 Great. Okay, very good. Thank you, Pam, for getting us started here and situated and welcome everybody to the August 18 2023 meeting of the 10 of Amherst solar bylaw working group. All right. Sorry, just trying to get my screen a bit better here. Whatever. Okay. Let me, we have an agenda for today, most of which is going to be with regard to a focus on discussing the framework for what we want to do in terms of solar zoning in forest land forested land. And then look at updates that Chris has made on the bylaw I wouldn't mind maybe if if it's available Chris and I don't know if you had time to get to that part but to reflect back on any language you were able to write based on last meetings conversation on farmland. If that's if that's something we can look at, then we'll go to that after the forest land. Yeah, go ahead. May I say, I was able to incorporate in comments that I received on the bylaw as a whole. And I sent that out last night. I was not able to reconstruct what went on at last at the last meeting unfortunately I'm sorry that I wasn't able to do that but I will certainly have that for the next meeting. Okay, okay. No worries. Thank you so much to do and we did. I did definitely receive the your version, updated version with all the comments and so forth so we can, we can start looking through that. And I think both in terms of how we want to procedurally sort of look in and consider the comments that have been added and so forth. Okay, but the main thing will be to sort of get through the forest framework. And, but before we do that, and I think before we do that I, it's my understanding that we don't have any minutes in this weeks or meetings package to review and vote on. And so, let me just ask, it was Laura who took meetings minutes from the last meeting, which I think are going to be important for Chris to look at. In addition maybe to the recording to take capture what was discussed with regard to farmland. And, and so those those minutes will be important in terms of that but have you heard anything, Chris in terms of the minutes from last meeting from Laura, I guess. I have not heard anything about the minutes. Stephanie is usually the conduit for all of those things and and she didn't send me any minutes. Yep. Okay, and get to you in a second Janet. And then the other, I think we still have minutes to look at and review from the 777 meeting. And who that was you Janet. Yeah, okay, maybe that's why your hands up. So, I haven't, I haven't a chance to do that I'm on, because I was in my get rushed to going away and so I'm actually going on vacation again next Thursday night. So I'm going to try to get them done early the week and get them to Stephanie and let her do her magic so I apologize for that but they're, they're on my mind. Yep. Okay, great. Okay, so we'll try to catch up on minutes next time from two meetings ago one meeting ago and then for this meeting, which brings me to the note taker for today. I assume that it's probably me. I think I was going to get to that because you're, you're, you're, you're the, you're the, by default, I haven't taken them since April. April 28 with your last, your last go at it. So yeah, everybody else has done it since then. Okay, so that'd be great Martha. Thank you. Yep. Okay. I have to say it looks like Janet and I both chose our outfits today to go with our backgrounds. Indeed. You need a green or a blue or actually you're kind of matching your background to get a yellow shirt and blue here. It's camouflage. I can't see you. Okay, keep moving so I can see you. Okay. All right, super. Okay, so that then. Let me just see the formality of what else is on the agenda before we get into the bylaw. We have staff updates. So other than the update that Stephanie is out. Any updates on your end, Chris, other than that we'll cover shortly. Well, I just wanted to say that Janet and I managed to figure out the slope that Jonathan Edwards recommended for. We had our solar in forested areas and it took us both to and also my husband to help us with that, but I think we figured it out. Jonathan Edwards had recommended no steeper than eight degrees. And we figured that that was the same as 14%. So that is in line with what we have roughly in our bylaw. I think we have 15% in our bylaw. You can see that in your notes and I was trying to wrap my head around the geometry of that, but and what the units are I guess slope is not is generally done percentage which is what the slope is percent usually so but Jonathan Edwards made a statement in degrees. So I went to my husband and I said, how do you trans how do you transmit eight degrees into percent and he said, Oh, you use the tangent. And so he figured that out. I haven't done trig for a long time but anyway, so we've got that and also I wanted to say that I reached out to Bill Dwyer and Hadley about getting a copy of their bylaw that they're working on right now having to do with battery storage. I thought that would be helpful and interesting to this group. And I also reread the Belcher town and Hadley solar bylaws yesterday and those are a lot shorter than ours. So I think ours is up to 18 pages right now. And there's a feature of like four or five pages. So just keep that in mind when we're adding things. All right. Yeah, good. Okay. Yeah, brevity is always good unless there's a reason to go longer. Yeah. Okay. Great. So, how about any committee updates from planning Janet or I can mention the planning board did get a draft of the solar bylaw at a meeting I did not attend. Okay, I think Chris could be I haven't listened to that yet and so I think Chris could give the update better than I could. Yeah, so we walked them through the bylaw as it exists now and tried to explain where we are with it and the things that we're still that are still sticking points may namely farmland and forests and they were pleased to receive that presentation. And they didn't really have too many comments. All right. All right, good. Okay. I'll just for for ecac. I'll just report that there is interest in ecac and some initial discussions about potential efforts to try to outreach opportunities for solar on the built environment. And it's what's particularly of interest is the changing federal landscape with regard to the IRA. Inflation reduction act and the ability this this provision there for direct payment in lieu of the investment tax credit for those that don't have tax liability. So it opens up a level playing field for solar ownership by the municipal governments themselves nonprofits faith organizations, lower income people who don't pay as much tax sufficient taxes. And so there's interest in ecac and some discussions about how to launch an initiative to try to get that word out to appropriate entities within town. Public and private but but you know nonprofits and so forth, and faith based organizations of this new opportunity and try to stimulate some interest there. Okay. Wait, do you know what would apply to our academic institutions, but apply the same way I mean yeah they they don't pay tax taxes I know you mass doesn't obviously I don't think colleges do. So yes, it would, it would mean that, you know, they can they can still do solar as hamster has and all of all of all of us have academic institutions but generally we don't own the assets, because a third party owns them so they can get the tax liability. I see, but this would be done in a way that say Amherst or or Hampshire could, if they wish, decide to go in and actually own it and get the rebate. Yeah, the tax incentive. Yeah, or what's called the direct payment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and of course they have to come up with financing and capital and so. Private landowner but but since you know a lot of our land in Amherst is part of the colleges and university, you know, any additional opportunity that helps encourage them is always good. Yep. Yep, for sure. Good. All right, any other committee updates or anything along those lines before we get into the framework here. All right, good. All right. Let me share screen. Here I'd like to start our conversation. All right, good. So, what, what I, what I've done and sort of to start the conversation. Similar to what we, we did last meeting on solar on farmland. As opposed to sort of digging straight into bylaw language, have a more of a framework of what we want to have in that in the bylaw pertaining to now forest land. And then, and then Chris and her staff or Chris herself can take that take the result of this discussion and start crafting language to reflect the discussion. I will say that, given the, that we just eat out a quorum, we may not, we may be in a position where we don't want to set anything in stone until we have a larger or larger group. But nonetheless, I think we have a lot to work with and to discuss at this point to get, get us started. Yeah, let me, before we do that, let's hear from Bob. And yeah, I was more firm what you just said when I really would feel very uncomfortable specifying restrictions, those restrictions without somebody like Laura being present. I really respect your input. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, agreed. I think we, we, for some of these important issues and decisions and recommendations we want as a larger group and hopefully even even on all of us. Go ahead, Janet. I agree with what you're both saying in terms but I think we could have a robust discussion and kind of talk about shoes. Yeah, you know, because it, I wouldn't want to make like say oh we agree on this with so many people on that present. I was wondering, in addition to this outline structure for discussion and Martha's ideas that if we could, like, kind of set up what we're talking about like. And Amherst isn't covered with progress, right. And so we're really just talking about the area, like a certain area of Amherst, which, and I wonder if we could pull up the map. Like the, the GIS like you we have those GIS maps and the Google maps and say okay this is the area. And then we could see where there's different overlays like, you know, you know, there's, you know, what GZA is recommended, there's parts of this area are you know have natural heritage significance. It looks like I'm looking at the, the town of Amherst zoning match which map which I have a huge thing is that a lot of water bodies in that feeding into other water bodies so I just wondered if we could sort of get physically understand what we're doing about, because we're not really talking we're not a town, you know, like many Western masks, or, or further west that are just really forested, you know, mostly forest so are we just really talking about that corner of town which I want to say is the the north east corner of town, you know, by Bridge Street and East Leverett Road or Leverett Road is that's our area and I wonder if we could just look at it physically. Now that we have that capability. But we also don't have Stephanie, so to help us through that process of getting that up on the screen. I did, I mean I did, as I was sort of putting together, you know, my thoughts as well, I did, and I'm trying to figure out how to get back on it but you know looked at the map, the GZA based map, you know, with the solar criteria that we had GZA do that mapping I'm less familiar with the broader GIS mapping for the town but that one I was looking at. And yeah, I think in terms of forest land, I mean there's a fair amount of forest land in the south too but that's kind of conserved or sloped. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the main area of impact on this on these provisions are in the in the north. Yeah, the GZA had two iterations like the first criteria and then which eliminated so much and then the second one when they loosen or added you know loosen, I don't say loosen but had fewer criteria it added more more possible sites. And I wasn't even focusing so much on where GZA was suggesting solar was feasible because I don't give that a definitive weight because it's the solar developers that will really figure that out. If they want I was looking more in terms of okay, what are the, what is the extent of this forest land what how much of this forest land also has prime soils, how much of this forest land is already conserved. What are the different reasons. What is this forest land, not that I'm a forester but you know what is this forest land look in the context of the swath of force that extend beyond beyond emmerced limits. And what's the extent of this forest, as it pertains to the watersheds. That's sort of what I was looking at more so than you know what GZA exercise did in terms of solar feasibility. And I guess to all that, plus, I think the GZA mapping was useful. So, yeah, yeah, no, I wouldn't say it wasn't useful but in terms of what I was focused on. I guess. And I guess I was, you know, it is a relatively limited amount of town in terms of what's really at play here with regard to forested land. And I guess that's you know one thing we have to do is define what the applicability is. Since I, I don't have without some additional thought here I don't know if I have access to that. Maybe we can get that next time because I don't want to take a meeting time if we can't do it. So I just I just do think that we have a lot of facts and information at hand and let's let's as we discuss let's think about okay what would be useful to explore on the map to to help us figure some of these things out. Okay, so good. Okay, so what I tried to do here and appreciate. input, Martha, your input. And, and then Bob your, your comments from this morning. What I try to do here is, is develop a framework with really, well first a strategy to start with a framework with with minimal restrictions. And I guess that we kind of from what I've gleaned so far in our conversations are pretty are, I think, relatively agreed upon in terms of some consensus, but much as not. So let's start with minimal restrictions and then discuss potential needs for additional restrictions across several areas of concern and sort of laid that out in a couple different areas of potential reasons for restrictions, and then add those restrictions if they're justified, and then design those restrictions accordingly. So having that discussion today. Let's not, let's, in my view, let's decide not to decide definitively on any of this now today, until we have a larger group, but let's have a robust conversation that we can then summarize, I guess, both in the as well as to the to the rest of the membership. Once we're all back together and hopefully have have full full attendance, or at least, mainly everybody is that sound okay. Great so in the, in the starting point. That's where we can start from. And Jenna why don't you put your hand down I think, just so I know and put it up again because I'm sure it will go up again. Just as a starting point in terms of applicability what are we talking about in terms of this, this will be some section of this of the of the bylaw that is sort of special provisions with regard to solar siding and in force. I think we're talking about applicability is our general applicability for the whole bylaw which is 250k w and above ground mounted arrays. So it's not for somebody who might put in a backyard. Maybe even 100 kilowatt system that might happen to be in in a forest area but that's for us to decide that requires clearing of trees on land designated as you know how do we know whether it's a fourth whether it's a forest or not so I'm not sure whether there is something better in the state or the town definitions already but you know just looking at the GIS covers that we had available on the gza mapping there was this cover, this layer of vegetative cover. And then a category within that was trees. And so when I click that on that seemed to cover force. I don't know if that's the right definition or not but that's sort of what I thought so if there if it's land that's that's in that vegetative area that is deemed to be covered with trees, then these potential restrictions or areas of restrictions would apply. Is that for those of you who know the town better Chris is that is that. Is that vegetated vegetation cover layer, something we can that we should point to and it's maintained and updated. Not, not that the force change a lot but is that appropriate or is there something better. I think that's reasonable for now. The last time the town mapped forests, I believe was 2009. We do have a 2019 flyover, but that has not yet been mapped so we know what we have in our GIS system is somewhat out of date, but it's not, as you said, you know, the area of forest doesn't have much, and we haven't had that many big developments recently so I think you can kind of count on what we have on our GIS is being representative of our area of forests. Okay, okay great and when it's updated. This, these will then be applicable to the updated layer. Okay, good. Okay. So let's talk about sort of potential areas of restriction and with some guidance that Martha had put together in her structure. And then a little bit of working with that came up with these three areas of restrictions, one for ecosystem protection. One for oil preservation and one for view shed or and water supply protection. And so let's look at each of these separately first for ecosystem protection. I've provided that as a starting point. For land that's designated as core habitat on the mass GIS Biomap three or priority habitat, as defined by the Endangered Master's Endangered Species Act that those would be areas that would be disallowed for forest clearing for solar. Maybe they are maybe they already are for just generally I don't I'm not sure. But that would be, I think something that we can discuss if that's appropriate as at least a starting point as a one restriction that we might put into place. Yeah, Bob. Yeah, Janet went first. Okay, sorry, I just go in the order of my, you know, I'd actually be interested in hearing what Bob says, first. Okay. Well, I haven't dealt with either one of these and I've been retired for 13 years so I'm a little rusty I'd be interested in knowing what the state sets as minimum requirements. And the priority habitat, you know, it'd be a prescription no disturbance the core habitat is actually looking at the maps in the state that pretty much defines forest land and hammers. But I don't, I'm not as familiar with that and I don't know what the state prescriptions are for disturbance in those habitats. Yes, I did. I did put I did look at that on the mass GIS. And so I didn't mean Robert, are you saying that priority habitats pretty much covers that whole forested area. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm not used to speaking. The core for the endangered species that's where, you know, pieces where these have been identified and recorded is existing. The core I'm not. It sounds like it's just large forest habitats in Massachusetts and I understand the importance but then it's pretty much defines all forest land so. Yeah, that one I'd have to know more about. Yeah, why don't we. We'll go ahead, Janet, did you have something. Um, so, so I, um, I'm glad Robert spoke first, you know, I, you know, looking at this section in the northeast corner that is mostly forested. I know that most of that was in the open space recreation plan seen as an area for potential future protected lands. I think they're currently zone residential. And so that obviously speaks to some importance of those lands. And, you know, when I read the niche solar assessment, they pretty much just, you know, basically eliminated all forested lands or anything over 3% slope. And so, you know, their assumption was that those lands aren't appropriate actually said it's they're not appropriate for solar development so I thought that was very interesting. And so I, you know, I think when I looked at this areas of restriction I didn't realize the core habitat was so big, but I am concerned that. And I've talked to Scott Jackson at UMass the professor there it's like, you don't know what's there until you look at it and so I think in if we're going to do ecosystem protection. We can't just look at what the current price priority habitat is because that's what we know is there, but someone has to look to see what else is there so if no one has looked at, you know, 20 acres of the forest we don't know what plants are there we don't know what birds are there we don't know what animals are there and then it's also important when you look because there was a development in my proposed in my neighborhood and you know the wetlands and the wildlife all that stuff was done in November and then redone in March and wasn't very successful in terms of locating plants or animals or even wetlands so those are my two cents. So I think we need to have the land like whatever the site is someone studying it and looking at it to see what's there. Yeah, I think that's really pretty unreasonable. We're going to be scoring a scouring 20 acres or whatever looking, I mean, like Janet was alluded to it is time dependent. And there's so many listed species that I think we have to rely on the state. So we've already designated these habitats and just kind of assume that that this is essentially common Massachusetts forest and people are looking on time I would think most of the endangered threatened species that are invented by. And I, you know, I think we also comes up in some other areas in terms of restrictions that we're putting on solar that may not be applicable to other development. And in the forest side, be curious if there's any requirements that such studies are done prior to any other proposed development in a forest not that there's been a whole lot but all right. Okay so I think that's one thing we can look at it would be and I did look at it and I didn't. I don't have it in front of me or I can't find it off hand but I did, I did look at the bio three map, bio map three. For the state GIS for the town of Amherst and it didn't look like it was covered all of the forest land there are bits of it but not, not too much. But we should double check on that. Yeah, just just a quick comment on our previous point. I mean maybe we could put up some kind of a size restriction say if the area proposed to be clear cut was greater than X number of acres then you required a more of a survey for, you know, endangered species or whatever. Just a thought. All right, Janet. So, I think of all the kinds of lands in Amherst. In terms of their importance for ecological services. I don't think you can find anything more important than wetlands or forest land and so, you know we have this community survey and really strongly coming out to say protect the forest lands. So, the services are just huge and they're part of the climate solution and we're split the state is trying to increase forest cover and increase sequestration and so, you know, if I, you know, so the importance of these lands and they're most amongst the most lands, ecologically and in terms of sequestration and air and temperature modulation and wildlife corridors and you know everything you know the the weather system to moderate droughts and, you know excessive weight rain floor it provides it cleans water, drinking water for a lot of residents in the area so I find this probably the highest priority lands to protect. Fortunately our wetlands are protected fortunately in South Amherst our drinking water supply is protected by state and our local wetlands laws. And so I think that the justification for solar on this are, you know it's like nothing could have a greater impact than putting a solar array on forest except for putting in a wetland, and we're going to lose a lot of sequestration, a lot of damage in that process and so I do think, you know, I, if I was going to pick land and Amherst where you can't have a solar large scale solar rays, this would be the area and it complies with state plans it complies with hopefully the plan that we have. And, you know, you know, I love that, you know, I think we need to look for endangered species we have to protect all the species. And it helps us. To get that I think you know what we're trying to figure out is is the balance here there's, I think none of us would suggest that we, there's not. No impact on these issues by building solar in force, but it's a question it's sort of in the context of the extent to which Amherst has preserved forest land. On behalf of the town to date and other open space, and so forth, and weighing all those benefits with the need also that the state has demonstrated with regard to citing solar somewhere. And, and restrictions have to be very carefully weighed with regard to our need for solar development as well. So that's where that's that's the issue. Yeah, you're a lot more polite about it than I am playing every time people say well we can't build here we can't build there. I want to hear where we are going to go and the rooftops and parking lots just aren't going to cut the mustard just aren't any this is Amherst a precluded retail developments, there are no large flat loose accepted universities. There are no parking lots. Where are we going to put this solar we all want, but we can't put it in working land or in forest land I'm not saying clear cut this town. We have to be get the balance our restrictions for where we're encouraging to go and I haven't heard much of that yet. Okay, thanks. Yeah, Janet. Robert, thank you for those director marks. There's nothing like a New Yorker appreciates more is someone just saying what they think. So I agree with you is, I mean I agree and disagree. So where I agree is we have to say where it should be and so yeah it should be on college lands yeah it should be on the university's parking lots and Amherst college and Hampshire college Hampshire college has a brown field. I agree with Jonathan. I can't remember his last name now. Anyway, what Thompson Thompson, thank you. That we, you know, I think we have to give something up and I'm actually agreeing with him that yeah maybe less on setbacks, so we see more solar day to day, and we protect really core and important habitats so I would give up, you know, like, you know, like I feel if you drive around town, there's a lot of open land that's just grass, you know, like, and so, you know it's like a lovely grass entryway to Hampshire college but it's huge, you know, we have a lot of farmland and grazing land and hay fields that could be dual use. Our institutional, our educational institutions have, you know, an incredible amount of open space they have the rooftops they have the parking lots. You know, even in our village centers and downtown, there's lots of rooftop there that's not covered or, you know, our educate our schools don't have any, I don't even think there's a single municipal building with the solar panel on it but I may be wrong. So I think we go there first, we go to University Drive, we go to the big why, and the state has said we have like, what is it 15 to 18 times amount of developed properties that could take the solar that we need and so I'm willing to relent on setbacks open up more day to day lands. But I really do think, you know, these, these forest lands are really, it's, you know, that's, they are so important to our ecology and our environment. And it's important to sequestration it's part of our climate strategy of our state is to increase these lands because, you know, we need to increase, you know, sequestration up to 15% of, you know, carbon whatever so I mean Martha is better on this but if that's the goal. Why are we cutting lands you know we're watching forest throughout the you know North America burns so let's cut some more because we don't want to put it on our high school roof. You know, I would rather have a solar array across the street from me, or you know a dual use facility behind me than to see the forest cut and that's what the town thinks you know those are the community values of our town. I just want to be careful not to be careful in terms of, I wouldn't say false equivalencies but, you know, a project on the high school roof is not equivalent to, you know, 100 kilowatt project on a high school roof is not equivalent to two megawatts on open land somewhere, it would take 20 schools to make make up that so you know it's not, these are not some necessary substitutes for each other. So I want to keep that in mind and as we discussed this. And also, there are the, the rate at which we need to build out our renewable energy supply has to be kept in mind as well. And the markets for various reasons and Laura could give us more input here but of developing projects on on the built environment. Well, absolutely worthy of our focus and support at the town level and the state level is is is is going to be more difficult, challenging, slower pushback on those from from landowners building owners and so forth. So it's, it's, it's, it's also a harder market to penetrate. And so we want to keep that in mind as well. Okay. Martha. Yes, I'd like to say that I think we're really in the middle of a paradigm shift in our discussions of climate change. Climate change as we realized from witnessing the events of ongoing in the past couple years climate change is here. It's here to stay. It's no more reversible than trying to unscramble an egg at this point. And as a result, our dialogue really now has to be focused on two important aspects. The one, of course, what climate mitigation would we have to do as much as we possibly can to mitigate the amount of co2 in the atmosphere which means driving less converting to renewable energy stopping fossil fuels and increasing the drawdown from the atmosphere. So that's on the one hand climate mitigation but then what's becoming equally important now as we look around the world at the events of the past couple years, even right here in Massachusetts is climate resilience. And that's in fact what the Healy administration is emphasizing now, and that means what do we do to protect our people and our resources from the impacts of extreme events. And so we need to also look at that when we're considering the role of forests or other types of land and so on, that we need to protect our people and so that's what I see also as an important role for forests. And then also, I agree with what others have said that really the area that we're focusing on in this discussion is a really a small part of Amherst. You know, I'm particularly concerned about the area where people are on private water supplies. And do we want to make stronger restrictions there than we do on other sections of town. And outside of that area up there, you know, not too far from Atkins Reservoir and that general northeast area. I'm not sure there is all that much forested land that's, you know, we need to talk about so I don't think we really are in a discussion of oh dear we're going to be eliminating some large portion of land. If we put restrictions on forests and recognize their multiple roles both in climate sequestration and in climate resilience. So that's my big picture statement from the Earth. Cosmic astronomer here. Thanks. All right, good. How about we move on to the other categories, and sort of talk about this somewhat more holistically, as we, as we continue this conversation that works for folks. The second category was with regard to the soils and soil preservation. And I guess I was, I was, and Martha had had in her recommendation had sort of outlined a fair amount of protections for soils and so forth which was basically akin to I think what we discussed last time. With regard to protection of soils that are deemed of prime, prime farm prime soils, or soils of statewide importance. And I guess I was, you know, my thought there was that some forest land is based on the GIS map. Some forest land is has these prime soils, and some forest land doesn't don't. So, my thought would be in terms of the soil preservation. If that's what we're trying to do in terms of preserving that that those soils so that, ultimately, they may be able to be used for food production at some point. If they, if they are prime, prime soil, prime soils or state soils of statewide importance that we apply the same restrictions, as we did, as we talked about last time on farmland. And this would be construction methods that assure that the soils aren't disturbed or removed to a large extent that they are there's no concrete that the the in the footings that this that the land can be returned to condition whereby it could be used for food production or farmland after, after this life of the solar array. Now it's going to be a little bit different because this this, even though these are prime soils they're still going to be a lot of tree trunks and roots and so forth that probably have to be worked on by the solar developer, but we can address address those issues as well. Martha, I think you were first. Yeah, so my reasons for inserting that section for us to consider we're really three fold one is we know from research studies that maybe about at least half of the carbon storage in a forest is in fact in the soils. By minimizing the soil disturbance, we minimize the release of that carbon, even if we cut down the trees. So that was one important reason. The other was thinking about, you know, top soil erosion and so on the more you disturb the soil, the more likely you are then to have problems with erosion stormwater, and so on. And the third, then I was reading the kind of alley. You know, solar best practices guide from the planning, finding a planning commission, and they had quite a discussion of that and I kind of was taking the requirements, at least in spirit if not the literal words from that document to. Those were my three reasons for putting it in and I kind of, you know, repeated some of the things we've had in the, in the farmland section, it really kind of is what you might call best practices. In a sense of just trying to be conservative in the way you, you're shoving the dirt around as you, as you do it I did not see it as something that was overly burdensome or restrictive. But the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission talks about, oh, you don't want to make big piles of top soil that then as soon as you have a heavy rain, it's all going to erode away and fall on the roads, you really have to cover it up. And, you know, put barriers around the outside, you know, to protect that pile of dirt from going anywhere. And so, you know, that just gives us things to think about there. Okay, I'm just trying to think how do those differ in the case of a forest land and then the other part of the bylaw that we've paid some attention to a number of months ago at this point on construction best construction practices to to assure to the best ability possible that soil erosion stormwater runoff and so forth is not is not an issue. So I wouldn't mind, you know, maybe looking at is that is what we had generally for construction requirements sufficient for the to to to protect the situation, if it's if it was a forest, or is there some special and additional provisions that we have to make for, given the fact that it was was previously forest land. Okay, I don't know who is first but Janet will go with this time and then Bob. Okay, so I think this is a situation where I feel like I need more information about like how a solar rays put into like I talked to Jake Marley and you know farmland is pretty flat. And, you know, it is obviously, you know, you're putting in roads and you're compacting soil and you know you could space, you know so it's it's flat you can preserve your top soil, you know put in your plugs there is disturbance. Kind of less soil disturbance but I think in the forest it's not like you're just going to plug in some solar rays you're going to clear cut it hopefully use that would and not you know burn it or whatever. Let it go, but also you're going to grab it you're going to remove all the so all the the roots of all the trees. And so that to me seems like a huge release of carbon but also a huge disturbance of soil and that it has to it has to be different in terms of impacts I'm wondering like, is there something you know if the disturbance is so much greater is there some way to avoid that or mitigate that. And also the issue of slopes, you know most farms aren't slopes. And so, you know, a 15% slope is, you know, the, it's that it seems like there's more soil disturbance and run off even during construction. And then also in Aaron Jake's comments to the draft white paper she identified some, you know, many many impacts to soil in terms of, you know, how much nitrogen they hold carbon they hold. And that it's much hotter under the array and that changes things and it really has impacts on the water system and the water supply system and so, and how that soil will function going forward so I'd like maybe us to look at get more information on that. Before we say, oh this is you the farm standards I wonder if there's some, you know, we, you know what happens to the soil, what could happen we have Williamsburg which is like a, you know, a terrible example but I think, I feel like I need more information on this area I don't I just think you know grubbing a forest and removing everything is different from putting some plugs in, you know, beautiful land. Maybe Laura can shed some light on this in terms of what what practices are currently if she's had that experience. Yeah. Bob did you go yet. Now here, I would just hope that we can just try to keep the standards and requirements as consistent as possible across and not try to come up with additional restrictions before us and additional restrictions apartment. I would prefer we just have, you know, a set of standards that were required for this kind of development and not try to come up with this huge laundry list of restrictions. I understand what it was saying I thought that was insightful and I don't know either. Exactly how much disturbance obviously more enforced land. I would like to keep our standards as consistent as possible across the bylaw. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's why, you know, if we can cover it in the general part of the bylaw with regard to protecting against erosion and so forth during construction. Let's just cover it there. And then, and then, you know, maybe only some small incremental provisions associated with forest land if to the extent that they are. There's additional concerns. Okay, let me let's go over to the what I've sort of categorized together is view sheds and water supply protection. So in terms of water supply protection part of that is during construction and what we were just talking about in terms of run off after rain events and erosion during that very sensitive construction process. Until the ground cover is is established. Again, I like to think about whether that is really can be covered sufficiently in the sections that we already have but we'll reconsider before we make anything final with regard to the construction process for all of these solar units. And we talked a little bit about that already. But then in terms of, I guess we have to or at least suggested here as a starting point to restrictions that are one focused more on the view shed and one more on the water, water supply. One is to you know the the idea of if this isn't isn't a forest we don't necessarily want to. We want to do as much as we can to protect the the view sheds of our of our forest land particularly particularly but not maybe only along scenic roads. We've talked about buffers already for any of the projects, Janet seems open to maybe relaxing those in other situations but I think we, I think we had 100 feet is where I think I came up with this but I have to double check on that. But, and maybe we don't need a special provision here if it's consistent with the buffer that we've already had but the idea here would be that that buffer between a roadway or a or residential butters would have to be maintained existing forest. So you still have that forest buffer between roads and a butters before you get to the cleared area that made that would be for the solar right. Chris. So are we talking about a different setback for areas that are forested versus setback for some place that isn't forested because we did decide or we came close to deciding on setbacks for solar installations in general. And I think we were talking about a 50 foot front yard setback and maybe a 30 foot side yard setback. Okay. But are you saying that for forested areas I'm sorry it's making a noise that the setback should be greater. I guess that's an open question. I would lean towards keeping it the way it is for the other setbacks unless there's a reason to go larger or wider. My the main thing I was trying to get across here as Lisa as a starting point was that that buffer area would be retained in the in the undisturbed forest so that and I and that might be different in this case of treed forest land, as opposed to other buffers we talked about in terms of types of shrubs and so forth, but the idea here would be to require, if that's what we want to do that this buffer area is maintained in the undisturbed forest, obviously with the exception of a roadway that might have to go through in certain places. Yep, Janet and then Martha. I sort of share Chris's confusion a little bit I would, I, if we're going to, I would pull the watershed separate from the water supply issues because I don't think they're really the same thing. And so, is, do we, in terms of the other buffer areas we had, did we have a 300 foot buffer from, I'm sorry, 100 foot buffer from residential butters in the rest of the bylaw Chris. I can't remember. No, we did not. Microphone. So we did not we had 30 and 50, and then we said 100 feet from scenic roads. Okay, so I just, I don't think these are really analogous. They're not similar, like, so I would pull the, you know, let's look at the view shed separately and then in terms of the water supply I would just say water supply and watershed protection. Because there's a lot of, you know, that's, those are different issues and in terms of those, my question is, are these sufficient to protect the watershed the groundwater the recharge area. And I don't know the answer to that, especially after reading Aaron Jake's stuff and so I wondered if you would ask Aaron to look at what we're putting in for protection, and maybe Jonathan Thompson or somebody else who sort of an expert in that to say is this sufficient to protect the water supply the groundwater supply. And also the rivers and you know it's not it's not the rivers are all just about us drinking water and things like that so I would, but the view shed question I think we should just parse out separately they're not really related. Yeah, and I just categorizing together just for expediency I think obviously they're different different issues so let's get to the watershed. And the water supply one in a moment. I think for the, for the view shed. I think there's some question about what the distance or the width might be appropriate and whether there's justification for making it anything wider for forest land. I'm not suggesting there, there is, but just something we have to think about. And that the idea there would be to require that it stays in, in, in, in the undisturbed forest is that buffer buffer zone. I mean, can I ask you a question was your sense that somebody who lives in that area of town, obviously has chosen a much quieter life or, you know, a very different ecosystem than I have on southeast street, you know, you know, which has a lot of people and cars. And I also chose it because of, you know, the farm next door. So I, is your, did you increase that because your sense that these people wanted more solitude and less impacts is, I mean, which is equal to me but I just wonder what was your thinking. My thinking was, let's first profess that I didn't overthink this I just put something down and I'm not sure whether I got the hundred feet. I don't want to state that I did but maybe that was in Martha's draft I don't know. But the idea there was that, that to the extent that these are larger arrays, and that I think from the community perspectives we heard probably a lot of the concerns about solar and forest was the aesthetics of seeing it. And so the idea would be and I just trying to visualize okay how you know if it's a 30 foot with the forest can you sort of see to the other end of the forest fairly readily and then see the, see the array, see that there's an array there. I'm sure I didn't do an experiment. And I figured 100 feet and these are larger arrays so maybe on larger properties so they could afford more of a buffer and why put it close to the butters if you can put it sort of in the middle of a parcel or away from the butters. That was my, my thinking there. Okay. Yeah, nothing more than that. Chris, please. I want to think about how big these arrays are because we have said that our regulations are going to apply to anything that's 250 KW or greater and we've understood that the current situation is that 250 KW is about an acre. If someone had a forest area that they wanted to convert to solar and it was about an acre that they were going to convert then to require 100 foot buffer, you know, on all sides or, you know, against the road that really takes away from a lot of their property. Maybe we say something about for, you know, solar arrays that are smaller than five acres that these large setbacks don't apply but for solar arrays that are bigger than five acres that these would apply. Okay, okay, I think that's that's a good point for sure. Okay. All right, so let's think about that I like the idea of sort of sticking with the normal buffer that we have the universal buffers that we have for for the these arrays in general, but then maybe looking to require a bit more of a with a buffer in the case of larger acreage. Yeah, and five megawatts would I mean five acres would be going on a megawatt of solar. Yeah. Martha. Yes, so first I would agree with Chris that perhaps the buffer size should depend on the, what's going to be the clear cut area and the array size, and I would also agree with the forest case is different from just an open land case you know it's not a question of the pretty view and I, I would disagree that members of the public want to preserve forest because it's you know they like the view. The members of the public are really concerned about the values that forest provide and I think that's why we have the overwhelming majority of residents that say preserve forests. I would say my concern and the reason for suggesting the larger buffer, when the forests are cleared was more the hydrology, you know if you have a residence, and, you know, a certain your certain lot size maybe you have an acre or have an acre I don't know, your residence and if you're next to a forested area, you know, it is going to impact the drainage erosion and so on and so I just feel that having a significant buffer. In the case of clearing the forest is protection for the neighbors in their residences, not because it's pretty I mean yeah that's nice too, but just because of the disturbance and so I would say certainly a minimum of 100 foot buffer. Next to a residence. And also I think that you know the zoning bylaws in general have rules about the minimum lot coverage or maximum lot coverage in certain residential zones to that goes with that but. And I do want to be, I mean, I, you know, I'm, we, none of us know the answers to every, every question we have. And we, we won't know those, as we finalize these rules, but I do want to be careful in terms of I think there's in terms of erosion and runoff. And so forth I think there's two very distinct things one is during construction. That is a very sensitive time with regard to those issues. When it comes to the array itself. It's a chore operation for 2020 plus years, where there's a robust ground cover in and around the array. I don't. I'm, I'm a little bit lost with regard to, you know what is really the impact and the experiences that projects have had with regard to changes in these runoff percolation groundwater and so forth during that longer period of operation. And I don't want to. Obviously there's some impact, but is it the minimus, or is it substantial. And you know that that I think we've gotten some, some, some opinions on and thoughts on, but I don't know if we're going to get the full knowledge on that. Yeah, yeah, so it really, I mean, what from what I've seen construction projects can go on for a very long time months or year or even a couple years or so. So that I think the buffer zone during the construction phase is indeed very important. And that's where when all the changes are taking place. Okay. All right. Yeah, Janet. So I do think, I don't think we can say we don't know have enough information. Let's just proceed is that you know I when I talked to Michael D car. Maybe a year ago, or maybe not a year maybe nine months ago I said, you know, he said it took five years on their shoots very think to establish grass. And so, you know, that could be just one situation but someone knows the answer to this, you know so you have slopes, you remove most of the soil even if you put it back something has to hold it. You know it's not farmland, you know I, you know I at the air Carl museum they established this amazing, you know, meadow in two years a year and I know there's a really good grass under the hamster college. It's similar. I think the Carl might look better in the sense they have like no non native species, but I know that that can be established but if they're struggling to establish something like that in a forest. We need to know that if that's just a one, a one time situation or is that common, you know. And so, you know, and then the prime soils or the top soil might be not as deep in a forest or deeper and there's more loss I just I think these are answers we can. We can get answers to that. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I think you can get information on that I'm not sure if you can get answers. Because there's, there's way too much that is depends and you look at it one place it's going to be different than another place and we can, we can, you know, maybe get some. And Jack has some expertise in this area, as well as Laura some some experience. Soils people at UMass that could help us. I mean I've had either one researcher I've been working with it's looking at, but he's, you know, still trying to do some research on effects of solar rays on groundwater. That's, he's still trying to do some work on that but I can ask him if he has any. Anything that he might be able to share with us. I just say yes please sorry. So I just wanted to remind everybody that we have maybe six weeks to finish this. Yeah, and so we have a limited amount of time to do a lot of research and I in particular have, you know, many, many other projects besides this that I'm working on so I can't devote large amounts of time to this particular project and I must say that our, you know, effort in this regard is very broad and deep and if you know if you take a look at Belcher Towns solar bylaw or Hadley's solar bylaw, they're really much haired down. And so I guess I question how many different things can we examine and put into this bylaw. And I just wanted to remind people that a bylaw is changeable, you know, if you put something in place, maybe we should look at this as put in place the best that we can do now, and understand that over the years, this can be changed we'll learn new things and we'll change based on our knowledge as it evolves. So trying to make this, you know, perfect at this time may be unrealistic and trying to make it good enough. Maybe what we should strive for at this moment because there will be other solar projects coming along the pipeline. And we want to make sure that we have something in place when they come along, you know, unfortunately we missed the boat with the, you know shoots very road project but I'm just encouraging us to think about, you know, putting something in place that's good enough for now, knowing that we can always change it in the future once our understanding and experience evolves. Thank you. Yeah, and I also want to, I mean, to the extent that I mean there, there may be certain situations I don't know where a landowner sells off some forested land and somebody builds a house that might take up five acres, or three acres. What are they, are they bound by, obviously there's going to be some permitting with regard to stormwater control during construction and so forth. But I'm just wondering if if there's any precedent for any of the restrictions we're talking potentially talking about, or, or scientific concerns that we're talking about that has been raised or are applicable to other situations where there is some force that could be cut down to build something else. Okay. All right, Janet. So, cognizant of what Chris just said, and what Robert has said is, I think that the way to simplify the bylaw and not have to have requirements for each kind of like okay when now we're on farmland. We're in a forest now we're in a watershed. You know now we're just, you know on some, you know whatever bare land or whatever or field is basically to say, if we just said okay this forest area, this kind of forest land, because of its important ecological importance and drinking water supply and you know the monotonous list I keep saying or Martha keeps saying or we keep on hearing about in all the state plans and our own town planned is like we're just not going to have large scale arrays or nothing over an acre or two. You know so that would be a way to simplify the bylaw by just taking this small area. And that's very ecologically and important off the list, right. And then, you know, I was going to I missed the farm discussion but I think that there's a way to ensure that dual use can take place on a solar array. Currently or in the future just by a spacing requirement. So it's a simple spacing requirement, keeping the land open and available for future farming or current farming. We don't have to require a duelist will just have it available for dual use. And then we can get down to sort of like okay we have a general list of things and requirements. And so, I think if we just, you know, basically say different rules, you know, different rules for different types of stuff and we can go through this kind of nitpicky or we can just say we're going to set aside these areas. Farmland is treated this way. The forests are off off the chart, you know, whatever. And these other areas, we have a lower permitting requirement because this is where we'd like to see it. That could be the simplification and, you know, have a swifter bylaw. But I do, I think that, you know, with fewer requirements overall so if we make these decisions or consider that as an option I think you can, you know, tighten this up quite a bit. Right. Chris and then Bob. So one thing that we learned from Jonathan Murray was that it is okay to limit the size of clear cutting for solar arrays. In fact, he pointed to Belcher towns, new bylaw, which limits forest clearing to five acres. And then he also said that if you wanted to offer a bonus to people for clearing more acres or not really a bonus but like an incentive to do the right thing, that if they clear more than five acres, then you have them set aside forest in another location and put a deed restriction on it. So that's something that we could consider doing, you know, have a pretty restrictive amount of forest that could be cleared. But then if someone wishes to clear more than that, allow them to set aside forest in another location just putting that out there for possibility, possibility. Yeah, okay. Makes sense to me, Chris. I guess one thing Chris I that I've been looking for but to help me get a handle on that is a layer on the GIS map that we have that would enable us to sort of toggle and sort of clearly see the size distribution of the of the parcels that we have particularly throughout Amherst but particularly up in that north corner north northern region. So we'll be able to see okay if we did have a restriction of no more than X number of acres we could see, you know how many parcels are there that actually have that are of that size I've looked, you know a little bit on the map just by clicking on some of the larger parcels and they seem to be some parcels that are like 20 even 40 I think acres, but there's not a whole lot of them. And there's not as far as I could tell there weren't like any that were like 100 acres or anything. And it would be, I think it would be useful if I'm blocking on the GIS person's name from your office, or from the town, Mike, Mike Warner. Yeah Mike yeah exactly. If he might be able to add he's in the conversation we had when he was with us, he said it wouldn't be hard. I know it takes time and attention but that would, in my mind that would be helpful to be able to be able to see that on the on the map. You mean add property lines to the map. Well, we have property lines but but something that we could say okay show me all the parcels that are over 20 acres. Yeah, you know have those, or, you know, or, you know, maybe above 510 and 20 acres would be good increments to be able to sort of see what we're talking about in terms of the, the number of properties and where those properties are. Okay. I can investigate that. Alright, thank you. Okay, so that's helpful Chris to hear sort of that approach that we might take as well of having not necessarily restriction on on force but if you go over a particular threshold of acreage clearing, then certain restrictions or requirements apply. Okay. Let's just talk briefly about the water sheds and the private wells. You know I think first of all, my understanding is that they're already zoning restrictions across many things with regard to building in a water in a defined water supply recharge region and so forth so we're not talking about that. We're talking about potentially a solar project in a forest which is not in these wetland areas not in these defined water supply areas, but could arguably have an impact on those proximate perhaps recharge areas and also for water supply and also private drinking wells. And again, I think there's two issues here one is is protection during construction. And second during operation. And so, you know, one approach maybe we'll just, you can't do solar, but, but if we were to, you know, look at how could we restrict solar to be able to recognize concerns and potential impacts. The idea that I had here at least was to it would go maybe go in it's aligned with the buffer issue but here to purpose purposefully provide for a larger buffer zone. And you know now that I'm thinking about it maybe it depends on whether it's uphill or downhill for example. A larger buffer in terms of distance. So that we extend a bit more protection for private wells. Again, this is, I think, primarily prevalent up in that northeast area as well. So that we have a larger distance between where this force clearing which would start in any on any of its perimeter and have what I've sort of thrown out here just as a as a starting point 300 feet from any, any private well. I don't know how that maps out in terms of what the private wells and whether that's a layer that's also on GIS. And how that would map out and whether that would be an appropriate form of protection for these for these private wells particularly and but also the recharge areas. Again recognizing this is on top of very careful constraints and requirements during construction, but then during the this is more about the operation of the array. That with it, you know, it's, I think there's been suggestion that there's not a whole lot of concern about toxic or anything like that. The battery is a little bit of a different issue but in terms of the solar array. But it would have some impacts on that we don't really know and won't know with certainty and it's going to be different in every different parcel of forest in terms of what the impact is on groundwater flow. And attributes of that groundwater. So how do people, what do people think on this in terms of that extra distance from, from wells for example. Chris. Isn't that something that Jack Gemsick would know about. He's a hydrogeologist right so he would be able to advise us about this. Absolutely, absolutely. And this is just to start the conversation this is a situation where I definitely wouldn't want to make any decisions or get too far without Jackson put on this. Janet. I agree with your questions and the, the idea of the concept of it. And, you know, my question would be like, how do we figure out what the drinking water recharge area is and, you know, maybe that's already been done. And if it's not been done, I would assume that hat would have to be mapped by someone. And what I was referring to there was the already mapped there are defined. I mean we've seen that on the maps already and then and took that off the map for solar development of these, the water recharge areas. Yeah, I think that's for some reason. This is a probably a good question for Jack because I think that was for public drinking water supply. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I support what you're like all the your questions and also where you're heading. Okay. Okay. Let me. Let me ask the group where we want to go from here. Again, I think this has been a helpful discussion just to hear everybody to get to Chris's point. The discussion is good, but we need to get to get to language on a piece of paper, or at least in a computer somewhere. And, you know, maybe, maybe Chris can start drawing something together from our conversation today but I think there's a lot that's still on the table. Rehash what we've already discussed today without bringing in the rest of the committee, as well, which hopefully can be next time. We'll talk about that at the end of the meeting in terms of schedule for the next meeting. But are there any other issues, Martha you had some other suggestions there I think, you know, what this this concept of requiring any, any forest land removal of forest to be compensated by deeded restrictions and for somewhere else. I think we got suggestion that that doesn't look too good legally from Jonathan last time. However, in the case that it could be you can do five acres by anything above that maybe that has been that sort of kicks in. I think to some of the comments that I received before the meeting. There's a lot of pushback to that. There is some openness to bring this up, whether it regards farmland or forest land to the town council is something that the town might want to consider for all development but not their sort of pushback to sort of single out solar development where this these requirements would kick in whereas other development developments it would not be about a landowner might then opt to sell it off for some other purpose other than solar, like housing or whatever. If those, if there were sort of perverse incentives in that way. But let me just open it up to any other thoughts people have and issues that we should raise with regard to how we look at this with forest land, Martha anything you had in your outline. And things that we can tee up for for the for a fuller group next time. Yeah, Martha. Yeah, well I just I was just responding to your comment about the discussion with Jonathan Murray didn't Chris just say that it's her understanding that it wouldn't be a huge stumbling block to say that for a clearing of more than five acres we would require you know some other five acres somewhere to be preserved. So I think that that that we should leave that open for discussion and and not rule it out. Yeah. But I think maybe I just may I just say that I would suggest that you asked our three members who weren't able to come today, if they would listen to this recording before our next meeting. So that we have to start right from scratch and and we have everything all over again. Yep, yep. But that would that be a suggestion. Yeah, absolutely. And maybe. And I'll try to get the minutes done. Timely way to be recording and everything. Chris, do you happen to know when Stephanie will be back Monday. Monday, Monday. Okay, I'm just what I when I when I end the recording I guess Stephanie gets it somehow. And so I asked Stephanie to let me know when it gets posted so that everybody can listen to it. Yeah. Right. Okay. All right, Janet. And then I want to open it up to any comments from there. We're going to start with Martha's stuff next in the with the hope that everybody's like we don't rehash what we just said, when the new member, the old members come back. Is that what you're saying. When the other members when the rest of the committee. We're going to start with Martha's, I moved through that and then hopefully end up. I sort of extracted what I thought was good for. And I'm scrolling down to Martha's area. This ecosystem protection. I sort of took took from there on soil preservation. There is this open question we discussed today with regard to, you know, is there something special about the forest with regard to soil carbon and so forth that we would want to apply these soil preservation requirements, regardless of whether it's prime soils or or or not. And so I think we can we sort of discuss that. So if we're going to stop the mounting and everything that's if we're going to, if it's prime soil and then if we apply it to the others other soils or not then yeah these these would be this similar provisions that we would have in a more universal part of the of the bylaw with regard to soil preservation, generally, and special provision for prime soils or for forest soils. And then, yeah, and then I think I sort of took this where I got the 300 feet I guess. So I sort of took took from that and then she had the mitigation which is basically this, this issue with regard to whether a solar developer would have to restrict development somewhere else, or sorry, sorry, somewhere before somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that is a very quick summary and I think maybe the one thing that she has added is this idea of critical natural landscape so when we could talk about that next week. So, okay, okay, it's a little broader. All right. Great. Okay, so before we go to the, let me stop sharing here just bring up the agenda again. I seem to seem to have the agenda so maybe it's on the other. Let me ask in terms of next meeting. Which is September 1. So September 1. That's is that that's Labor Day weekend right. Yeah. Or the Friday before Labor Day weekend, I should say, okay, so. Yeah, so amongst us that are here. Who who has a who cannot make it on September 1 anybody. I'm not sure I would like not to make it I'd be really happy if we move that to a different like even the following, you know, whatever the following week sometime. Maybe we should maybe we should pull the people missing too. Yeah, well, let's let's keep it standing for the moment, but we'll pull other folks and see see if we can find a time that we can all make sure that we can all meet. I guess I'd be open to starting to meet every week. If people Okay, maybe we'll cut into that in October when we're really facing the deadline. Okay. A few words but a lot of expressiveness. Pretty clear silence I think. And that's I couldn't I can appreciate that. So let's let's anticipate meeting on the first normal time but when Stephanie gets back. I'll try to work with her to get a sense of availability from everybody and then make adjustments as we need. Okay. Here's the agenda. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. So then yeah so that's the next meeting okay. And I think what will what will cover is try to hone in on our conversation and approach on force. It would be good to go back and look at what we did discuss and how that translated into bylaw language with regard to farmland. And then I think importantly, we also then need to start looking at the bylaw as a whole. And thank you Chris for sending that latest draft out. What I did find there was that there's a lot of comments that have been added and appreciate that those are in track changes or at least different colors. So we can see that but I think a lot of those comments, you know we're put in there based on on comments you've received Chris which is great to have those but we haven't really discussed them as a group in terms of whether they should stay or not or be tweaked in some way. And so I think we'll we'll get to that as well and get as far as we can the next next time and then I think hopefully we'll have force and farmland sort of settled on in terms of where we want to go hopefully and then spend the net last month I guess of the of the working group in reviewing and finalizing the draft of the in its entirety. If all goes well. Okay. Okay, so with that let me open it up to any comments from the public. Just for the record we have 10 attendees. So if anybody from the attendee group would like to make a comment. Please raise your hand, and I will allow you to talk. And I'm going to go with Tom and then Lenore and then Michael and allow that in that order so Tom please let us know who you are and appreciate your comment. I should be able to speak now. Tom, we can't hear you if you are speaking. I'm sorry, can you hear me now? Yeah, good, good. Yeah. All right, sorry about that. Yeah. I feel women that one of those old Verizon commercials can you hear me now anyway. Hey guys, I guess the camera is not on that's all right so it's just audio for you. Yes, yeah. I just want to say real quick. I know time is of the essence that I appreciate the work that you guys are doing. This is important work. I live in South Amherst, I'm a property owner. I greatly appreciate the work you're doing and I know that this is a balance between the need for green energy and the need for preserving forested land and open space and all that good stuff. I just want to say, my wish is for this bylaw to include things like to prioritize rooftop solar, parking lot solar, if possible, if possible, over cutting down forests and trees. I guess, you know, I know there's got to be a balance and I know there's got to be some give and take here, but cutting down a mature growth forest of oak trees maples whatever birch hickory's to to put in a solar array reminds me of, you know, burning the village down in order to save it. It didn't work very well in Vietnam at all. I did forest lands in Amherst and I just want to preserve the forest and the trees I would just much rather see solar arrays going on rooftops and parking lots. Of course, yeah, I know that there's a more capital cost of putting a solar array up on a rooftop, rather a parking lot. I saw I watched the projects at UMass. Yeah, there is a more upfront capital cost to putting solar masks up in a parking lot. I get that I get that. But my understanding is rooftop solar when available and when appropriate is less costly than clear cutting a field or or a forest to put in a place where it's for solar panels. Again, this is just my take and I know you guys are doing good work and trying to find this balance. Boy, I just, and I appreciate that. Yeah, we put solar on top of the high school, whatever it was 100 kilowatts I believe. Yeah, it's not the same as a huge field. But then if you include the, the, the parking lot at the high school. You know, they're kind of getting there, but I know this is there's a trade off here. You know, I, I live in South Amherst. I walk around Hickory Ridge, and I scratch my head. There's a lot of beautiful trees that are rotting on the ground. And I'm just like, excuse the French. WTF. Boy, I just think this is an important issue. I want to preserve our forests in our trees. And I appreciate the time you guys are putting into this and the good work that you're doing. And I'll end my comments there. Thank you very much. Tom, for the minute, for the minutes, may I please have your last name. Sure. My last name is Jamate J. A. M. A. T. E. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for those comments. All right, great. Lenore you're up next and letting you in now. Yeah. And unmute yourself. Yeah, great. Hi guys. This is Lenore Brick. Thank you for your good work as always. I want to address a couple of things. There's some fundamental assumptions. I think that we need to look at one. One thing is this idea of balance. It's interesting because we are already so out of balance that we have to think of balance in a completely different way. I think of it more as what are our non negotiables. Not like we have to balance this with this and that there is no more balancing. And the non negotiables for me with everything that I've learned is what's precious and what actually has been regulating the climate since before we but since before humans decided that their technologies were superior to nature's technologies. And so, if we understand that there are these non negotiables, if we understand that all soil disturbance, whether it's forest soil disturbance farm soil disturbance all fragmenting habitats, all soil disturbance impacts soil health and microbiology because soil is not dirt soil is life and its potential life. And that understanding can inform how we think about these decisions, because all of that impacts climate and public health. And so these non negotiables to me are about protecting all of the soils, all of the forest, all of the farmlands, because that's what Amherst has a, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of kind of updated climate stakeholders has a moral obligation to protect. And this idea that you know this kind of fair share idea is also a strange out of balance balance because each town and city and municipality has something different to offer. Every area in the state has Greenland, not every area in the state has a lot of built landscape, and you're in a pickle. I appreciate that because you have to set up these bylaws in isolation from the rest of the state. It's absurd, and to set it up from, you know, in isolation from the rest of the region, that's absurd that we're operating as an independent tiny town. And what's even more absurd is that we, you know, Amherst because we're a college town, we should be doing everything in isolation with the university and colleges, because that's half our town. And if we are not working with them, then we're not operating even as all of Amherst. So, there's just some of these kind of fundamental obstacles that you're working under that tie your I'm sorry that you are because it shouldn't be that way. If if the European colonialists had understood the, the preciousness and treasured the land. If we wouldn't be in this pickle we wouldn't even need solar technology because green technology is solar technology. So anyway, I appreciate the pickle you're in and what you're doing. And I, I also one last thing I want to say I think the, the point that Chris and Janet and a few of you brought up that you can create a bylaw and then tweak it later. My hope would be that you actually create a bylaw that honors these non negotiables that is more conservative, because you're not going to get back what gets cut down you're not going to get the soil back you're not going to get the forest back. But if we need more of it, then we can give more of it but don't give away what you can't get back initially. Thank you so much. Thank you Lenorm. All right, great. Michael and then Eric I see your hand up as well you'll go next. So Michael, you're up. Oh my gosh such such hard X to follow here. I know you guys are fading a little bit but my, my comments have a little audience participation involved in them so hopefully that'll be something that to perk you up a little bit. I'll be able to discussion tables fantastic, followed every minute of it. The, I think one of the key points is, especially when you're talking about meadows versus forest is the overall ecological impact. And because you're often talking and abstract things you know this this acreage or that acreage I like to really focus on real things that are happening in town and the previous speaker talked about your career which which is happening in town. This is a perfect example of an established meadow used to be a golf course it's become a wild meadow, absolutely chock full of bees flowers, really thick grasses so thick that I'm amazed at how little succession is actually taking place there it almost seems like the, the grass is so firmly established that the trees can't really take hold. Anyway, it's a perfect example of a established meadow. I argue, whether it should have been done or not done it's you know less water over the dam and the trees are lying there and they've been there for nine months. That that's what it is. But what I do want to talk about is the ecological impact when this developed as a solar field. When they go up there, they're going to pound in posts and they're going to put into a racking system, and they're going to put in some electronics, the actual disturbance of the soil. They're going to be running the attractive vehicles over them as they bring the solar panels out and as they bring those metal things out but the actual disturbance of the top soil is going to be minimal. 20 years from now, after not sitting there, if they were to rip everything out again, the actual disturbance of that top soil and that meadow would be minimal. I look at that as the overall ecological impact as far as the soil is very tiny. Now, I want to go to the other side of the town and with the shoot spray road project which is the exact opposite end of the spectrum. It's 40 acres in a forested land. That's where your audience participation comes in. If you would, if you could just draw a square, and then take that square and break it into quadrants and if you don't want to do it with the pencil and paper on a computer you can do it in your brain. But just just have a square that's divided into four quadrants. And the shape of the shoot spray road project is not a square, but it takes up 40 square acres a little bit more actually. That little, that big square represents 40 square acres. Each one of those small squares is 10 square acres. Now, somewhere on the paper you can write down this number. If you were to take, say that there were 100 trees per acre on that site, that would be 4000 trees. I'm not going to argue what a tree is, how big it should be, how wide it is and whatever. If that's a conservative number, 4000 trees, I think a more realistic number would probably be 200 trees per acre. That's 8000 trees in that 40 acre parcel. Now, and compare that to what's going on over at Green Ridge with 150 trees or a cut down. So the gap is, you talked about not having Laura here to describe what's going to happen to soil you don't need lawyer lawyer, sorry, Laura here to explain what happens I can tell you what happens. Every one of those 8000 or 4000 trees is going to be cut down. All the stumps are going to remain and they're going to be either taken out all at once or in phases. All the stumps is ripped out of the ground by a big machine. They shake it like crazy to separate the subsoil from in rocks from the roots and the root systems are widespread on these big trees. All that subsoil gets totally mixed up with the existing surface soil. So you end up with this total mess. There's no way to scrape the this top soil off initially because it's awful the stumps. So all that gets mixed together. They grub it which someone's ours referred to which is basically coming through and ripping out any other remaining roots or small trees or vegetation that's occurred that has that process also brings up subsoil, which mixes with top soil. So, you may have had top soil there to begin with underneath those trees, but you don't anymore it's this is this which is a brew of subsoil and top soil. Now, you have all these with products. If you're, if you're working with someone real good, they're going to take the big logs out and sell them and turn them into something useful. Usually what happens is most of the stuff gets ground up. It's put into a very large machine which is a tub grinder, they stick it in the top grinds at the bottom comes off it conveyor belt and gets dumped on a truck or gets dumped in a big pile. Those wood chips then are carried off, or they're spread around the site sometimes mixed with the top soil sometimes dumped in four or five foot thick mats on a hillside joining it if you have places that'll a road. So, if you compare the ecological impact there we haven't talked about putting in post yet all we've talked about is the trees and the soil. I don't think I need to go into much more detail about you can already see the amount of disturbance compared to what's happening in a meadow. They're completely different creatures it's it's like night and day. I don't see how you could, you could compare them back to your little drawing, which it which represents the shoot spirit road proposed project divided into four quadrants 40 acres. And we've just destroyed 40 acre forest ecological system cut down either 48006000 trees you picked a number. And now what we're going to do is on one of those quadrants. If you color it in. We're coloring in a surface area of 10 acres. The surface area of the solar panels that are proposed for the shoot spirit road site equals 10 acres. Now, that's 10 acres of solar panels put side by side like you've had a football field and just laid them out next to each other obviously you're not going to do that. You're not going to do that on a commercial solar site, but the surface area is what counts the surface area is what gathers the sun's energy and turns it into electricity. So, you are going to get 10 acres, 10 square acres of solar power. And to get that 10 square acres of solar power from those solar cells, you're destroying another 30 acres of forest. And that seems very inefficient from an ecological standpoint, if those same 10 acres of solar panels were taken distributed across the rooftops of Amherst, you'd be generating the same amount of electrical power. And you wouldn't be destroying 40 acres of forest. To me, this idea of this ratio of destruction to benefit. I don't know how you would work it into a bylaw but I think is something to consider. And as you can see, in a meadow area, there's a lot less destruction per kilowatt. Let's put it that way. In a forested area, you're really messing up the environment, destroying an ecosystem to get the same amount of energy. And if you take those same 10 square meters, sorry, 10 square acres of solar panels, gather them around on rooftops, you'd get the same amount of electrical energy. So I'm sorry that was so long winded, but I think it's an important point. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, appreciate that. Okay, we're at time but we're going to take Eric. Some late commerce to the to the hands up so we will go go a bit over to hear from Eric, and then Scott, and then Laura. Let me please ask you to limit your comments to three minutes. Eric, you're up. Yeah, we can hear you now thank you. Is it my turn. Yes, yes it is Eric. Yeah. Thank you. I want to thank the committee for extending its time mulling over such difficult difficult issues, and you're doing a wonderful job and I do appreciate the granular level at which you are approaching the solar bylaw development. Just a couple of things. I live in North Amherst in the Northeast quadrant, and I'm on a well. Well system that provides are my family's water. 5% of the households in Amherst rely on wells for their drinking water. The large, large majority of those homeowners are in the Northeast quarter of Amherst. So, I asked at the January 2021 meeting of the Water Supply Protection Committee. I asked the committee, Well, where does the well water come from and lions went in the chair of the committee at the time said well we don't know that. And I asked whether what what level of risk is the is the town willing to take in order to provide or, or eliminate water for the large, any one or many owners of wells in the town. So I really think that it's important to consider that. Secondly, I think that, and we did touch on it. Thank you so much today in your discussion. What why, and I still am confused as to why we are eliminating from the conversation, the, the two campuses and the university, the two college campuses the university as part of the larger community discussion regarding reaching that zero. The Amherst College Hampshire College in UMass own 20% of the town, towns resource land resources, and for us to eliminate them for the conversation I think is a is a lost opportunity. And as I've said before the, I think that that we really need to engage everyone we certainly the town and the universities and colleges engage the town regarding housing why can't we can't why can't we engage the campuses in conversation about reaching, reaching that zero. Thank you so much for your hard work and I, and I, I will stay tuned, as I always do for for more to comment. Thank you very much. Thank you, Eric. Perfect. Okay. My question is up next, and you can speak now Scott. All right, thank you Dwayne. I'll be brief I just wanted to introduce myself. My name's Scott cash in. I recently relocated to Amherst with my family. I've been in my new house for about a week now. I'm a biologist and I've been involved in review of about 100 solar projects in California, starting in about 2007. I have a lot of experience in, you know, the permitting environmental impacts mitigation. What I think some of some of my expertise could be useful to the committee and I've just thrown out there that if, if I can help in any way I'd be glad to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Sounds like useful expertise and welcome to town Scott and your family. Yeah, what I'm not sure what the protocol is there. Chris with regard to him connecting with you or Stephanie maybe. I could send me his email address. I'm at the planning department you could send it to the planning department, which I believe is planning at Amherst MA.gov. So just, you know, get get in contact with me and then we can reach out to you. Thank you very much Scott. Yes, you're welcome. Awesome. Okay, great. And last up is Laura. Laura McLeod. You are able to speak. All right, thank you very much Dwayne. Can you hear me. Yes. Hello, nice to see you guys and thank you Mark, Janet, Chris. This is, this is a very, very vital job that you are doing, guys, because we are looking at the future is not only for 20 years that these panels are going to last and then of course what do we do with that. Of course you have to, I hope you have thought or what's going to happen with those panels. That's a big problem nowadays, and there is no solution yet for that. But that's, perhaps not your area right now I understand, and you're thinking sort of the short term which I don't agree, we should be able to you are in a wonderful position to think ahead. You must do it unfortunately because we are leaving the eco side ramp and eco side all over the world with all kinds of threats from nature that we didn't that we originally in fact, humans are causing all that we know we know that. So, and my point is to look beyond and consider facts that there are from international work done on solar from local work done on solar. So that has to come into your consideration in order to have a real picture. There are facts there is information and you should take a little bit more time searching if you want to include or contact Michael Kelly from restore that org, he will give you lots of expert. And information that I don't have, but I'm looking right now at the at the one oak tree one majestic oak tree that the sequestered carbon like a star, it's a rock star. And it is one mature canopy tree captures a tons of carbon one for that to happen. And if you cut down the tree, which should be the worst thing that you can do to put solar. You have to say that the trees were possible. And they put, for example, for 65 new large landscape trees for one mature canopy tree. We will need like 500 small trees to in five years at least started producing a little bit of sequestering carbon so the nonsense of it all would be to destroy a nature canopy already grown forested with all the life that has on top in the middle underneath. We know of the reasons we know all the life that is underneath so cheer up for you cheer up for life. Life in all senses that we need we need the basic elements to survive water. The air, the soil. And of course trees are the commanders in chief of all these and I beg you, I beg, I beg, because I'm not the expert but I am for the environment more than 40 years. And I've heard lots of many things. I do have her loss where only profit counts power for people doesn't count but it's power only for profit company and that's how the world is going. So I would like Scott to give his good advice to this committee, talking about how solar affects or really our nature and welcome Scott to be here. I'm sure you are here because of the wonderful forest and green areas that we are going to keep forever. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you Laura for those for those comments. Okay. Awesome seeing no other hands from the from the attendees. Let me bring the meeting to a close. Thank you everybody for your good discussion today. Thank you, Martha for the minute taking. I will reach out to the rest of the committee, ask them to listen to the recording and be prepared to dig into this again on September 1. And we'll also reach out to Stephanie with regard to making sure that we have a good attendance September 1 or look for another date. And have a good weekend. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.