy of that in front of me, unfortunately. I'm sorry about that. No. Okay. I guess I'm on. Okay. One was a question. And it says here, they shall restore free growth, previous native tree growth. Is the town, does the town have authority to require that? Or once the site is cleared and its own for another use, could the owner, or is the owner at that time, opt to put in some other use that would take advantage of the open space? That was a question. I don't know. Well, I think we do say something about that. A couple of sentences along. After the plan for reforestation, we say. This requirement may be waived at the landowner submits a plan for reuse of the site. So in other words, I'm not sure that would share when I. No, I think you're right. So if, if the landowner wants to turn it into a field to grow some field crops or something, he would have the opportunity to do that as long as he submits a plan. Oops. So shouldn't that go after, after the, maybe also after the paragraph D. It is sort of after paragraph D. Right. Yes. That's, that's part of paragraph D. Okay. That I understand. I'll try to clarify that and make it clearer. Okay. And then I had a note to myself to check with the wetlands administrator Aaron shock regarding. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the diameter at breast height, DBH and species requirement for plant replacement, because she has something about that in the wetlands bylaw. But then Bob brought up the. Language about a forest. Forget what you called it. Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. So especially. Later on, we're always requiring certified license, whatever. So we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that in Massachusetts. So we're going to rehab. We are going to require a plan. I just was suggesting that it be prepared by a licensed consulting forester. Paired. Licensed. Consulting. Consulting. Forester. All right. That's good. Thank you. Okay. Did anyone have any other comments about that? Janet. You're muted. Okay. So. I think we should think about. All the different large scale solar arrays that might be removed. It could be on a, you know, if we're, if we're regulating. Any array that's one acre or more of panels that could be over a parking lot. Or, you know, a brown fields or, you know, some, you know, abandoned thing in North Amherst. And so I, I wondered if. So I'm wondering is this ties into. Our next section. Is there going to be a requirement of a removable removal plan. Or a restoration plan. In the submittal requirements. Are we going to require that? Cause then we can just say, you know, you know, you know, maybe we need a section about removal plans, you know, like you need to submit a plan for how this ends. And whether it gets restored to its prior condition. And so that, that might help make this smaller, maybe. So I think we should think about the variety of large arrays that might just, and then if I'm just wondering if there, there's a removal and restoration management plan. We're going to require somewhere else. And then site res restoration is, you know, obviously a very broad term that would be different in different spots. And I know if we would specify like, in this kind of land, we need to see it look like this. If it's a parking lot, you probably just don't want to leave it with a bunch of panels sitting there or sticks in the air. Kind of thing. The other thing I just thought is this, this paragraph itself is getting really dense. And so maybe like some bullets or kind of indentations and stuff like that would be easier to understand. So, yeah, so that's kind of like, how does the leg bone connect to the ankle bone kind of question? Yeah. All right. Good, good ideas. Okay. And then we're getting on to. Okay, so our review on February 3rd stopped there. And I don't think I changed anything after that. So let's go on. And the next part is reading this for the first time. Abandonment absence. And again, absent should be small a. Absent notice to the permit granting authority of a proposed date of decommissioning or written notice. Of extenuating circumstances. The large scale. Ground mounted solar boat. Voltaic installation shall be considered abandoned when it fails to operate for more than one year. Oh, this is very. This is exactly what we had before. Right. Isn't it? It's a re. Is it the same as what we had before? No. Okay. So anyway, let's just go through this. And if it is the same as something we had before, I'll figure that out. Shall be considered abandoned when it fails to operate for more than one year without written consent of the. Permit granting authority. If the owner or operator of the solar energy system fails to remove the installation in accordance with the requirements of this section within 150 days of abandonment or the proposed date of decommissioning, the town retains the right after the receipt of an appropriate court order to enter and remove an abandoned hazardous or decommissioned large scale ground mounted solar energy system. As a condition of site plan approval or special permit, the applicant and landowner shall agree to allow entry to remove an abandoned or decommissioned installation. The town may use the financial surety as stipulated in financial surety section for this purpose. So this is new. Yes. Okay. Any issues about this section? Yeah. Yeah. So then do we want to say anything about what happens after the removal in terms of the restoration of the site? I think we said that above. We said it above, but now it's falling on the town to. To do the removal. So the town also have to. Then charge this surety for replantings. Okay. So I need to come up with some language that matches what was up above. Yeah. There I guess the town at the work with the landowner in terms of what the next. Use of the land is. But I mean, we should be putting a priority on if it was once forested, return it to forest, et cetera. I have to learn how to write faster. Okay. Anything else about that? Yeah. Yeah. There I guess the town at the work with the landowner in terms of what the next use of the land is. But I mean, we should be putting a priority on if it was once forested. Okay. Anything else about that paragraph? All right. Well, let's go on to the next one then. Financial surety. Proponents of large scale ground mounted solar will take photo voltaic installation project shall provide a form of surety. Either through cash certified bank check. Escrow amount. Bond or otherwise held by and for the town of Amherst. To cover the cost of installation removal and stabilization of the site in the event that the town must remove the installation and remediate the landscape in an amount in form determined to be reasonable by the permit granting authority, but in no event to exceed more than 125% of the cost of removal and compliance with the additional requirements set forth here in as determined by the project proponent. Such surety will not be required for town or state owned facilities. Any comments? Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Martha. So who is the project proponent? Project proponent would be the. That's a good question. Who is the project. Normally that would be the applicant, but in this case we're talking about removal. So. I guess they shouldn't on their own come up with this 125%. Because they could. Under under. Value that. Usually what we do now is we have the. Applicant give us an estimate of what he thinks it will cost to remove the. The equipment. And then we have our town engineer and our building commissioner check those numbers. So. Yeah, but who is the proponent there? That's a good question. Is the proponent the. Town who's going to remove it, or is it the applicant who may have fled. Town by that point. Yeah. Well, they're making this claim when they propose the project, right? That's true. Yeah. That's right. So sorry. It would be the applicant then. Yes. I was just going to say it's the applicant because you have further down here saying that it's. The estimate shall be reviewed by the town. So it's definitely not the town. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay. All right. So next paragraph, the project proponent shall submit a fully inclusive estimate of the costs associated with removal. Prepared by a qualified registered professional engineer. Such an estimate shall be reviewed by the town of Amherst and just it as needed to reflect the opinion. Of the town as to fair costs. The amount shall include a mechanism for prorating removal costs. And the cost of prorating removal costs may be affected by inflation and or changes to disposal regulations. So we do normally have an inflation. Component of this estimate. And it's, I believe over a 20 year period. Okay. Next paragraph, salvage or solar panels. And or for other components of the installation may be included at the discretion of the permit granting authority. And if you have to throw them away, you can try to reuse them somewhere or do something else with them. This surety will be due and payable at the issuance of the building permit. Proof of payment in the form of a receipt from the town treasurer will be shown to the building commissioner before permits are issued. The financial surety shall be maintained by the proponent through the lifespan of the facility. In other words, if the proponent has a bond, then he's required to keep up payments for that bond with annual certification notices from the surety company or bank for surety bonds submitted to the PGA. We do have situations like that now where developers have built buildings and they were required to do something. And if they weren't able to do it, they had to give the town a bond and they are required to keep up the bond as a condition of approval and application shall bind itself to grant the necessary license or easement to the town to allow entry to remove the structures and stabilize the site. The town shall have the right, but not the obligation to remove the facility. Anything there? Yep, Janet. Chris, I wondered in the line that the, instead of saying sending the surety bonds or the certification or the existence them to the PGA, it should go to the planning department. Because I have a feeling we'll never make it its way to the ZBA or the planning board. Yeah. Submitted to the planning department or building commissioner. Building commissioner. Yeah. Whoever's in charge. Yeah. Building commissioner is the keeper of things like that. Okay. Okay. Moving along. Taxes or payment in lieu of taxes. If the project would otherwise be exempt from the payment of personal or real property taxes. The applicant shall enter into a tax agreement or payment in lieu of taxes. Otherwise known as a pilot agreement with the town of Amherst. That provides an equivalent amount of tax revenue to the town. As determined by the board of assessors. Any tax related agreement or pilot shall be approved by the board of assessors prior to the issuance of the building permit. Now it's Stephanie may know more about this than I do, but I believe that. In my. Knowledge of the town that any. Privately owned. Large scale solar array would be taxed by the town. Normally. And I don't think that. There would be a question of a pilot, but I don't. I'm not privy to all of these agreements. Anybody have any questions about that? I just wanted to add a quick response to Chris's referencing me here. So we did actually, we have a pilot for the solar landfill project. Because it's on. Public land and the town didn't. Doesn't own. That system. So there is a pilot in that case. Great. Okay. Thank you. I think, thanks, Dan. Yep. In addition to what Stephanie just said, it could be a solar array on college land institute or nonprofits land. And so we're not normally. Taxing nonprofits. But I would just, I think it's good to have this as a blanket. You know, there might be a way to say, yes, it's on nonprofit land, but this is a private company, you know, operating a solar array that's not within the purpose of the nonprofit. So it's taxable. I think this just gives you that extra layer of thing. The other thing I have is just, I feel like this is super petty and. I think we need to use very consistent language about, is it the applicant, the proponent, the owner. And we just need that language because when I see a different word, I just start saying, Oh, is this a different person? That's like a comb through later just to make sure there's consistency. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I have a comment as well. I have seen other. Towns and, and, and, and, and, you know, I have a comment as well. I have seen other towns and jurisdictions and some national. Material with regard to above and beyond a pilot. That towns can negotiate with a. Owner, particularly for these larger scale projects to support community. A community benefit fund. There's something along those lines. And I don't think it would fit under a pilot because I think a pilot has to be based on sort of real values and so forth. But I am wondering whether this would be a place if we wanted to, to insert a section that talks about that the town. May, I don't think it's a, it's a requirement at all, but that a town may negotiate or, or work with the. Proponent owner. On, on, on establishing a community benefit fund. To support. Community benefits. From the project, you know, something along those lines. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Martha. No, I just want to say I really like that idea. I mean, I think that. You know, this, this whole effort of putting in ground mounted solar is at some, you know, costs to the town in terms of supervision or. You know, various kinds of uses and so on. And so I like the idea of having the option of negotiating some kind of payment. So. Good thought. Okay. Appeals any person agreed by a decision of the planning board. May appeal to the zoning board of appeals as provided under mass general law, chapter 40 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Any person agreed by a decision of the zoning board of appeals may appeal to superior court. Any appeal of the decision of the zoning board of appeals must be filed within 20 days of filing of the decision with the town clerk. So in other words, if you don't agree with a decision of the planning board, you do have recourse to appeal it to the zoning board of appeals, but then if you don't agree with the zoning board, you have to go to the court. But, and there is a 20 day appeal period. And that's kind of standard for all special permits. My, my feeling is that we're going to want to require special permits for all of these installations. There may be a case where we would rather have a site plan review, but I feel these things are big enough and, you know, kind of new enough that going to the ZBA for a special permit is a better course, but we're not sure about that yet. So that's why we have the planning board in here also. Okay. So that's the end of that section. All right. Great. Yep. Thank you, Chris. So that, um, I guess maybe we'll circle back as a second reading just for those final sections that were added next time, but we can proceed into the first reading of the new, new section that you put together. Okay. And the new section is, um, what is the applicant required to submit when he submits his application to either the zoning board of appeals or the planning. Um, so, uh, it starts out with mentioning the fact that the zoning board of appeals and the planning board both have their own requirements for submittals. So, um, submittal requirements, the applicant shall refer to the rules and regulations of the zoning board of appeals, section 3.1 application requirements for applications to the board and the rules and regulations of the planning board, article two applications for detailed information about submittal requirements. And then in addition to the requirements listed in the CBA and planning board rules and regulations, the applicant shall submit the following information. And there may be more things that we want to add to this. I haven't reviewed this with the building commissioner yet, but this is a pretty, pretty comprehensive list. So before we start that list, um, Bob, did you have a comment? Yeah, just a quick refresher and through these, there's an automatic referral to the conservation commission. If there is a wetland on the site, um, or a wetland buffer zone, uh, these things would be submitted to or referred to the conservation commission for we, what we do is we send a transmittal to a whole list of town staff people. Um, and Aaron shock is one of them. And then she can review the application and see whether, uh, there is a need to bring it to the conservation commission, but more often than not, um, we would actually, you know, walk over to Aaron's desk and have a conversation with her or send her an email directly to her and say, Hey, we think there's a wetland on this property. Um, could you help us to look at it and evaluate whether it needs to go to the conservation commission or not? So does that answer your question? Okay. All right. Should we go ahead? Yes, please. Okay. So number one, an existing conditions plan with property lines and wood, and land. And there are a number of physical features, including a budding land uses and location of structures within 300 feet of the site, topography and roads, characteristics of vegetation, mature trees, shrubs open field, etc. And wetlands for the project site, this plan shall be prepared stamped and signed by a registered land surveyor licensed to practice in the Janet. Oh, sorry. I'm not the person who's in charge. That's okay. I was trying to get through a couple in the list. So I was, I was looking at some other draft by actual bylaws and I, I wondered, and you might, this might show up later, but I thought we should put in slopes. And then lot lines. Slopes and lot lines. Property lines are lot lines. Okay. And then some, some, another town had talked about wildlife corridors. And sort of water recharge areas or something like that too. So. And then in this one and the next one, just to, for consolidation, I wondered again about like bullets or just listing things out, because I think that creates clarity in the applicant about like, oh, we need that instead of a long paragraph, although it becomes then longer. But I think just, especially in number two, I got very lost. Yeah. Slopes is in number two. Sorry. So there is something. Yes. I was going to say that slopes is in number two. Okay. So we already have that covered wildlife corridors are usually covered by the maps that we have of endangered species. But not all wildlife, wildlife covers. The carters would be shown on those maps. So we'll see whether we can include that. I will consult Aaron. All right. And it's a Jack. So, yeah, slopes on the site. I don't think slopes off the site. Retain, although I feel like a USGS. Pipographic map. Usually is provided with these. Is that correct Chris? Usually yes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea what the topography is beyond this. That should be more than. Information with regard to what's going on. Slow boys off the site. Okay. Proposed changes to the landscape of the site, including grading, vegetation, vegetation, clearing and planting. Exterior lighting, including locations, type and wattage. Screening vegetation or structures. Sign locations. Sign locations. Service vehicle parking and access roads. And stormwater management systems. The square footage of each disturbed area shall be identified on a plan. And details of any site alteration, including number sizes and species of trees to be removed shall be provided. A calculation of slopes throughout the site as a percentage over consecutive 100 foot distances. This plan shall be prepared and. Prepared stamped and signed by a professional engineer licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So keep in mind that at the very end of this, there's a paragraph that says any of these things can be waived by the permit granting authority. So that, you know, for instance, a site that is. Say 30 or 40 acres in size, you probably wouldn't. Identify. As to size and species every tree that's on the site. So that might be something that gets waived. It could be just sort of a general description of the types of vegetation that are there. Any questions about that one. Do I do it. If that's a new hand. Oh, no, sorry. Okay. I was my bullet suggestions. Yep. Okay. Three drawings of the solar will tell it will take installation signed by a professional engineer. License to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Showing the proposed layout of the system. Any potential shading from nearby structures or vegetation. The distance between the system and all property lines. Existing on site buildings and structures and the tallest finished height of the solar array. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Janet. I think this might be a yellow line of just adding in, you know, drawings of the battery storage system. If there is one to kind of just putting that in as a. Potential future thing. Yeah, I was going to similarly suggest in the layout of the system. To maybe be a little bit more. Explicit that we want to see where the arrays are the rows of the arrays. The location of the battery energy storage system. If applicable. And the location of the inverter. Okay, wait a minute. Can you list those again where the arrays are? The layout of the. Rows of the array. Yeah. The location. Of the. Energy storage system, if applicable. Yep. Location of the inverter. And I would also say locate location. Of the interconnection. Polls and wires, I guess. Yeah, I think that that would be helpful. Right. And that's all number three. Number four, one or three. Three line electrical diagram detailing the solar. Photovoltaic installation. Associated components and electrical interconnection methods. With all national electrical code, compliant disconnects and overcurrent devices. Again, I'm going to review this with the building commissioner and probably with the electrical inspector. Five documentation and technical specs, specifications of the major system components to be used. Including. Photovoltaic panels. Mounting system inverters and any storage batteries. Okay. Great. Janet. I was thinking about service roads and fencing too. I'm assuming. Yes. Is that, is that covered in. The second paragraph. Service vehicle parking and access roads. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that includes fencing that does it. Yeah, right. I would put fencing more up in that, in that paragraph though. Yeah. Number six. We're on number six, right? Yeah. Proposed wattage of the solar fold photo will take installation. Solar power generation indicated in both direct current DC. And alternating current AC. A notation shall be included explaining the difference. EG loss in conversion from DC to AC. That's something Laura knows a lot about. Number seven locations and details of all security measures for the site that would include fencing. Eight name address and contact information for the proposed system installer. Nine name address phone number and signature of the project proponent. And I guess we want to have the word or maybe I'll just put the name address application. As well as all co proponents or property owners, if any. The name contact information and signature of any age agents representing the project proponent or applicant. Number 11 documentation of actual or perspective access and control of the project site sufficient to allow for construction and operation of the proposed solar photo photo will take installation. And sometimes that takes the form of a lease or a transfer deed or something of that nature. 12, a plan for the operation and maintenance of the solar photo will take installation. That's common in zoning board of appeals applications where we have an operations and maintenance plan. Number 13, the zoning district designation for the parcels of land comprising the project site. 14, a utility connection plan and an acknowledgement of application from the electric utility. 15, the list identifying all offsite electrical system improvements necessary to the electric grid to accommodate the power from the proposed installation and identification of what entity is paying for such improvements. Okay. Number 16 proof of liability insurance. The owner or operator of the large scale ground mounted solar photo will take installation shall provide the model that I was looking at said provided to the town clerk. But I think in our case we would provide it to the building commissioner with a certificate of insurance showing that the property has sufficient liability coverage for the project. Number 17, a public outreach plan including, I thought this was interesting. A public outreach plan, including a project development timeline, which indicates how the project proponent applicant will inform a butters and the community. The town of Amherst will publish a legal notice in the local paper, notify a butters within 300 feet of the proposed project by mail and post the public hearing. In accordance with chapter 40 a section 11. So I'm just saying that this is what the town of Amherst will do. But the first part of this is requiring that the. Applicant actually notify a butters and, and make the project known to the community. Great. Let's pause there for Janet. I love that idea. I forgot. I meant to, I raised a while. Number 12. The plan for operations and maintenance of the photo, solar photo. Full take installation. I thought we could yellow line again, battery storage and annual training and emergency plan and annual training of emergency responders. I think that that seems like a logical spot for that. Battery storage and annual training. Of what is the word for firefighter? Firefighter. Emergency responders. Yeah. Cause I was thinking, you know, we can just highlight that in yellow. Cause I think that will come up probably later. With battery storage regs. Yeah. Description of financial security. In other words, we want them to tell us what they're proposing to submit to the town. Number 19. Pre construction photos from the right of way and nearest to butters. These photos should include tree coverage. Number 20, a visualization, a rendering or photo simulation of post construction solar development, including perspectives from right of right, right of ways. I think that's supposed to be rights of way, but whatever. Nearest to budding properties or residential structures and tree coverage. The planning board or zoning board of appeals may determine additional visualizations and or visual impact analysis to be submitted for review. In cases where the planning board, the zoning board of appeals or town staff determine that the project is likely to be visible from significant areas or roadways. That's something that we also require for those mono polls for what do we call it? Wireless telecommunication devices. Number 21, a glare analysis and proposed mitigation, if any, to minimize the impact on affected properties and roads. All right, let's take a pause for Janet again. I was looking at some other bylaws and some of them have a lot of stuff about visual impacts, like, you know, visual impact analysis and a glare analysis and offsets and things like that. And so I just, maybe we could yellow line that, you know, because that could emerge from our community meetings as a big issue. There's language that, you know, makes that, you know, like, I could, you know, pull out language that talks about that more detailed. And then in terms of mitigation, like, I think we should just have a mitigation, you know, mitigation plan for dot, dot, dot, because like it depends on what you're mitigating or offsetting. It could be loss of soils, carbon, loss of carbon sequestration, farmland, it could, you know, I mean, it could be, it depends on what you care about or what you're, you know, worried about. And so I thought we just put that as a yellow line because I saw some, you know, like I'm trying to think Belcher town, there's different towns are kind of regulating different aspects and looking to mitigate different things. Sometimes that comes out of the meeting with the zoning board of appeals or if in the case that it would be the planning board that they would require that. But so in other words, I guess what I'm saying is we're not sure we could guess about what, what those boards would like to see mitigation plans for, but we may not know. Yeah. And then there's like offsets versus mitigation. So I thought it's kind of like maybe just leave that as a yellow blob. Prefer the thought. Okay. Okay. Number 23 location and approximate height and percent tree cover on the site at the time of application filing. Again, this is something that I am not sure for a very large site, whether this actually is realistic, but we have it in here for now. Trees with a diamond diameter at breast height of 18 inches for evergreen trees and 12 inches for deciduous trees or greater within the project parcel shall be identified to determine tree loss along with inventorying of disease or hazard trees slated to be removed due to the proposed development. Okay. You did skip 22, but I think that's great. Documentation by an acoustic engineer of noise levels projected to be generated by both the installation and operation of the facilities. My understanding is that the panels themselves don't make noise, but sometimes the battery storage facility does. The inverter actually. I'm not sure about the battery storage, but the inverter can have a hum. I mean, that's another area where there can be mitigation plans. In terms of shrubbery or something to mitigate that noise. Number 24 documentation of all soil types as identified on the United States natural resources conservation service soil survey on all land involved with the project. 25 locations of natural and cultural resources based on reviews of publicly available data or consultation with town staff and state agencies. Such locations to include active farm and prime farmland soils, flood plains, wetlands and vernal pools. Well head protection areas. Permanently protected open space. Natural heritage and endangered species program estimated and priority habitats. Biomap to critical natural landscape and core habitat. Locations of inventory historic buildings, local or national registered district historic district and scenic roads or by ways and archeologically sensitive areas. These locations can be identified using the Amherst GIS viewer. Mass GIS 25. Massachusetts historical commissions. Massachusetts cultural resources information system, which is called MACRES. And through filing a project notification form with the Mass Historical Commission. Reviewing the local and reviewing local plans such as the Amherst master plan, Amherst open space plan and recreation plan. And through consultation with town staff. The planning board or zoning board of appeals at its discretion may require these locations to be described on a map or in a narrative depending on the sensitivity of the resources identified. Sometimes those resources are not allowed to be talked about in public because they're sensitive and these various state entities are concerned about people going in and pilfering them. But in any event, those, those are important things, especially for large scale solar arrays that may be in areas that haven't been really, you know, it's one thing if it's on an agricultural field, but if it's in a forest, it seems that this would be an important bit of information. Okay. 26 stormwater management and erosion and sedimentation control plans. That's kind of a standard thing that we require and we usually get a report about that. 27 a complete list of chemicals, fuels and any other hazardous materials to be used in both the construction and operation phase. 28 a calculation of earthwork operations, listing the amount of soil and or rock to be imported or exported from the site. If any material is to be imported, such material shall be clean and without contamination by hazardous substances or invasive species and must be obtained from sources approved by the Amherst Department of Public Works. 29 provision of water, including that needed for fire protection. And then the last note here is upon the applicant's written request submitted as part of the application. The planning board or zoning board of appeals may waive any documentary requirements as it deems appropriate. So. Yeah, great. Great, great list. Yeah. Janet. And then I had one comment as well. Jumping back to. Oh God, I've lost it now. Oh, number 25. The locations of natural and cultural resources. Yeah. I wondered if you could use like some language. broader than well held protection areas like water. Recharge areas just. You know, watershed recharge areas or. Kind of a broader thing than well held protection. Just, just so we know what's. Going on. Is there a definition of that water recharge area? I mean. I feel like I, I feel like I'm missing the term somehow. Jack, help me. Yep, Jax. Can we scroll back up to where you're. She's talking about number 25, the first. Okay. Yeah, first sub paragraph. Is that right? Well, head protection. Yeah. Okay. So, so basically, you know, every, every area is a recharge area. Within the town, except for. The discharge areas, which generally are wetlands. And the area bordering, you know, riverways and things like that. So I don't think we're going to go too broad with the word recharge. Yeah. We do have surface water protection areas. Atkins reservoir. Namely. And that's the one I think we would want to. Qualify. That recharge area. Because that's. That's already mapped as part of the watershed protection area. It's mapped on the zoning map. We don't say that though. We don't say that. Like, I guess water should be charged area. I feel like I'm missing something. In terms of this term, but I could just maybe put it in yellow and. We'll have protection area or. Designated surface water protection area. Surface water. Supply protection area. Because the whole town is a recharge area for. For groundwater. Correct. So we can't use just general recharge. Right. Yeah. So. My, my. Is that done? Jenna and Jack, do you have another comment? I'm actually a little unclear in the phrase. I was waiting for Chris to type it in, but maybe I'm. She's just taking. Stephanie is doing the typing. But we could highlight the well head protection areas and yellow and elaborate on that. If that's what you're. Yeah, I think he said surface water protection supply. That's what Jack said. I wrote it down. Okay. My, my comment. I'm not sure if it's applicable here, or maybe it's in a different section. If I sort of have my head around this correct, but this is basically submittals upon application. And I'm just wondering whether maybe it should appear somewhere else, but is there sort of some note at the bottom that. That states that to the extent that any of these. The information in the, in the submittals change substantively. Over the course of the project development. That these, this information should be re, re submitted. I mean, because, you know, and Laura could opine on this, but I, my, my sense is that when a. Developers developing. And proposing a solar project. It's subject to some change in terms of that layout of exactly where the rose might be, where they end up putting the storage, where they end up interconnection points and so forth, our subject can be subject to change. And just that the applicant should be on notification that they need to. Update the town on these submissions, if anything, substantively changes. Yes. And that is actually part of the process. When, but there's no harm in putting it in here. The planning board or zoning board of appeals would ask the applicant or require the applicant to submit an updated plan. Based on, you know, the conversation that they've already had. Please show us an updated plan of X. And then we were, and the board is essentially saying to the applicant, we're not going to, you know, grant you your permit until you show us on a plan. We're not going to be able to do this change. Yeah. Great. All right, Martha. Yes. To the chair from your vice chair here of just watching the time and thinking that we need to wrap it up and go on to discuss the ECAF letter for a little bit. Yeah, we're getting, we're getting, we're really close because we just finished really the review. So just any lingering questions, comments. And I can't keep track. Cool. Okay. Martha is that a new hand or is that lingering too? Okay. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. Any last words from you, Chris on, on this. Just my great appreciation for this really hard work and great. Drafting of this section. Thank you. I'm going to have to leave before. I'm going to have to go back to the agenda. I'm going to have to go back to the agenda. I'm going to have to go back to the agenda. One 30. But Stephanie can fill me in on any, any things that come up in the meantime. Great. All right, good. So. So next time on the agenda, obviously we'll have the. Sort of resource mapping presented to us, but then in addition, we'll, we'll have a second. Reading of this section. And, and, and to the extent that. We're going to be drafting for us. We'll go through a first reading of that. Okay, but. Let's move on to then the next agenda item, which is a letter that we received from. The energy climate action committee. That was in our packet today. And I, I, I will present this being a member of. And, and so leading up their solar work as well. And, and what. What do you catch. And let me. Share it on my screen so I can. Talk about it. So the purpose here. For ecac was not to. You know, I don't know if I can offer any strict. Recommendation or, or. Opinion, but to help inform. Not only the, the zoning. Working zoning bylaw working group, but also other constituents within the town. With regard to. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the ground mounted solar in Amherst. Helping to. Put it in context in terms of the scaling that we. Maybe talking about. In Amherst. Obviously we can't predict the future. And we're not prescribing a specific targets here, but we just thought it would be helpful. Coming from ecac to illuminate and. Support the conversation. That would be mildly. And actually the, the, the, the, the particular. The best way. In terms of. Sotr citing in, in, in the town. What we might be talking about. In terms of scale and scope. And so we went as a committee. We went through. An analysis that we're basically looking at. One way that one might get their head around this question. One way to put your head around this in terms of what we might be talking about in terms of ground mounted, particularly solar and mass in Amherst. And the methodology we use was basically looking at what we do know, which is what the state and the commonwealth has put forward in their 2050 decarbonization roadmap with regard to their expectations and anticipations with regard to how much to meet the goals and the requirements of decarbonization by 2050 through what I would say is pretty sophisticated and detailed analysis and projections, what they are expecting with regard to the decarbonization for the commonwealth, the electricity system, 100% essentially renewable and how much they are anticipating that would require specifically for ground mounted solar across the commonwealth. And this was explicitly analyzed and evaluated and presented in the 2050 decarbonization roadmap. And so what we did from ECAC would say, okay, well, if we are a member of the commonwealth and we represent some proportion of land area in the commonwealth, to be precise, it's 0.29% of the land area of the commonwealth for the town of Amherst, excluding the university and two college campuses. And we look at what the commonwealth as a whole is looking for and expecting with regard to needing land area for ground mounted solar arrays, above and beyond reasonable expectations and support for a building mounted or a built environment mounted solar development. How much is sort of what we sort of referred to as our fair share, if you will, for the town of Amherst to take on if we were to take on our fair share by land area for the commonwealth. And so what we did was to go through analysis recognizing that there's no single number that the decarbonization roadmap provide for the commonwealth, but it's a range. And it's a range because they look at various different scenarios by which the commonwealth as a whole can reach decarbonization by 2050, depending on projections of the future, which are uncertain, but they have a base case, which is their all options scenario. And even within each scenario, there's a range of expectations for land use for ground mounted solar because of uncertainty and uncertainty bandwidths around different assumptions. But if we try to use this statewide assessment to get a handle around what we're talking about in Amherst, we can see that in the, for the commonwealth as a whole, they're expecting under the different scenarios anywhere from 35,000 acres of land to 125,000 acres of land for the, to be needed for ground mounted solar. This is across all sorts of land, not just forest, forest, farms, brown fields, land fields and so forth. We made the assumption, we tried to narrow that down and take a good solid median range of that of looking at if the commonwealth needed 50 to 100 acres of land for solar, what would be Amherst fair share of that? Well, based on our 2.29% of land area in Massachusetts, that would suggest that for the town of Amherst, we would be our fair share of land used for ground mounted solar would then turn out to be 145,000 to 290 acres of land. This represents one to 2% of the town of Amherst land area. So we're not talking about large proportions of Amherst land, but nonetheless, one to 2% is noticeable for sure. And to give some context to that as well, that acreage of Amherst land, 145 to 290 acres would represent the installed capacity DC of about 36 to 72 megawatts of solar. That's assuming four acres per megawatt, which is about what we would expect and is actually the case at Hickory Ridge, for example. Now, keep in mind, so that's 36 to 72 megawatts of solar, do keep in mind that that's inclusive of what we already do have in Amherst, which is roughly or almost precisely 20 megawatts installed, ground mounted, not total, but ground mounted solar arrays in Amherst is about 20 megawatts, including Hickory Ridge, which is not constructed yet. And so a recommendation from E.T. is that we keep this in mind. We're not specifying what the town should do, but that we should keep this in mind when establishing the zoning bylaws, that we should be obviously taking into account other restrictions and constraints with regard to where solar should go, with regard to wetlands and setting up the land. And setbacks, public water supplies, slopes and so forth, that we do keep in mind that, having ability to site solar in roughly 145 to 290 acres, 65 to 210 acres beyond what we already have, is sort of in the target area that at least ECAC would be hoping to be able to see with regard to offering land area to meet our fair share, if you will, at least looking at it from that perspective to serve the needs of not only the town, but of the Commonwealth. Obviously, to site 65 to 210 acres of solar doesn't mean we have to zone just for that amount because not every acre that is zoned for solar at all is gonna host solar, but that we should keep these numbers in mind as we start looking at our zoning bylaw, we'll be looking at the GIS mapping of the solar resource assessment soon as well. But the idea is that the hope from ECAC is basically that this analysis would help to provide some context and scaling with regard to what we may be looking at for ground mounted solar in Amherst. So with that, let me ask if there's any questions or comments on that. Great, yep, Martha. Yes, okay, thank you, Dwayne. And I had attended the ECAC meeting when Dwayne gave his presentation and the ECAC then took about an hour to discuss back and forth what is our quote fair share. And yeah, that went on and the using land area is one possibility and so on. And, but we have to keep in mind what the decarbonization roadmap did and the subsequent goals is they're using their best analysis but it's projections, it's assumptions, what are the assumptions that they need to develop and so this is all based kind of on, you know, projection. You're breaking up a little bit, Martha, maybe slow down a little bit. Okay, but really the main objection that I have is that this ignores the equally urgent need for CO2 sequestration. I mean, and that's clear in the state decarbonization roadmap where they talk about their four pillars and they say that by 2050, we're going to have hopefully the target is an 85% reduction in fossil fuel and CO2 emissions and that remaining 15% has to be taken up with CO2 sequestration. And so that is an equally urgent need and equally urgent use for our forested lands here in the Amherst area. There's been a recent paper that was prepared for the IPCC by an international panel of climate scientists which stated, you know, pretty bluntly really that if we do not increase our CO2 sequestration significantly, we're not even going to reach the goal of two degrees climate warming, let alone one and a half degrees. And so we need to keep in mind the balance. I mean, the challenge for Amherst really is to balance. Yes, we need some ground mounted solar but it's equally important that we do quote our fair share in terms of the carbon sequestration. And I feel that this memo really is, you know, emphasizing only one side of the equation and it really needs to be more balanced than that if it's going to be presented to our town, you know, not everybody on our town council or town staff, you know, is going to dive in and read the states roadmaps and their goals and so on. So it's fine to consider the ECAC's number as kind of an order of magnitude, which I think Dwayne, you know, that's sort of the way you mean it. But I'm really troubled that this is putting down, being put down as a literal number and we're not balancing it because it's really hard to look at an acre of land and say, oh, it's going to, you know, contribute X amount to sequestration in order to balance it off. But we've got to consider both and try to get a good balance when we try to do this by one concern that this is just the one side and nothing is being written about the other side. I think there's definitely room for talking about more opportunities for more forest protection and around that, like the decarbonization roadmap, there's a significant portion and attention given to the importance to protect forest land for a sequestration values and everything. It's not suggesting that all forest land needs to do that, but we need to up the amount of forest land that we have in sequestration. So I don't think it's one or the other. I would also point out, at least in the literature review that I've been doing, that at least on the looking at it only strictly and we shouldn't look at it this way, but if you look at it strictly from a carbon balance, you're better off with the solar collection, displacing marginal energy generation. We can get into that. I think it's another topic, but it's not to suggest that there isn't, it's not in our zoning bylaw purview to talk about opportunities for putting forest and protections and so forth. That's a different topic. And the commonwealth as a whole is obviously not suggesting that we don't need ground-mounted solar array. We need both as the signs around town say we need both. And I think the suggestion is that we do need some for solar and this acreage is not necessarily need to be all in force at all, but that there does need to be balanced. I would agree with that. Let me go to Jack and then Jan and then let's close out just cause we're at the end of time and I want the public comment to have some time. Yeah, I guess I was just going to speak to that topic, but it kind of is, it's not pertaining to your memo directly. So I guess I will just kind of back to any comments right now. I was just going to mention that the amount of natural resources kind of set aside within the town of Amherst is significant on an acreage basis compared to other towns in Western Mass, mainly Little Pioneer Valley. And so, you know, big picture stuff, I think with regard to the sequestration, Amherst, you know, is doing a pretty good job and you know, from the fair share argument, that's all I wanted to say, but, and then again, we're in a rears with regard to tax revenue generating profit as well. And that's another matter, not related, so. Well, the ECAC is really diving in and trying to work on quite a few different aspects of the climate mitigation and so on. But the one that they haven't really devoted any time to is the lands for sequestration. And so that's what's kind of started in my, you know. Well, I understand. Yeah. Great. Janet, last comment. So I understand that you have, and Steve, we've had this real passion for this issue and the idea of fair share. I would love to stop talking about that and using that term because, you know, when I see the state 2020 climate plan, when I look at our Amherst's climate action plan, which the ECAC did, is the state is not asking towns to produce a percentage of solar based on their land area. And it's, there's nothing about the fair share that every town has to do a certain percentage. I mean, the state didn't say, you know, they wanted to set aside 40% or 60% of the land for, you know, wild lands and natural lands. They're not going to ask Cambridge to do that. They have Danahee Park, you know. And so I think we should, you know, this is a regional problem. This is a national problem. You know, in the state climate plan, the goal is to increase the amount of forest and farmland and wetlands and increase, you know, the production, the protection of those not to pit solar against natural lands. No other town is doing this kind of analysis. And we don't even know the results of the DOER solar assessments. Like, you know, you know, we saw that survey. We could meet the solar need by highways and brownfields and parking lots and rooftops. I mean, they had all those percentages and we have no guidance from the state about where they want to emphasize and what their priority is. When I looked at the climate action plan, it doesn't even suggest this idea of a percentage of solar. It talks about where it could go. And there's a lot of conversation about farmland and protecting farmland, encouraging farmers to do more regenerative practices, seeing local food production as not only, you know, part of climate action goals, but also kind of a social justice goal to have more food access to local food for low income communities. You know, I just don't, I just kind of am lost at this analysis because I don't see anybody else doing it. It's just, you know, some towns are going to present a lot of wildlands, natural lands, forest lands, the Connecticut River Valley towns, which are largely the poorest towns, you know, remarkably in Massachusetts or they have amazing soils. And so we're going to provide the farmlands, you know, for the Commonwealth. And so I don't, I just am lost on this percentage analysis. And I appreciate the data-driven approach, but it doesn't seem to reflect the reality of how the state and even our town is proceeding on the climate mitigation. And I just, I'm just, I just, I don't understand it, basically. I just think we should set aside the idea of fair share. We should figure out where we'd want solar to go. We should recognize that Amherst has been kind of brilliant in setting aside farmland and forest land. And, you know, Lord knows we have a lot of wetland and that's sequestering like 10 times the amount of carbon of anything else. And so I don't think the state or the Amherst climate action plans are asking towns to give up their farmland, give up their forest lands. I think it's kind of, we need to take a more regional and holistic approach saying, you know, I mean, if you start doing this analysis, we're going to start covering the poorest towns in Massachusetts with solar, while the richest towns won't. And so I think we need to wait for state guidance and just look at what we have in our own action plans, the state plans and implement them. I appreciate that. Again, it wasn't meant to be a prescriptive or suggested that these are precise targets. It's meant to be while there has been a dearth of attention given or analysis to what range of order of magnitude as was mentioned that we might be talking about in terms of expectations of whether you call it fair share or just if on average across the Commonwealth, this need for ground mounted array was evenly distributed. This is what we would be talking about. I think it helps to give our committee, our working group, ECAC and others some something one number at least. And I encourage other people to do their own analysis on this as well. But it's meant to give some grounding and some scoping and scaling of this issue. That the Commonwealth as a whole in every town is going to be working on. So that was the purpose of it. Let me ask Stephanie to see if there's any public comments and we'll go over just a couple more minutes. Yes, there is Steve Roof has his hand up and I will unmute him. Steve, go ahead, you can talk. Great, thank you. Steve Roof from South Amherst, member of the ECAC worked with Duane a lot on this issue and I'm expressing my own opinions here on this particular topic. Remember where Massachusetts is emitting about 70 million tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every year. Forests might be able to suck about 5 million tons of that out. So they're not equal shares. And if we don't stop burning fossil fuels all the forests in the United States wouldn't be enough to balance our carbon emissions. So we really must focus on stopping the burning of fossil fuels. And a good reason for doing that is that the fossil fuels that provide our electricity are currently burned in power plants in some of the poorest communities of the state where they have astronomical asthma rates and shortened lifespans and high, high medical costs associated with that. So I would be personally really embarrassed if Amherst said no solar in our town and yet we keep getting our electricity from fossil fuel power plants down in other towns, poorer towns. So I think we really do need to step up and think about our share and say, yeah, we can do this. We're willing to contribute the solar. That's what we did at Hampshire. We said, yes, we will put it in our backyard because we feel that that's our contribution. That said, we talked about this at our last meeting we can preserve the goal is to preserve something like 40% of land for natural and working lands and preserve that from development. And we're talking only one to 2% for solar. So I do not see these as in conflict, not at all. I think we can easily accommodate both. The thing we have to watch out for is other kinds of development. It's houses, rural sprawl, urban sprawl, houses, roads, businesses, those are the things that are eating up the forest. So we maybe need to pay more attention to get concerned about that kind of development than solar development. And then finally, Martha, you mentioned that it's sort of all based on projections. That's true, but remember uncertainty in those projections can cut both ways. And if we don't get power from Quebec like the plan has imagined, then we're gonna need more solar power and more wind power. If wind power doesn't develop as fast offshore then we will need more wind. So right now these are estimates for sure but the uncertainty cuts both ways. We may need more than what's in that plan right now. But I think what we can do is work together to come up with a plan. Let's come up with a plan where we preserve 40 or 50% of Amherst to maintain its sequestration and while identifying that 2% or so of land that can be used for solar. That's a great goal we should all work together for. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Steve. Thanks, and really it's about the balance. It's got to be both. Yeah, and I appreciate Steve particularly hitting that better than I was able to. Yes. Yeah, and I have a personal thanks to Steve. I got a great tour of the Hampshire College solar a week or so ago and learned quite a lot. So. Okay, great. Let's go, Stephanie, I think there's one more public comment and then I think we will need to close out. Lenore, I'm meeting you. You can go ahead and speak. Hi, everybody. Thanks for all your hard work. I don't get to attend the whole meeting. So you'll always have to excuse me if my knowledge gaps show here. Yeah. Let me call you back in a few minutes. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Lenore. I just, I don't want to talk about this too much now but I think this requires more conference table talking. I totally agree with Steve about we need to be careful of other development that's taking our land and we need to stop burning fossil fuels and we need to come together to see what we can do here. I also totally agree with everything that Janet and Martha said, we do need to not be in conflict but there is some conflict that I actually think the state has set us up for because the state itself is evolving in its understanding of the climate. Right now there's a bunch of legislation that will probably impact our solar bylaws and we need to be aware of that. The state doesn't necessarily this all knowing king that understands everything that needs to happen here because there is a lot of ignorance in what even created the climate collapse and this idea of fair share and what's our contribution is a whole topic in and of itself. If I'm having a dinner party and I have squash to contribute and my neighbor has turnips to contribute to the soup or what it's like we bring what we have to contribute what Amherst has to contribute is our land. That is such a valuable contribution and it's not anything it's not less than solar arrays. And of course we're going to have solar of course we're going to do that. That's not the question. The question is these kinds of carbon metrics are inherently flawed because some of the calculations first of all are taken from working forests which is mostly what we have. We don't really even have real forests anymore. And so we don't really understand completely what the capacity of carbon sequestration is or what the value of biodiversity is or what the value of soil health is because none of that has been studied yet in its entirety in a holistic perspective. It's just little bits and pieces. And so our data is flawed and our analysis is flawed to begin with and I'm encouraging us not to solve this whole problem but that we need to think outside the box a little bit more and not just take like okay this is what the state says okay this is what's fair share okay this is how much land we have okay because that's not going to give us all the information we need to really make the best choices. I'm going to leave that at that. I have a question. This template that you were using I don't really know where it's from for the bylaw and I do appreciate Chris all that incredible detail. I'm hoping that you're including Schuetsberry's new amended version because this is their second go around and they are geographically our closest neighbor and it's a wonderful template to use and I hope that you're gonna take advantage of all of that work that was already done. And here's three more. Can I ask three more questions? Quick. Quickly. Quick. Has your process been informed by what's gone wrong in the state? Because that's also important to include in drafting your bylaws because they had bylaws too. And for instance what happened in Williamsburg which by the way is the same company that we're using it for Hickory Ridge. That's another question. The other question I have is are you realizing when you talk about restoration of a site that you can't replant forest land? That's not possible if it took 25, 50 years to get there and then after 25 years of solar arrays and then you're gonna wait another 50 years that's not, there's a myth in reforestation as opposed to the value of proforestation which is keeping what you have and restoring that and building on that. And the last thing I wanna say besides keeping an eye on what's happening with state legislation is that I think it would really be valuable to have a presentation by climate scientists that are science experts in terrestrial mitigation, soil health, forest ecology to help kind of understand this piece of it a little bit more as we create a robust solar bylaw. Thank you guys. Thank you. Stephanie, you wanna comment and then maybe we'll close out? I'll make it very quick. I just wanted to let Lenore respond to Lenore's inquiry about Chris's drafting. She looked at 12 different bylaws. Shootsbury was one of them but it's not based on any one specific community because Amherst, while it's our closest neighbor is still different from Shootsbury. And so some of our needs are different than Shootsbury's. So she did look at all of them and sort of weighed that all and putting her draft together. Yeah, totally understand. I wanted to make sure it was the amended version that she looked at which is a brand new version. I believe so. Yeah, thank you. Okay, with that, we will leave the future topic for discussion that Janet wanted to bring forward and I had some thoughts on that as well till next time as well, if we can fit it in and I'd like to close the meeting then. Dwayne, could we start with that topic? Cause it should be short. We had the mapping to go through. We'll probably start with that since it's an outside speaker. And then we'll see how long that takes. I obviously do wanna spend some time on the language again for the bulk of our meetings, but yes, we'll try to fit that in Janet. I'll send a memo out. And then if Stephanie posts it to the resources section, I think that takes care of our, so that at least get the ideas out and then we could talk about it at the end. Okay, Jack, real quickly. Yeah, pardon it, if we discuss. So what is the topic? What is Janet's? It's a topic about topics. I was hoping that we do some meetings, like an hour each maybe on forest lands and agricultural lands and in the Pioneer Valley. So informational. Okay. Yeah, I just wanna understand how it is gonna be very helpful to us in the writing of the bylaws, but we can get to that next time. Okay, very good. Thank you everybody for your time and we'll see you in two weeks. Okay. Very good, thank you. Thank you.