 Okay, we are now recording great. Thanks, Stephanie. Did you invite the public to Stephanie? Sorry. Yes, they're already. Yep, and able to come in. Great. Okay, great. Oh, here's Dan. Oh, great. Thanks. Dan. Welcome. Yep. Good. All right. Hi, Laura. Okay. Hi, everybody. Okay. Well, welcome everybody to the. November 9th, 2023 meeting of this town of Amherst solar bylaw working group, what we hope and expect to be our final meeting to finish up our work on drafting a bylaw for the town for their consideration. So thank you everybody for the year and a half of good work on this. And again, hats off to our staff, town staff, Chris, Stephanie on working with us through this process. We need a note taker for today. Which I just had up on my screen in terms of who is scheduled next to be up and Dan, that would be you. I was going to nominate Dan. He looks like you're trying to go there. Okay. You're way overdue. So that'd be great. Keep in mind, this is a marathon meeting three hours. So it's payback. So thank you for that. Okay. And we'll consider taking a break and halfway through if people decide we want to do that. Okay. With that, let's look at the agenda. And obviously we want to dedicate the vast bulk of today's meeting on the bylaw, picking up where we left off in, I think October 10th, I think it was, and getting through it today. So, Martha, you have a hand up. Yes. So I wanted to just say, Mr. Chair, that since we have so much to do, your vice chair has a clock here. And as we step through, we have so much to cover, I will, if you don't mind, try to interject occasionally to keep us on track or something. Appreciate that. And I think once we get into the language, I think as we did before, we'll try to skip through areas that we generally, and Chris, I think can be comfortable that is not particularly contentious that we've all had a chance to look at, at least, and be a little bit more efficient in terms of getting through and then focusing on the areas that need some discussion, potentially Chris wants some input from us. And Martha, yes, if you can be a conscious for the group in terms of how we're pacing ourselves, that would be super. Appreciate it. I recommend that we do not try to put it up on the screen and read through line by line. We've all had a week to read this and we can just go section by section and ask if people have comments would be my suggestion. A couple of new places. Yeah. I think it is worthwhile to do that in section, but with it up on the screen and read through it. And I'll use Chris's judgment on that. Okay, but let's, the agenda, let's work through the agenda to get to the main body here. Okay, so here we go. So first order of business is to review and preferably vote on the minutes. Thank you, Martha, for very good minutes from last meeting on the 10th of October. These were in the packet. I think Stephanie emailed them a little bit after the main packet, but should be in our packets now. And hopefully people have had a chance to review. So any comments or thoughts or desired edits on the minutes of October 10th or a motion to accept them? I moved to accept the minutes of October 10th as written. All right. Thank you, Janet. Anyway, you want to second that motion? Jack, I think you have to actually say something. I'll second. Yeah. And then via voice vote, please make sure you are unmuted and that your camera is on when you vote. No particular order, McGowan? Yes. Hannah? Yes. Gregor? Yes. Corcoran? Same. Gemsec? Yes. Haglia Rulo? Yes. Okay. Minutes are approved. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And then we have the same process. I think we went through last time thinking that the last one might have been our last meeting that we need to authorize a member to approve our minutes on behalf of the bylaw group, given that we are not planning to meet again. So we would need somebody to a member to authorize, accept our minutes from for today, today's minutes. So do we have a motion on who that member would be and to move forward with that? Jack? I nominate Dwayne to approve the last set of minutes. I'll second it. All right. Thank you. I can second that. Yeah. Okay. And so for an official vote, again in no particular order, McGowan? Oh, you're muted. Oh, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Hannah? Yes. Breger? Yes. Corcoran? Yes. Gemsec? Yes. Haglia Rulo? Yes. Great. Thank you. All right. Super. Okay. So any staff updates before we get into the meeting? I do not have any staff updates. I do not have any staff updates. All right. Stephanie, did you say you did have? Oh, you don't? Okay. Okay. Super. All right. How about committee updates from us that are liaising for committees? No. I mean, the planning board talked about the next steps and, you know, what's the next step after we get the draft bylaw approved by our committee? And planning board members are interested in seeing it, you know, and I think the understanding is it's going to go to town council and get sent back to the planning board and CRC. That was the gist of think of what we talked about, but I might be wrong. It wasn't a long discussion. Yep. I would suggest, yeah, there is a plan for the moving forward that Stephanie did include in the meeting packet. I suggest we get to that when we talk about next steps, number six on the agenda item that lays that out pretty precisely as far as I'm concerned. So maybe we can review that at the end. That was just, that was like the only conversation we had about the bylaw. Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah, definitely the planning committee will be reviewing. All right. Super. Okay. So that brings us to the primary topic of today, which is to review the remaining sections, which are substantial in the bylaw. And I think to Martha's point and others, let's try to do this as efficiently as possible. I would defer to Stephanie sharing, but I think Chris is going to take us through this as to make sure that she gets from us what she needs, as well as we get to Chris what we, our review, either things that you have come up with yourself on your own review or as we go through this and have discussion on some of these issues. So Chris, do you want to lead us through this and yeah. I just need to know where to start Chris. Sure. Let me just say that from the beginning I did receive comments from Steve Roof, who is not a member of the solar bylaw working group, but he you know, has has a lot of knowledge about this topic. I received comments, I think from Janet McGowan. I think I received comments from Martha Hanner and those comments have been incorporated into oh and also Scott Cashion. He submitted a lot of comments. So I've incorporated those into the into the main draft and we if we have time, we may want to go back and look at those later. But for now, I think we should go to page 17, which is agrivoltaics and we had left off with discussion of agrivoltaics. And I think we agreed that, well, I'll wait till Stephanie gets there. There we go. Can it be enlarged? Yes. Okay. I think we decided that we that if you have an agri a solar by a solar array on farmland on farmland that is prime or a statewide importance that it shall be developed as an agrivoltaics array. I don't think you actually took a vote on this, but I think there was consensus about this. Unless there is information presented to the permit granting authority such that it is not financially or technically feasible to do this on that property. And we had a discussion about that and I think we agreed we achieved consensus on that. So if people agree that we achieved consensus, we can move on to requirements regarding soil management, which is down a little further down the page if Stephanie will scroll down. Great. And that's my recollection is that we were good with that structure. Okay. So requirements regarding soil management, I think we didn't have any comments on this part on page 17, but on page 18, Janet asked that we add under B, utilize existing farm roads, field edges, light construction equipment to minimize soil compaction and disturbance and reduce road widths to 12 feet. And I think those were things that she plucked out of the KIP comments. And I don't think there would be too much discussion about that unless you want to discuss it. Then down under D, Scott Cashin and Janet had comments. I guess Scott Cashin's were about D, temporarily hauled use of heavy construction equipment following heavy rainstorms or a large storm event when soils are saturated and the site shall be inspected unnecessary corrections made prior to resuming construction. I think that's reasonable. I think there's still some question about what constitutes a heavy rainstorm or a large storm event, but I've tried to define that in the definitions section. Yeah, I saw that and I would just maybe capitalize the terms that are defined. A large storm event, okay. Okay. And then E, seed or oversee the entire site with cover crops, green manure crops prior to any construction. That was something Janet put in maybe from KIP's comments. Yeah. And I think that's to stabilize the site prior to construction. Number three, avoid the use of chemical soil stabilizers such as salts, magnesium chloride, asphalt emulsion, vegetable oils, molasses, synthetic polymers, mulches and lignin products. I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret this. This was a comment from Scott Cashin. I thought that vegetable oils, molasses and mulches would be acceptable as soil stabilizers, but he apparently doesn't think so. So maybe that's something that needs to be a question that I need to ask of him. So we're saying don't use chemical soil stabilizers and don't use these other things, but I think that's a question. I think that's worth finding out. Right. This also is going back to E. Is green manure crops? Is that anybody know what that is? It came from Janet, so maybe she knows what it is. It's from KIP Kalanskis or his name I can't pronounce. I know cover crops, but yeah. Yeah. I just put it in from his comments. I thought they were like just the idea like I'm assuming all the construction starts during warm weather and then just to make sure you cover as much as you can and then deal with the site. So I just pulled that from him. Green manure is a crop specific. It is a thing. Green manure crops are most often grown by commercial farmers looking to maximize profits from cash crops, provide green manure, have other benefits, add nutrients to the soil, prevent erosion, suppress weeds and reduce soil compaction. So I guess it's a different kind of cover crop or a cover crop. Often use the legumes to fix soil. So I don't know. Maybe these are two separate terms or maybe they overlap. So I'm not married to it. The green manure. Okay. All right. Do you have any insights into that? I was going to have Jack go first. Sorry, I've got a reason. Jack, I didn't see that. Well, I'm not talking about the green manure part, but so might as well just stay on green manure for here for a minute. I was just going to say that I really want to introduce new concepts right now if we can because we don't have a lot of time. So I don't have enough. I didn't look and talk to industry and see how reasonable that is. I mean, it sounds great. I just in general, I'm hesitant to introduce new concepts. That's all. I mean, a compromise could be to add some claws here to the extent feasible or along those lines. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. All right, Jack. Oh, I'm just wondering about the soil stabilization. Sort of, you know, what's left with regard to like excluding the mulch and that's why I thought it may not be he may not have worded this exactly correct. It seemed to me that he wanted to exclude the chemical soil stabilizers, but the things like vegetable oils, molasses, mulches seem to be organic and I'm not sure about lignin, but I think lignin is related to stones, isn't it? So I have a question mark to ask him about that. I don't know about raising my hand feature available to me at the moment or at least that I can find easily. So I'm going to just jump in. But also to say that I think that, you know, I think the town has its sort of standard language for these types of materials. And so, I mean, even if you put it in, I think this is going to go through additional department head review. And I would think conservation will be looking very carefully at these types of measures. I personally don't fully agree with this. So just as my, you know, with my previous wetlands hat on, certainly salts are often, you know, kind of avoided, but I think some of these other more natural materials and organic materials I don't necessarily think without more research, we would want to say we're just going to ban them. So I think it might be a little overreach. Okay. And then number five, conduct a second rather than a repeat soil health analysis that seems reasonable. I guess I was just going to say on that following up to Stephanie, maybe we should just go on record as saying that we question that particular line of inserts there until there is further clarification of something like that. Number three. Yeah, we kind of left it hanging there, but maybe we really do want to, I think there's enough concern from the committee that maybe we just do want to go on record as saying that we question that and feel it would need further research before being included or something like that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Under agrivoltaics, design and reporting requirements, substitutions of other agricultural uses such as grazing is, and Janet wanted to say prohibited rather than discouraged. That's the language we had in originally was prohibited. We've had that consistently. I'll push back a little bit and look for any of her experience. I guess my concern would be twofold. One is that the state has rules and regulations with regard to the smart program and incentive that certainly discourages and makes it hard for this type of switching of agricultural practice to say easier and less productive or valuable crops or agricultural products. I guess my pushback would be that this adds substantial risks to solar development of agrivoltaics. If the farm is not over its 20 years, that it gets the incentive able to is prohibited from going into a certain direction and is unfeasible to stick with the farming that they are doing, and that's an added risk, financial risk to the solar developers in terms of whether they'd be worthwhile developing a project and getting financing for a project with that added risk that they are prohibited from taking this, making this change. Laura. I was going to say I agree with you. Listen, it's a long time we're talking about here. I think people, you know, we want to motivate people to do the best they can, but I really don't, I think we want to encourage the right activities in Amherst, but I'm just also sensitive to language that I see a lot which is just making it more difficult for solar to get installed, period. A lot of things can happen over the term. Most of the time, these projects, it's not just the initial financing term, but the extensions of leases, I mean, these are long projects, so 35 years on average. I think discouraged, yes. Okay, okay. Janet and then Martha. So I kind of want to argue both ends of the argument, which of course is always my training. One of them is, as I'm looking at this language, I'm thinking there have to be seasoned, you know, even if you're growing crops, you might have a year or two that you want to graze animals on it. And I know Brookfield does that with their pigs and their hens and their cows as a way of, you know, enhancing the productivity of the soil, and I wouldn't want to get in the way of that. On the other hand, I know that, you know, like I think it's in Grafton, you know, somebody has like 12 cows and that's, you know, dual use. And then, you know, this out in the tank Linux, the proposal was for 18 sheep on like 20 acres as farming. And so I don't know how, you know, the state is regulating that in terms of like preventing, you know, just saying, okay, we'll throw some sheep on and now you're in dual use and you get your, you know, big adders per acre. And so I feel kind of maybe discouraged might be the best way or I don't want to discourage people using animals as a way of enhancing productivity of soil, you know, you know, as a regenerative farming technique. So I'm not sure there's an answer to say we want the best, you know, the best thing. So maybe discouraged is a good compromise. Alright, final word on this, Martha. Yeah, I mean, my concern is that it's so much easier for a nice big, for a big developer to come in and persuade the farmer that, oh, you know, be more profitable to you to just let me pay you for a nice big solar array than to grow your food crops. And we have, you know, our local concerns about wanting to preserve our local ability to grow foods. We have the state of making those statements of no net loss of, you know, forest and farmland. There ought to be a way to make a substitution. I mean, most farmers, you know, know their land. And they can say, oh, yeah, you know, this part of the land really is not as productive as gotten to soggy or whatever, whatever. But I can, you know, instead convert this other area to the food crops. So my concern is that it's just too easy to switch to pasture and make big development. We have no limits on the size of development and how much farmland can be just taken over. And yet it's very important that we preserve our ability to grow food crops. And so that's why I would like to say maybe I wonder if we could take out both the words discouraged and prohibited and just say something more general that if there's substitution of, you know, other uses such as grazing on prime farmland that is being used for food crops and then just say that another equal area should be converted to growing food crops and not use as strong language as prohibited but not use as weasley language as discouraged. So that's my concerns here is it makes it too easy to just stop growing food crops. And we had the other concern that since a lot of parts of farms in Amherst are actually rented by the farmer that suppose the owner comes along and says, gee, I could make more money if I just take this whole area and make it into solar panels. What happens to the livelihoods of the farmers who were rented? So those are my concerns. Yeah. I wish I knew them offhand, but there are guidances or regulations at DOER with regard to switching out crops for the dual use adder that gives some protection. But I don't know the details of those offhand. I'm not sure. I mean, we've had this language in here for a long time, it's saying, but Well, the discouraged language. Okay, Laura, and then I was going to say, can we just take a vote on this? Because I feel like we're so much to review. I actually just wonder, because we're changing the language now from discouraged to prohibited, unless you have another suggestion, I feel like we could take another 20 minutes talking about this concept. Let's take one more comment from Jan and then I think we're done. I think we could rework this a little bit saying if prime farmland currently being used for food crops is converted to grazing, other agricultural to grazing, then an equal or larger acreage of prime farmland. It's not pretty, but just basically say, if it's being used for vegetables and it's being converted to grazing, then you do the equal or larger acreage of prime farmland. I think that's doable in Amherst because there is a fair amount of farmland that is either fallow or being used as hay, and that could be easily converted to vegetables. I think if you do this, then you have to bring something back in. If we just change the word, as I say, change the wording, eliminate both the prohibited and discouraged. Janette, if maybe you could read it again, maybe we could vote. If prime farmland currently being used for food crops is converted to grazing, then an equal or larger acre prime farmland or land not being currently for farming will be converted to growth of food crops. That's not pretty, but I think that's the gist and I would let Chris make it more clear. It's just saying if you're doing that, then we still want vegetables to be grown as the highest use of the land. I don't think that would be a big burden. I guess my concern is trying to predict the future of what it looks like 20 years from now, but then also I would, to the extent that it was mentioned that there may be decent farming practice to convert a food crop acreage into hay or some other cover crop or grazing for a year or two and then convert it back. I would want to have sort of maybe if it's converted for two or more years or something along those lines. That's the trend is that there's more and more land in Amherst being used for vegetables, so it's not, you know, we're seeing that. Last word from Laura, and then if she's reasonably on board, we can go forward. If not, we can take a vote for sure. Yeah, I was going to make a motion. What is the, what's the proposed language now? What are we doing? Chris. Janet, I don't have it. I would have to go back and listen to the audio, so you said it and maybe you can. I'll try it again. If prime farmland currently being used for food crops is converted into grazing for more than a year or two, then an equal or larger acreage of prime farmland or land not being currently used for farming will be converted to the growth of food crops. It's not pretty, but I'm not in favor of that. I'm not in favor of that, guys. I just feel like it's so hard to develop solar anyways. I want agriboltaics. We're talking more than decades in the future right now. So my, my motion would be to, you know, rather than today, I thought the goal was to review the document, which is what I prepared to do, not create new language. So my motion would be to keep discouraged and to move on. Okay. No offense anyone. So Martha, Janet, love you guys, but that's my motion. All right, Jack, let's hear from Jack. Yeah, I just, I thought with regard to this trade off, that was, you know, something we're considering for forest land, but I'm not really, I think this is overreaching dealing with this, these types of provisions for the agricultural development. So I, yeah, I'm not for the change. Duane, sorry to jump in, but procedurally you have a motion. Yeah. So it either needs a second or not. If it doesn't get a second to just. What was the motion? To keep the original language of discouraged and not revised. So I second the motion to keep the original language of discouraged. And we can cite the section. Well, we can cite the section in the, in the minutes. Yeah. I can help with that, Dan. So, right, so I'm going to have to stop sharing because you do all on screen for a vote. So an affirmative vote is to keep the original language of discouraged. Correct. Right. Sorry, I'll get myself on here too. All right. So if you can make sure that your cameras are on and you are unmuted in no particular order, McGowan. Yes. Hander. No. Breger. Yes. Jempsack. Yes. Haglia Rulo. And Corcoran. Yes. Okay. So we'll keep the word discouraged as written. All right. Now we'll get back to sharing. Very good. Or is that a new hand, Janet? Yeah. So I'm feeling ambivalent because I'm not sure what it means to say it's discouraged, like what does it tell the committee to do? But also, Jack, I think you voted against the mitigation for forest lands. And so have you changed that view? I did. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't, uh, I don't recall what they, I can't really recall what the, uh, all the assumptions or basis for that, you know, my prior decisions. But I guess maybe the point here is we've just voted to keep this original language, which says discouraged, but there's still the phrase that follows, uh, which is, uh, so it's now is discouraged unless an equal or larger acreage of prime farmland dot, dot, dot. So it does sound like we're require, we're, we're discouraging it. But if, if, if they go ahead and, and change the land used to grazing, then they do need to put, uh, set aside this other land. Is that how you read that, Chris? I think that the phrase after the word prohibited is, um, a vest, a vestige of when we put in the word prohibited. And I probably should have highlighted that whole thing, starting with the word prohibited and ending with the word crops as being something for you to discuss and decide on. So in my opinion, it sounds like you're deciding not to have that final phrase unless an equal or larger acreage. If you go with the word discouraged, then everything after the word prohibited is dropped off. No, that's not what we voted on. That's not what you voted on. That's not what I think that's what we have to consider now. I think that's what you need to consider. Yeah. Cause I don't know if it makes sense otherwise. Uh, we're discouraging behavior, but requiring something if they, um, if they do it anyhow. I'm lost. Yeah. We're not requiring it. We're just saying it's discouraged. And unless you go put some other farmland into you somewhere else, I mean, that's, that wouldn't be discouraged. That can be just, that can be discouraged. That's still just, you know, not a requirement, but a, you know, what you might call guidance from our committee or something to say it's discouraged unless there's an equal amount put in somewhere else. That sounds reasonable. I think that sounds reasonable, but I don't know if that's clear in this language. Uh, I think maybe, maybe the comment doesn't belong there or something. I don't know how would a lawyer read that? I suggest perhaps you leave the language as is, which is what it was voted on and move on and maybe flag this in some way. Okay. If it's, if it's interpreted the way I think Martha just said in terms of it's discouraged, but it wouldn't be discouraged if they put land, uh, mitigate. Um, I think that's at least for me that's fine. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's move on then. Moving on to number four, LPG developer, applicant or landowner shall submit to the PGA an annual report on the agricultural performance and crop yields, such as that required for a qualified ASTGU, that's the state program, for the first five years, consistent with the plan submitted to the PGA prior to approval, as described above. So in other words, um, you have to submit every year, you have to submit a report similar to what would be required for, um, that state program for the first five years. That seems reasonable. That was a suggestion. I forgot to note who sent that, but I think it was Scott, Scott Cashion. I would maybe just add, uh, such as that required by the state or by DOER for a qualified ASTGU. By the state, by the state DOER. Yes. Okay. All right. Um, and then number five, a yearly report on erosion, bare earth weeds, and woody and invasive plants monitoring shall also be submitted to the PGA. And I think that was something Janet suggested. Okay. We should, maybe we should say a yearly report for how long, should that be for the first five years? Or is that an un-infinite item? Um, can I? Yeah, please, uh, Janet. So I, I can't remember if I read this on the Kip Kolinskis or the Scott Cashion stuff, but it seemed to me that like invasives were just a really serious problem. Um, and it could, you know, as we look at the woods happen any time. So I would say a yearly report just because, you know, I mean the, the people who run this are going to be out there all the time. And if they have a farming operation, you know, they should be, you know, it kind of makes them make sure they're having, you know, they're containing it. Um, I do wonder if the ASTGU, if that's a word, um, is just, they just require reporting on the farming for five years or is it constant reporting? It's constant for the, you know, the, the incentive at least, yeah. Yeah, it just seems to me that, you know, you want to make sure people to stay on the mark, you know, and so I don't, I'm not sure that, we need number five. It just seems like that was the serious problem of invasives. So I'm not going to die on this sort of it, but. So are you questioning in number four whether this should just be for the first five years? Well, it sounds like it will be covered anyway. So I'm not sure, you know, you know, the question is, does the town want to keep seeing that or not? I don't know. I was just curious about what the state requires. So what are we saying about this language in number four and five? Are we saying leave it alone with the way it is? I'm fine with it. And I've also understood from talking to other people that it's really hard to establish. The first five years is really a struggle to establish, you know, vegetation or even, you know, so that would be the part you may care about the most. So I'm fine with this language. So five years for both of them, Janet? Is what you're suggesting? Just leave it as it is. I mean, I think the invasives can come anytime. Yeah. And as Stephanie said, others will be looking at this afterwards and they will, you know, be picking this apart. So, okay. Maximum, excuse me, maximization. Sorry, Chris. Dan, sorry. Yeah, your report ad infinitum seems a little bit burdensome to me. I know with, like, for example, hazardous waste sites after, you know, the remedial action has been completed, they have what they call five-year reviews. So that, you know, when we're talking about, you only need to, you know, do an inspection of the site every five years for hazardous waste. And now we're talking about something much less harmful, invasive species, perhaps the same kind of reporting requirement would be appropriate here. Five-year reviews. Now, as Janet said, the most critical period is that first five years. So perhaps we could say a yearly report for the first five years and then a five-year review after that. Can we change the word yearly to annual? It's just a picky thing on my part. I like Dan's approach. So we're saying an annual report for the first five years and a report every five years after that. Jack. Yeah. Yeah, I commend Dan for referencing the Massachusetts contingency plan, well-written document. Okay. So we're all agreed with that. All right. Good. Let's move on. Okay. Maximization of ecosystem services. Applicants or project owners for LGPIs that involve the use of five acres of land or more that was previously undeveloped shall prepare an ecosystem services plan. The ecosystem services plan shall demonstrate to the satisfaction of the PGA that the site plan for the entire footprint of the project would maximize ecosystem services of the land and the land nearby to the extent reasonably feasible without significant harm to the performance or safety of the solar project. My own opinion is that that all makes sense except for and the land nearby because that implies that someone's going to go on to the land nearby which doesn't belong to the project owner or applicant. It belongs to somebody else and I think that's gonna that's a problem. Yeah, that would be a problem. Yeah, Martha. Yeah, just a quick editorial comment. This section called maximization of ecosystem services really isn't part of the farmland thing. This is a new section and so it ought to be in caps and made clear that it's not under the farmland. I should think. I think you're right. Okay. So a new section, capital, not under farmland. Yes. And you sent me a message about conservation in the next paragraph too. Yeah, good. Okay. All right. Laura, I'm sorry. Christian, we'll get going. I guess, Mike. So we talked about this, right? We talked about the ecosystem services plan in the previous meeting just to help dust off my memory. Is that right? Yeah. And we define it somewhere in this document or is it just defined right here? Yeah, I think it's in the definitions. Ecosystem services in the definitions. Yes. Yeah, I think it's fine. I just, I think it's a, I don't think they have any control over nearby land. Yeah, I agree. The parcel that we're talking about. And in fact, yeah, if there is access acreage outside of that fenced-in area, things like pollinators are so easy to create on any, I mean, really on any single solar array anywhere. So, and I think that's a massive service. So, okay, shall we move on? Yeah. Is it just abundantly clear that this would not apply to a dual use project? I think it applies to everything, doesn't, oh, doesn't it apply to everything? Yeah, does it, I'm not sure if food production is under ecosystem services. Oh, I see. Yeah. It couldn't be under dual use. No. Yeah. The land that was previously undeveloped. So, maybe that gets us out. Oh, that was previously undeveloped. Okay. Yeah, I think that would, that would be an out, yeah, certainly farmlands developed. Okay. The ecosystem services plan may include, and then it lists a bunch of things, maintain habitat, minimize bird deaths, because you can't really prevent them, and provide nesting habitat in or near the array, and allow passage of larger animals if array blocks a wildlife corridor. Those all seem reasonable to me. Do we have an existing, like, I guess my question is, if I was a developer and I happened to find a piece of land that would be suitable for solar and Amherst, is it hard enough? Is there an existing ecosystem services plan for another kind of development that they could say, oh, here's the template? Or is it like they're just kind of creating it from scratch? I don't think that there is a requirement for an ecosystem services plan unless the conservation commission has that. Certainly the planning board does not have that. I don't know if I've ever reviewed one on the conservation. Certainly nothing that's been defined as that. I mean, certainly we asked for things like, hey, demonstrate, you know, x, y, and z, but anyways, just thought we don't need to talk about it There is some detailed criteria for certified pollinator friendly PV. That's not from the town, but from our group that state has been state approved. So that's at least one thing if they do want to do it in terms of pollinator friendly, and it gets into wildlife friendly as well. That's at least a document that can be referenced. Okay. Okay. All right. Where are we? Wildlife Carter. The plan shall be vegetated with native species. So the land shall be vegetated rather than the plan land shall be vegetated with native species to avoid avoid the planting or growth of invasive species minimize the use of any herbicides or pesticides and limit the mowing and time of such mowing to accommodate ecosystem health, for example, nesting birds unless otherwise approved by the PGA. In addition, the plan should address impacts to landscape level movement of large animals mammals, excuse me. Okay. Applicant or project owner shall work throughout the project life to assure ecosystem services plan is implemented and shall report annually to the PGA on the status and actions taken to implement the plan and their meeting elections needed to rectify failures to meet the system ecosystem services objectives. Such remedial actions shall be reviewed and approved by the PGA and shall be implemented by the applicant or project owner. Any any objections to that? All right. Okay. The next part of this was added by Scott Cashion. It seems to me a little overreaching but we can read through it. Conservation measures. The project applicant or developer shall implement the nationwide standard conservation measures issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. No project activities that could impact nesting birds shall be conducted until the project applicant or developer has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the PGA that those activities would not violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Any dead or injured wildlife detected by the LGPI site at the LGPI site during construction operation or decommissioning of the project shall be documented in writing and with photographs and reported to the PGA within 72 hours of discovery. If the PGA determines that the LGPI is causing excessive wildlife fatalities or injuries, the applicant or project owner shall implement remedial actions and designed to reduce those fatalities. The efficacy of the remedial actions shall be documented in annual reports to the PGA. Erosionants. Could I just ask in the interest of time whether we might just scroll through and just ask if anybody has specific comments on any of these parts instead of reading at all? The time is just clicking away. That's the only reason for saying that. My general thought is that it is a bit specific and overreaching and not a lot of this might be applicable to other parts of the country more so. So I'm not drawn to the need for these additional criteria. But let me, Jack. Yeah, I'm in agreement, Duane. I just rather strike this and have this accompany the draft bylaw as separate comments to the other review bodies that come after us. All right. Laura. Yep, I'm in agreement. Janet. I completely agree. I read through these and I started researching some stuff and what these acts meant and I just thought this is so late in the process that I wish we had seen this earlier and it just seems not appropriate to consider. But I do think there's some really valuable things that would be helpful to the zoning board of appeals or the people like trapping animals and stuff, but maybe on a bigger project, not a small one. And so I agree. I think we should just say great ideas and the next step, those could be submitted or could be part of an appendix of like here's our two consultants that came and offered their views and they seem worthy. I just think it's, I mean, I don't want to keep reopening and adding new things that we haven't really looked at. But I do appreciate the detail and I just think it is probably too detailed for the bylaw anyway. So yeah, I think it might go more into sort of things that the Planning Commissioner, the Conservation Commission or the PGA would consider when they're looking at the plans of the developers and sort of maybe go back and say, oh, you didn't, you know, we'd like you to cover the pipes, for example. Or just that this could be edited down to a more readable version for somebody. But I don't think this is our time in our last meeting to start reopening and adding stuff that we don't know so much about. Okay, is there a consensus on that approach basically? And I agree, it's great to have this language in front of us and to get it to the town and sort of comments. Okay, then let's move on. Yeah. Okay, this is page 21, dimensional standards. Through this, so do we really need to read it? I don't need to read it. I think we've talked about these setbacks. Yeah, okay. Quite a bit earlier. All right. So I think we're good. Okay. Maybe just scroll through slowly. Energy storage systems. Yeah, okay. Now, we do have a battery energy storage bylaw that we've developed. But Martha felt that it was necessary to include these points, I think there are maybe 12 of them in the main body of the solar bylaw so that people were aware of them in case the battery storage bylaw didn't get adopted at the same time. So do you want to read through these or just scroll through them and people can comment on them? So I guess my own feeling is I hope that the battery storage bylaw gets adopted at the same time as the main solar bylaw. And in my mind that would not, so then we wouldn't need these things in here. But I understand Martha's point. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, let me hear what, well, Martha, you introduced these, so let's hear yours. Yeah, I mean, I feel that because the solar, because the battery storage bylaw is something very separate that we have never discussed and I'm not sure our committee can really approve today, but that's a separate issue. I feel that because the batteries are a very important part of these large solar arrays and there have been such problems that we need these very brief requirements in here. They all come from the National Fire Association's rules and regulations. And so it's pretty straightforward here that, you know, no long ramifications. They're either these statements are either straight from the way or bylaw that Chris has referenced, or from the National Fire Protection Association. And so they're just, you know, mostly just one-liners. The most key things are saying that we need to, that the requirements of the Massachusetts laws, plus the National Fire Protection Association, 855 need to be followed, and that our fire department needs to review and approve of the battery storage plans that had a mitigation, et cetera, before the ZBA or criminal granting authority approves. And those are really the key things. There's nothing, you know, new or unusual in here, as far as I can tell. But I think it's necessary to include this section in a solar bylaw. So that's my comments. Thank you. All right, Laura. First of all, Martha, thanks for drafting this. I think that's the first thing. I would, my sense of this is so battery storage is obviously, whether it's standalone, we're talking about now, those that are only coupled with solar, or just broad, like, across the board. This is only for the solar. Okay, all right. I would say, I think what you said, so my understanding of this space, and we're starting to do a lot of this kind of work right now, is that it's just evolving so quickly. And that I would actually, and this has got to be a living document. So I would actually just keep it to the, you know, the two authorities that you mentioned, and there might be others, honestly, but that you're meeting all standards of that. If it's NFPA, and then, obviously, the fire department has to sign off. I mean, that's going to be a permitting matter. Like, I think no matter what we say, I think the only, like, I just want to keep it high level just because this is going to be opened again, like, I feel like very soon. The number four, I'm not sure when you might know this, but I just know like, for example, you know, battery storage is, as well as transmission, a massive part of our renewable energy revolution. And if there's the ability to put in more capacity, I mean, these are small units. I don't know if you want to cap it. I don't know. I'm not an expert in battery storage. So that came from the where by-law that Chris had referenced. Yeah, no. And I'm just saying, like, I don't know. That could be, I mean, if there's a big environmental benefit for adding, like, another 500kW, who are we to say no? I mean. Yeah. Is that something that would be part of the other general battery storage by-law? I feel like things like annual training might be overkill. They need to cut, I mean, I just don't want to be so prescriptive, but like water supply, you know, I just think, my view is just keep at high level. It needs to adhere to these standards only because I don't think anyone here is an expert on, you want to make sure it's safe. I don't know. That's just my thought. Yeah. I appreciate you drafting this. That's what I want to say. I just, you know. Yeah. I mean, I tried to keep it general. The thing about the annual training came from the reports of those fires in New York state that have happened recently and a couple of cases where the town said, oh, our fire department never knew about this or something. Yeah. I know. I mean, it's a good point. Maybe it's so obvious it doesn't need to be said. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think you're going to get to a point with battery storage. And I'm already seeing this where like basically you have like signs that say, do not like touch in the event of fire. I mean, it's going to be like so in your face. Yeah. But, you know, so anyways, water supply, things like that. I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That's all. So I don't feel, I don't know if I feel I hear you, Chris, that you want to include something, but aside from like high level stuff, I love having these recommendations. Originally, I'd written a paragraph, which isn't necessary to include, but said something about that research on battery storage is evolving. And hopefully by the end of a decade, we'll have, you know, new kind, much more state. But for the moment, because we have the lithium ion batteries primarily that we need these requirements. So I don't know. And also, I'll say this, like I was just in New York City for the past two days and they approved, I mean, big battery storage facilities right in downtown Manhattan, all over the place. So I mean, they're getting done everywhere. And there's a massive need there, because that's where you need to store energy, not just solar. These are standalone systems, but anyways. When I worked at JPL, which was the 1980s and 1990s, they had a huge battery storage system because they had to be in communication with their spacecraft, even if the power went down. And so I keep wondering, my goodness, how did they do advantage of that back then? And then I think, I'm sorry, I'll shut up now, but never mind. I just, I don't know if I feel, except for high level, I'm not, I don't know, water supply needs, this implies that water is important for thermal runway. I know it's from, from where, but is where the expert on battery storage? No. I mean, I'd rather look at like New York City and say, what the hell are they doing to get comfortable with battery storage, like in the most urban areas? So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. All right, good. Yeah, I would agree. Let's keep this just the bare necessities. And, and it may be also some language about that. I presume it's this, the battery bylaw that would sort of be the more bylaw that would be updated on a more regular basis as technology and issues change. So maybe some language here that says that these, any rules here are, are, are preceded by any changes in the by, in the battery bylaw. Did you mean superseded? Superceded. Is that, is that the proper superseded? Yeah. Superceded. More than preceded. Superceded. Can you say that again? I think I missed your point somehow. Just to the extent that we don't want to have two, the town doesn't want to have two potentially inconsistent bylaws on this topic about batteries. So if it's going to be the battery bylaw that covers sort of siting and zoning around batteries, then there should be some language here that says that any bylaw stated here is superseded by the, by the battery bylaw. I don't know. I think numbers one and two are certainly important, no matter what the battery storage bylaw says. But wouldn't they say this? Wouldn't they say these same things? We don't know. Number one. We don't know. I mean, they don't, then they don't, for a good reason, presumably. Yeah. So we could take the route of just leaving this in and having Chris Baskham review it. Let me just send it from Jack. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to, the, the Water Supply Protection Committee spoke about batteries quite a bit. And the water supply, I mean, it's not going to be there to put out flames. It's more for smoke controls, my understanding. And that, you know, I mean, I guess it's all good. And it is awful late, but. Yeah. I guess that water supply, the fire department has some tank trucks, right? Yeah. Yeah. That one can be struck, do you think? Yeah. Number six. Yeah. That came, I think, from the National Fire Protection Association description of, oh, well, you needed to cool the thing with water, even though you would not put out an electrical fire. Yeah. Cool the outside. So. Yeah. Yeah. As long as the Amherst Fire Department are the ones that have to review the plans, then if they feel water was important, they could, they could say that. Yeah. And the, the where battery bylaws, was that supported by the Piner Valley Planning Commission? Do you recall, Chris? Yes, it was written in tandem with the Planning Department and the Piner Valley Planning Commission. Yeah. In where? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So six come out then. I guess I do. Yeah, I do have an issue, as was sort of mentioned, or at least with, sorry, it's scrolling, which one is it? Four. Yeah. How about saying, unless, unless granted by the PGA or? Yeah, I think there, you know, there are guidelines of what size batteries you should have with the PV array based on DOER. Yes. But as stated, there may be very good reason to put more batteries there if it's a good site for batteries. And, and there's good, good need for additional storage. I wouldn't necessarily want to prohibit that. Yeah. And the way it's written, it's not really clear what capacity that is anyhow. Shall not exceed the capacity necessary to store the energy generated by the onsite array over what period of time you would need to have sort of presumably daily, but not, not clear. So I would, I would not. So, so it's going to add unless something by the approved by the less approved by the yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. All right. All right. So we'll strike a few of these things and then sort of clean them up, I guess, but Janet. So I appreciate that Martha is doing this and I also appreciate how hard it is to go line by line. We haven't discussed batteries and, and I just, this looks like a good list to me of things based on, you know, the little gleaming things. I haven't done any research myself. And so I don't, you know, this seems like a good list and I would support it. But I just don't really, we haven't really covered this in a year and a half. And so I'm just sort of struggling. I had two, two questions for Laura. But I do want to, you know, I always think like at the beginning of the by the section, it should be a legal standard. And so I thought we should add in the first paragraph, all battery systems must safely contain fires and thermal runaway and prevent the release of toxic fumes. So that's, you know, I mean, I think that's upfront that, you know, that has to be the, the industry is going for. And it also alerts everybody to what the risks are. And I know this battery stuff is, you know, the brave new world. My husband was just at the international, you know, electric truck thing. And all people did was talk about battery safety. And we're not there yet. And, you know, because there's fires in all different ways. And, you know, we're not sure that all the manufacturers are meeting standards or even know how they're, how their equipment operates over time. So I think having a standard of saying, everything has to, you know, contain fire, thermal runaway and toxic fumes is telling, you know, this is what the system has to do. And I think Martha's, you know, things are giving what we know, and we've heard about, but I don't, you know, when we go into the separate best system, I don't think I have really any knowledge or background or enough to basically say, oh, this is a good bylaw versus the one that conquered did or somebody else. So anyway, so I'd like to add that in. And then I have a few questions for Laura. So I mean, I was wondering, do these standards include onsite generators, you know, that because if you lose power, you can't keep your batteries warm and you can't keep them cold. And, you know, and then I wondered about placement. Is there, you know, the idea of placing it next to trees sounds terrible to me. Maybe it's better to put the system further in the array. And so I just, I could probably ask like 20 questions because we really haven't discussed this. Yeah. Go ahead, Laura, if you had a response. So I think in general, I agree with Jenna and that we haven't really talked about battery storage at all. And it seems like aside from like just the blanket language, it's hard to say, oh, here are the setbacks required and so forth. I do know that there seems to be not unlike there was with solar years ago, a lot of fear around battery storage. And, you know, I think that while there definitely have been fires like Mimata, there are so many of these systems that I've been operating for years in California, downtown Phoenix, New York City, Long Island. Because I can't, I can't, I can't say the math like they're like, we need a capacity to like to store output for renewables. Otherwise, we're not going to have more renewables because the grid or we're going to build all new transmission, which is in my opinion also mean that's a requirement to cut down trees. So, you know, I just see this as things like, you know, like, you know, lithium ion batteries, I have it in my like the car, I have it on my cell phone right next to me right now. I just think, I don't personally think we're in a place to, you know, I agree with what Janet said, which was they need to meet, you know, all fire requirements. And then you had something said something about thermal runout, but like that's kind of beyond us. I mean, that's like permitting. And, you know, I'm not tracking like the best practices nationally. So, I think we're going to have another committee. Can't wait to sign up for that. Another two years. Let's just start it off right now. So, if I can respond, Laura, if you put a battery storage system 10 feet in my property line, I would say not in my backyard, not in your backyard. It's not. No, because they're going on rooftops of coals of Amazon. They're going on like, I wanted to say like, we're a microcosm here in Amherst. These systems with the right technology are going up everywhere because there's, there's not a, and they're actually like, when you look at the amount of, like, for example, when you look at like the fire, when fires happen, I don't know this technology that's mentioned here. Like mostly I see like, Fluence or Tesla or things like more known technologies. But, but there's so many of them that we're focusing on like the bad examples and I'm not saying it's not possible. But in my mind, if the risk is fire, then the fire department just needs to know, let it burn. Don't touch it. The risk is explosion if you open it, right? And I think we all know that now. But when these things burn, I don't know if you, you know, like, anyways, I just, I don't want to argue with you, but I wouldn't say not in my backyard. You know, I have a giant electric battery in my garage right now. That is exactly the same technology as what we're talking about here. So if you research this, you have people in California whose cars are, you know, their Tesla ignites and burns their whole house down. This is actually my husband's field. And I was talking to him to go, yeah, we only had one fire. Fortunately, it was at the bus depot. It wasn't when the bus was in motion. And so that's happened to other companies. This is a technology that, you know, and, you know, every manufacturer isn't the same. So I do think we need you to say, all battery systems must safely contain fires and thermal runaway and prevent the release of toxic fumes. I think the 100 foot thing, if you lived, you know, it's like 100 feet isn't that far. It's windy around here. If there is fires, then you have leaves blowing and you, you know, you have. But what happens to your pieces of like, we want things on roofs and things like that, if it's contained and it's fireproof, someone wants to put it on the roof, you know, a building owner says, you know what, I'm comfortable. Like we're seeing a lot of this. I'm just, I think, I think what you said is good about the first of the safety requirements. I don't see any issues in that. But as far as like setbacks right now, I'm not comfortable saying that because I'm just not seeing it right now. I'm seeing it like really embedded in daily life with people. So. Well, Lisa, we're talking about large scale, ground mounted that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's what I'm talking about. I mean, like, five megawatt systems on top of large commercial rooftops. Well, that's actually our by law doesn't cover that. Our by law is talking about ground mounted. Okay. Even, even ground mounted. I'm saying like, we're drawing from the limited experience of like, the fires that have occurred. I'm literally just telling you, I just came back from New York, where I just looked at six, five megawatt projects cited all in Manhattan, you know, so, and then our fire departments are going forward. So I just don't think, I'm not in a place to say the setback should be this, like, I'm not an expert on this. So I think, I don't necessarily think we're disagreeing, but I don't see the same amount of fear that you, I'm not comfortable saying it should be this setback or this setback. I just think, needs to be safe, whatever the guidelines is, that's what it should be. That's what it should be. That's my opinion. So. All right. Do we have any sort of thoughts about how we should move forward with this section? I'm sort of getting the sense that it should be a more general statements at that high level that I think Janet had sort of put forward and maybe just leave it at that with some reference to that, the potential battery standalone battery bylaw. Go ahead, Martha. Yes. Well, I mean, just for comparison, I just want us to remember that the Space Shuttle program was 98% effective. And that sounds like a great record until the Challenger explosion, right? And so here, yes, fires are rare, but they do happen. And I feel pretty strongly that we've got to have at least some standard things right in here in our bylaw, recognizing that at the present time, fires can happen and they can be disastrous if they do. The reason for the setbacks was because the fires in New York State and other places have in fact caused leaks of toxic gases or leaks of toxic material that then could go down into the water supply. And you know, when foams with PFAS have been used and so on by fire departments, they have gotten into water supplies. That was the reason for the 400 feet. So I would, my suggestion would be that we add a beginning paragraph in this section that says two concepts. One, that yes, there's going to be a general battery storage bylaw coming, but the two, the statements about how we hope in ensuing years, by the end of a decade, the problem of battery fires will have been researched and taken care of, but for the present time, because we've seen examples of the lithium-ion fires that have been very serious, we have to have this included. Have those two statements then have the list of these general things omitting the specific ones about having the water and how far from trees and so on, but I would say keeping the 400 feet from well's statement in there and just let it go. Because alternatively, Mr. Chairman, we may need another meeting because we are not getting through this in a timely manner and we do have other things to discuss. Not to mention, you know, the whole next steps and procedures is something that's new and we do need some time to discuss because at least I have a few questions about that process. So either we Yeah, so what do you want to do here? I would suggest we sort of minimize this section to that sort of higher level statement. These are the goals that zoning should espouse to with regard to of minimizing or reducing potential fires and so forth. It should reference the other the other bylaw forthcoming. I think to Lar's point, I wouldn't necessarily want to put in any specs in there with regard to distances and so forth because I don't think we have sort of that knowledge base is my own thought. Yes, we do. We have quite a bit of knowledge actually. Well, 400 feet. I don't where 400 feet came from versus 100 feet. I thought 100 feet was in here. No, 100 feet is for the overall 400 feet comes from the I think it's the National Fire Protection literature plus the writings on the explosions and toxic releases that have occurred with batteries that you don't want them within 400 feet of a water supply. Go ahead, Jack. And then we'll try to wrap this up. I just wonder if we could take a small break midway for the delay our progress, but necessary. Yeah, sounds good, Jack. Well, it's Chris is occupied there. I just want to get let me just look at my draft of how much more we have here. Yeah, we have the whole introduction that got rewritten that we need to go back and address. I think we've gone through a fair amount. Okay. But after this section, there might not be much more. Yep. Well, our people, I wouldn't mind resolving the storage thing and then we can take a break. Yeah, unless people want to ponder on it over a five minute break. I'm sorry I missed like a couple of sentences of that discussion. Was there a conclusion that was reached? No, other than to potentially take a break. Can I make? I don't know what the motion is right now, but like there's no motion. Yep. Well, no, I might make one. That's what I'm saying. I think, you know, what I'm hearing and tell me if I'm wrong with Martha and Jenna and others is to, I mean, maybe I'm actually totally wrong, but what I would, what my vote would be to just keep it broad at a high level, what Jenna had indicated before and referencing third parties that have far more expertise than we do. And I know we like to think we're experts in this, but we're definitely not. Like, I've been in this space for 17 years and like I'm learning about battery storage, new things like this in this recent meeting is like, oh, interesting. So I just, I vote we rewrite it very high level. And I think that's the best we can do right now because we're, you know, already six months over. Yeah. Okay. But what does that mean? Because I would, I would say that numbers, that Janet's statement plus numbers one and two. And maybe. Yeah, I think that's fine. And then just I would like to see included that would be good with one and two. Yeah. And I think so too. And then as amended, when new information comes out, I mean, basically, you know what I mean? It's like those two things. And, you know, this acknowledging that, you know, that new research and guidance is going to be presented to the market. So we just need to stay on top of it. All right. Are we good generally with that? And, and Chris, do you, is that enough for you to work with? Okay. So as long as those, you know, couple of most important things get included and then would a couple of general statements and. Yep. Yeah. I have a question if I could just jump in. I mean, I wouldn't mind taking your break either, but didn't the 100 feet come from Chris Bascom? Am I the fire? Chris, he actually didn't have that 100 feet. No, he said 10 feet. So we kind of overrode his recommendation and said, that doesn't sound like enough. Let's go with 100 feet. So discussing this before. So I'm kind of, yeah, I can send you his email. No, I trust you. I remember that. Yeah. Okay. Because I just think, let's keep it, if you feel good about that, Chris, I'm sure you'll find great language at the end of the day. I mean, another alternative is to have Chris go off and do the redo this section based on our comments, and then email it to us to ask whether, you know, we have, we approve the general language. Let's try to avoid that. I think, I think we gave Chris enough a general statement and the numbers one and two. And, and I think that we'll, we'll cover it. Okay. Let's start up at the next section here, but after a five minute break. Is that okay for folks? So at one 33 or so, we'll reconvene. Yeah. Okay. Dwayne, could I just take a minute then with you again, trying to be the timekeeper or something? It seems to me that most of the rest of this from, you know, from here to the end were things that we discussed and pretty much agreed upon some month, you know, weeks to months ago. And I'm wondering if we could just ask if anybody has any specific comments of any of those sections from then to page 25. I would, with the exception of whether Chris specifically wants us to provide some input to her on any of the sections that she's worked on and kind of added stuff, but wasn't really fully confident that we would all be on board. Yeah. Okay. But just you'll see how the time is running. And then the one section that I am concerned about is that the introduction, you know, Steve added a lot of new ideas and things that we've never discussed and that I therefore really question, you know, again, it's the last minute that stuff got added and we don't have time to discuss. So I'd like to do that. And then the process that we have. Yeah. And that's pretty well. We really need to have some time and not just try to, you know, do that in the last 35 minutes. So that would be my concerns there. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's go. Take a break. All right, everybody. Maybe you can just put your video on just so we know where who's back. Right. So the plan if now is we have an hour and a half, I'd like to leave at least a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes even to go through the next steps and hear from public comments at the end. And so I don't know how many pages, but we have a decent number of pages, but much of this we've have been through before. So what I like to do is with Chris's guidance here is really to look at the different sections, but really just look at them holistically. Ask if there's any comments or concerns by the group. Ask Chris if you had any specific sections that you still need and want input on. And then we can go to the next section and then finish this out in fairly efficiently. So whoops, I'm looking over here. But can we, is that sound okay? Then we can maybe reshare this, share the screen again and work through the stormwater management section, which I think we've been through, but there's some added stuff here. So do you want me to just share from where we left off where I scrolled? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's basically what we're going to do. Yeah, exactly. So stormwater management, I have to say that it's unusual to have a section on stormwater management in the zoning bylaw because generally speaking, that's handled by best practices with DEP and also the conservation commission. But we do have this pretty robust section on stormwater management in here. And it refers to a lot of the things that we already do, state and local laws relating to this. And then we make reference to a specific document, I think it's on the next page, the Minnesota Stormwater Manual that talks about not undermining soils during construction activities. So I think we really have quite a lot in here, much more than is typical. I don't necessarily think we have to go over any of it, unless other people want to. I just a point of clarification, I guess, on these bullets under Minnesota, are all those bullets from this Minnesota? No. No. Yeah, okay. The Minnesota manual really goes to the bullet right before projects that are unable to minimize disturbance or grading activities may employ soil landscape restoration and soil amendment such as those described in the following document. And the following document is the Minnesota Stormwater Manual, which doesn't really have any force of law in Massachusetts, but it's more of a reference for people to see, oh, you could do it this way. Okay. So the remainder of these bullets are just a continuation of the bullets from before. That's right. Okay. All right. So unless anyone feels like we need to go over these, I don't think I need to go over them. And then the next section. I did have, let me just, I mean, like the bullet down towards like three quarters the way down that says the lowest vertical clearance of a solar array panel shall be an elevation of 10 feet or less. I think that has to do with people fearing that if it's any higher, it's going to have a more detrimental effect when water hits it and it's going to hit the ground at a, you know, greater velocity. Okay. So 10 feet or less. Okay. Yeah, the use arrays need to be up at least eight to 10 feet. I didn't understand that, but I felt like it was way out of my wheelhouse. So if it makes sense to people in the industry, then it's fine, but I didn't understand what was where. And we do say heights greater than 10 feet shall be approved by the PGA. So there's an out there. You don't have to adhere to the 10 feet if you get permission from the PGA. Okay. Okay. All right. Got you. Okay. Jack, before we go. Yeah, just from recollection, the white paper from the water spike protection committee spoke to this as being important. The unique nature of solar developments covering a larger area, not as intense disturbance as a residential development, but it tends to have, you know, a wider expanse. And so, and obviously the issues that we've seen in the region stem from poor stormwater management, you know, practices and monitoring and follow up and all those sorts of things. So obviously I'm good with, you know, not overreaching anything here, but, you know, stating how important this is to the success of the project. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I had misread that. So I apologize for that. Okay. All right. All right. Then we have protection of drinking water supplies. And this came from the white paper. So they had a list of things that they wanted to make sure we included. And I think I included all of them. They had a diff, they differed from us in our slope that, you know, we had said that we would allow solar arrays on slopes up to 15%. And they said they would allow solar arrays on slopes up to 33%. So I stuck with the 15% here. Then they talked about synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. And Scott Cashin had something to say about that. I think he said it in a different context, but let's see. What did he say? Not within 150 feet of wetlands or other sensitive natural communities. Same applies for refueling of equipment. Oh, that's a different comment. I'm sorry. So organic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers may be used if necessary. You know, I'm not really sure what we should say about that. Janet brought up the issue of whether this conflicts with state law and the, I forget what it's called, the Pesticides, Something Act, Control Act. Is that right, Janet? Pesticides, Control Act. It's like FIFA or something like that. I can't remember the name of the state act, but yeah. So maybe we shouldn't have these things in yellow here in our bylaw because they are superseded by the state. I think we also had something when we talked about ecosystem services that pesticides, I believe, were to be not used unless approved by the PGA. Oh, right. Yep. So I think that is probably good language more so than just banning them here. Yeah. I think this is an issue we should have the town attorney, you know, say, can't do that or here's a way to reword it or something. But yeah, I think the state law preempts local regulation, but I'm not sure of all the contours of that. Right. In fact, I sent an email to him to one of the town attorneys and they responded saying they agreed with Janet that we shouldn't, you know, talk about use of synthetic, we shouldn't talk about use of pesticides and fertilizers. So that probably needs to be clarified. Oh, just a comment from Jack. Yeah, I agree with what everyone's saying, you know, it adequately regulated elsewhere. We don't need to be, you know, stating specifics within this bylaw. Okay. There should be no oil, hazardous materials, cleansers or other potential contaminants stored in no disturbed areas, nor within wetlands or other sensitive area, natural communities, nor within 150 feet of wetlands or other sensitive natural communities, nor shall there be any refueling of equipment maintenance activities in these areas. That's all seems reasonable to me. That was something that was contributed by Scott Cashion. Chris, I'm just going to jump in real quick with, you know, distances for wetlands. I think we need to refer to our own wetlands bylaw in terms of setbacks and distances. So you might, I think we can, I think this will just get flagged for something that our wetlands administrator would review. Okay. Maybe you should say just within a distance it's as specified by the wetlands act. We can say the buffer zone of the wetland, right? Well, you know, I think Stephanie's right. We should have Erin look at this and she'll tell us what to say. Okay. And then this last thing, I wasn't sure if nearby within X feed private wells run dry, the owner operator of the LGPI shall study the case causes and it found to be caused by the LGPI. The owner operator shall take necessary steps to remedy the problem. I'm not sure how that would be revealed. I suppose it would be revealed if someone who had a well in the vicinity complained about the well running dry. Yeah. So a lot of the people who have attended have been on private wells and there's a lot of concern about this. And if the array doesn't affect private wells, it won't. It's not unheard of for wells to run dry in really dry times. So I was sort of thinking this through like, how do we address that concern? And you don't want to put it all in the private well landowners because that could be like you could they could sue them for nuisance and then as well as discovery and blah, blah, blah. And that's a huge financial burden to put it on the private landowners. But if the solar array did affect how the ground absorbed water and distributed it, then they should fix that. And so this language is trying to see to make sure those private well owners are protected. And I was trying to like kind of and I figured the deeper pocket is going to be the array and possibly the cause. And then if it's just a dry season, I doubt anyone's going to complain about that because they've had that experience. So I was trying to think about what happens if the array is diverting because you're collecting all your surface water and you're putting it into a holding retention tank. But maybe that's doing that, diverting it to that is actually preventing from the groundwater from naturally recharging. And no one's going to do that before the arrays put in. But what if the effect is that way? So that was my thinking. I was trying to like, address interests and make sure they're protected. Okay, Jack and then Dan, Jack and then Dan. Yeah, I just want to say that we really can't have that last bullet there. We've established that conversion of solar from either grassland or forest is going to enhance groundwater recharge. So this, and again, also, and then also this is like just putting someone legally something that needs to be termed outside of cause of well problems is a very tricky business, which I'm involved with all the time. So I don't think we want that in here. I don't think we're going to need it, but also I just think it's going to open up a lot of liability, unnecessary liability for the developer. Yeah, Dan, Dan. Yeah, Jack said basically what I was going to say, there's no reasonable explanation for why a solar array could reduce, could lower water levels in an aquifer. And so creating that kind of yeah, it's just unreasonable. Because there's no explanation for why that could possibly be the case. Yeah. So there is, you do have a private cause of action in nuisance when you're the next or neighbor affects you. So that's still there. So I'm willing to withdraw it, but I was trying to think of something, and I don't think we can predict how water moves underground and it doesn't seem inconceivable. We can predict how water moves underground. I do for a living. So anyway, so I'm willing to withdraw it, but I was trying to think of a way to address concerns. I agree with Jack and Dan. There's no expectation that this would be an issue, or we shouldn't anticipate, raise expectation that it should be an issue. If anything, there should be more recharge. I don't, assuming they follow the rules of vegetation so forth, there's going to be plenty of recharge or not collecting water and storing it away for the most part. And so yeah, unless anybody objects further, I'd suggest we start with such a bullet. Yep. Okay. All right. Let's continue. Sorry, I was muted. Go down to reporting. Yep. So during construction, third party inspector shall submit reports on a weekly basis and after large storm events. And then Scott Cashion had recommended some language. Let's see what he said. Need to specify what should be reported in this weekly report status of construction activities, BMPs, storm water controls, any issues of how those issues are being addressed and the timeline for implementation. There needs to be a mechanism for ensuring any construction related issues are promptly addressed. And then he's reviewed lots of these monitoring reports. So if you want me to, I can add language to that effect. I didn't have time to, you know, kind of like figure out what the wording would be. Should I add that language? I think for good writing, it would be helpful to have some specificity of what should be in that report. Maybe it should be, you know, caveated by as prescribed, you know, for example, these things, but as determined by the PGA. Okay. I'm sorry, Dwayne, you're saying this language and then say as determined by the PGA? The PGA would list what they want in the report and they could base it on these things. Yeah. But the language could include such as these things. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. Oh, let's see. You know, there's something added there. Post construction, the owner or operator of the LPG, LGPI, shall submit a report with photographs within 48 hours of a large storm event. So this is after construction is finished. The report shall describe any evidence of erosion and sedimentation and the condition of ground surface soils, ground cover, stormwater devices. And if remedial actions are needed, the report shall discuss the proposed remedial actions. So how long does this go on? Does this go on, you know, for the remainder of the life of the solar array? Or does it only, is it for five years? So can you scroll up a bit, Stephanie, to this? Yeah. Yes, there. There we go. So what do people think about that? Yeah, I would take it into account that large rain events are probably going to become pretty numerous in the next 20, 30 years while these projects are out there. And that once these sites are well established, they should be fine or at least no worse off than the rest of the meadows and fields that we have. So I guess, I mean, my inclination would be to limit it to like the first year, I mean, sorry, the first five years. First five years. I think that's right. Yep. Without objection. Okay. Now what's the next one? I don't know if I have an objection if I can jump in. So I was at one of the arrays in Amherst, and it's been around for a bunch of years. And a lot of the erosion control devices were sort of torn. And you could see there was runoff and mud and stuff. And I wondered, you know, I can't remember if it's this by law or something, but just saying, oh, inspect it yearly. I don't know if you should inspect it after every storm event, you know, given that that could be like 20 times a year. But I think that we can't just say, oh, your erosion control device, things are in. And then 15 years later, really expect that the fabric or the tubing and stuff is still there. So I think I'd like to see like looking at it at least twice a year, three four times a year. I'm assuming their people are on site. But when I went to this array in North Amherst, I had popped over once and it was like, these things will kind of warn. And after a big storm, they were like there was hull sections that were kind of broken open. And I wondered, you know, what's the monitoring of it, you know, the array is still working. It's just the erosion control. Some of the areas weren't. And so how do you require people to look regularly enough to keep your, you know, your erosion control in good condition? May I say something? Yeah, go ahead. So the the erosion control is really just supposed to be there until the final inspection. And once the final inspection occurs, all of that erosion control, those silt fences and those tubes and everything can be taken off the site. And then you rely on your permanent stormwater management construction, whatever that is, you know, detention basins and swales and things like that. So the fact that those things were in a ragged shape, in my opinion, means that nobody ever bothered to remove them rather than that they were now nonfunctional because they don't need to be functional anymore if the site has been declared to be finished. All right, Laura. Yeah, no, my comment is, I think, you know, to Chris's point, whatever we normally do for installations after the final building permits in place is what we should do here. I don't think there's any reason to say you put up a new residential building and we don't, you know, we don't require reports moving forward all of a sudden solar and we have to, you know, do more reporting and so, you know, I personally think that, you know, it's just, it's seeming a little onerous, that's all. So after that final inspections in place, I don't think we need for regular ongoing reports. Unless we do it for something else, I stand corrected if we do. But, you know, if we don't, then I don't see why we should impose additional role here. Well, I think then the permit would be requiring that, you know, service waters don't have erosion. So is that, that's common for, you know, a subdivision permit and things like that, right, Chris? The conservation commission would have such conditions if it had anything to do with a wetland and the planning board or the zoning board of appeals could impose such conditions if, if they had jurisdiction. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. All right. Let's see. Modifications. There's not much change there. The word substantial was added, I think. So we don't really need to talk about that too much. Oh, on page 27, abandonment or decommissioning. Any LGPI. So this is something Martha brought up, but it was also something raised by Scott Cashion. Talking about nameplate capacity is somewhat misleading because nameplate capacity has to do with the capacity that something is, is, is deemed to have in a factory setting. Whereas when you're actually out in the field because of where you are in terms of like where the sun is and what your slope is and all kinds of other things and, and where you are in terms of latitude, I guess. The nameplate nameplate capacity is never realized. And so there's this capacity factor, which Martha has drawn us our attention to. And so when we say when something is operating at less than 25% of its nameplate capacity, well, in fact, most of these arrays operate at, you know, 14 to 16% of their nameplate capacity. So I think, is that wrong? No. Well, yes. No, yes. So how do we deal with this issue, right? Yeah, the array does have and a nameplate capacity is a well not known thing that's a solar project will have a designated nameplate capacity. It's how many kilowatts or megawatts it is in terms of its total capacity and, and how much it would generate on at full sun at noon on a clear day. I think it might have to be in the equator. But anyhow, that's, that's your capacity. It's, it's, you know, except for those rare times when it's perfectly clear and it's noon, and it's facing exactly the the array, it's never going to be operating at that full capacity, but it's going to be operating closely. But it's always going to be operating at 0% of its nameplate capacity every day in the middle of the night. And so, you know, saying that has to operate, if I think it's not correct to say operating at less than 25% of its nameplate capacity, because it's, it's, it's operating at different capacities all the time. But it's also not correct to say less than 25% of its capacity factor, because also the capacity factor is, is really has to be looked at over the course of a year. Because a project in Massachusetts would generally have like a 14% capacity factor, but it has a zero, it's operating at a 0% capacity in the middle of the night. It's operating generally at much close to 100, 100% capacity factor in the middle of the summer on a clear day. But over the course of the year, it averages out to about 13, 14% in Massachusetts. So I think the intent of this section was to require or at least proceed with some removal requirements, if the thing is kind of abandoned and or just not operating anywhere near its abilities, less than 25% of its ability. But I don't think either nameplate capacity or capacity factor quite get us there. My suggestion would just be to say average capacity factor. That seems to be the term that's used. Well, I would say, well, and also keep mind that a project does not have a spec on it that's given that says states its capacity factor like a nameplate capacity. I'm going to say, aren't they reporting their annual like output to the board? Or enough output is the right word. Yeah. Well, they generate, they report their output to the state and to the New England generation information system, but that's not necessarily public information, I don't think. I thought they reported it to the planning board or the board for some reason, but maybe I'm lost in the sauce here. I think that's some agricultural capacity, agricultural production, not production of electricity. If we said annual, if it's operating at less than 25%, if it's operating at an annual less than 25% of a 14% capacity factor over the course of the year, then that would, I think, would do what we wanted it to do. Yeah. But of course, we don't want to wait a year. Can't we just say average capacity factor? Doesn't that just cover it? The capacity factor changes daily and seasonally. Yes, but if you say average. Average over what period of time? You need sort of a year, I think, to get that full effect. I mean, we're not going to, you know, I think you need at least a year before you tell somebody to remove it because it's not underperforming. Yeah. We just want some, I guess, just some means of saying, well, it's just giving out dribbles and drabs now. It's not really functioning well. I don't know how you say that. Well, I did provide a suggestion to Chris. Basically, I think it's commonly accepted that capacity factors for solar projects in Massachusetts are about 14% over the course of the year. I don't think Laura could opine on that, but I think that's generally accepted and derived by DOER each year. I think you want to say if it's operating, if the output is less than 25% of its name filly capacity times 8,760 hours in a year times 14% over the course of a year, over the course of a year, then you're going to be subject to this paragraph. Okay. I think we want to subject anybody to this unless there's like a year worth of data. Does this happen often? Not really. I mean, there's a lot of money at stake here. I think that you'd have a huge incentive to keep your panels up to date and going. It's almost like there's a catastrophic failure for some reason. I don't know. It's possible that you run out of money for replacing worn out panels or something, but inverter. Yeah. No, not possible. I haven't seen you. Not possible financially. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that these are so valuable that once they get put in, they're going to stay for decades and decades and be upgraded. It makes sense to me. I mean, I guess there's a question then, do we need anything here or is it going to, but I think I guess the purpose was under a rare occurrence that it just been abandoned for some reason. Maybe it's operated for 25 years and nobody wants to keep it up and it goes. I think it's good to have this in here. Yeah. It gives the building commissioners some benchmark. So I would just put the equation in that or the number equation or just the verbal equation in there and just move on. I think it's not going to be very frequent and we shouldn't spend hours looking at it, I think. Yeah. And I think it would make, if people understand the terminology, it makes sense. Okay. Okay. Let's move on to the next page, the top of the next page. D, any site that was deforested for the installation shall be restored and native growth shall be reestablished, including the planting of seedlings. And then this requirement may be waived if the landowner submits a plan for reuse of the site as a solar array or other use, for example, as agricultural use. So that seems to make sense to me. He doesn't have to replant all the seedlings if he's going to reuse it, right? Yeah. Okay. The next paragraph has to do with abandonment. I don't think we have a lot to talk about there. Next paragraph about financial surety to cover the cost of construction and installation. So construction and installation is the same thing, but we could have both of those words there and have a problem with that and removal. Or why I said that, but yeah. Okay. Then all possible salvage for solar panels shall be included. That's okay. Okay. All right. Next page. Let's see. So an appeal from the decision of the building commissioner must be filed within 30 days. That's already part of our zoning bylaw rules and regulations. And I think it's probably also in the zoning bylaw. Yeah. Actually wanted that because nobody knows this. So everybody's like, you can't appeal a site plan review permit, but you can appeal the building commissioners permit. So I just thought, you know, I'd love to have, because we often have an appeal section in the zoning bylaw and they never talk about the appeal of the building commissioner permit. So this isn't wrong. It's just something that's repeated elsewhere. So yeah, might as well leave it in. Yeah. The following, you know, many line item was submitted by Scott Cashin. And I don't know if we want to go over it now. It's very long following comments and requirements. So protection of water quality. Anyway, I think it's more detailed than is normally found in a zoning bylaw. But I wanted to make sure that you saw this in case you thought it was necessary to include this. Yeah. Well, may I interrupt to say that now we have only 50 minutes left in our standard meeting. And clearly we're either going to need to agree here that it's okay if we run longer than three o'clock to get through, or we're going to have to set up an additional brief meeting, I think. So. Well, I think that's persevere. I think, you know, my sense is with this final language with Scott, with Scott Cashin, I would suggest we add that to the set of comments that we receive. All this seems very detailed to me that kind of don't really belong in the bylaw, more so maybe in some permitting documents. So if we're good with that, then I think we've expired our review of the bylaw and we can go back. I think there was some interest in going back to the top to look at some of the earlier statements, but let's give that 15 minutes, 15 minutes to look at the process and 15 minutes for any public comments and try to be done today. Let me go with Chris, go ahead. What do we want to do about the battery storage section? I thought we'd said we were going to make a general kind of set of statements there with a few of the key. No, I think we said we were going to have a separate section on battery energy storage systems and I have prepared such a section and I was hoping at some point to have a review of that. But if you feel like that's not going to happen, then. I did see that in the packet. I wasn't sure whether that was that in our charge, I guess. So initially, we understood that we weren't being asked to come up with regulations for battery storage and our attorney confirmed that or he confirmed the fact that battery energy storage was not protected by chapter 48 section three. But then during the course of the year, we became aware that battery storage is protected by chapter 48 section three. So we decided that we should have a battery energy storage bylaw. But so anyway, I did prepare one if you maybe there's no time to review it today and maybe I should just submit it. I don't think there's a lot of controversy in it. And maybe I should just submit it to town council along with the solar bylaw and suggest that they refer it to CRC for refinement and development. Yeah, that's I think that's that's that's good by me. But Jack and then Janet. Yeah, just I agree. Dwayne with what you had said, what you had proposed. So I just I agree that this got cash in comments, you know, were really handy, but very late in the process. And it seemed like handy tips for every construction project. So I think that should be included, you know, as like kind of expert consultants ads. And we shouldn't talk about it now. I think we're at a wrap. But but I do think Chris, I just it would be make sense to go back to me, or at least I'm a little unclear about the battery storage section in Article 17. So we agreed to take the first two or three plus my sentence, I think. And and then. But you know, so I think that's okay, I think that's agreement. I don't have any I don't I thought that we were going to do battery storage in like the town charge looks the town council charge talks about that, but we just haven't done it. And so I don't want to say yes, I support this bylaw. I've never read or researched or compared to others. And so I think we just put it on the list of things that we didn't get to, which is actually fairly long. You know, it took us a long way to get here. So I don't, you know, we don't have time to go through the battery, you know, the separate best thing. And so I, you know, I really don't want to go back to do the intent and purpose section, which I think we read through three times and comments have come into late in the process. And but it's not, it's not our process is not the end of the process. And so those comments can come in later to town council or CRC or planning board or whoever the lucky people are who, you know, get this next, you know, and so I'd love to move along to it. That's good. Let me just ask, I think Martha particularly had, and maybe you can be very specific and on some any specific things you had to discuss on the intent section, intent and purpose section that were have been added. And then I think we can wrap up, make it a wrap as Janet said on this, on this bylaw and then move on to the process. Okay. Yes. Well, I am, I'm quite concerned that just within this past week, number of comments and edits and changes have been made in the intent and purpose section that we had already gone through a few times over reviewed and thought we had final. And so all these edits were inserted by somebody who's not a member of our working group and introducing some concepts that we've never discussed things that are not really relevant here. So I would like to then just to try to quickly quicken things up. I move. Let's see here. I move that we accept the intent and purpose section and the nexus statements about the forests from the previous wording in the previous version dated CV 10, 9, 23. So is there a second to that? Well, I think we'd have to look at Yeah, I mean, I ask is this is just if we want to move things along otherwise. The language real quick, Martha, but I agree that we do not have the time or bandwidth to review all of the extensive additional comments that have been added and put our name on it and say we signed off. So I agree. Yeah. Yeah, because there are things about, you know, the the DOER document and their, you know, plans A and B and so on that we've never discussed. And we just be clear, Martha, your, your motion is referring strictly and solely to the change and to eliminate the changes that have forth come in and only in the nexus statement for forest lands in the purpose section and the section nexus statement for forest lands, where there was simply one sentence removed and leave them as they were worded in the previous version dated CV 10, 9, 23. Okay, I just want clarity on exactly what sections we're looking at because there's there are some sort of sections in the intent and purpose that aren't with regard to forest that I think are useful additions. So I think Martha is referring to additions that were made by Steve Roof and that would include this section here that's shown in red starting in as a result in 2019 and ending in 2050. So that's one section that she would have us not accept. And then in the paragraph below, this bylaw aims to balance multiple needs. There are several things that were added by Steve Roof in that section, which I did put, you know, I made reference to those out in the right hand margin. And then if you move on to the following page, those are all additions by Steve Roof up to need to implement through that paragraph. And then then there was another paragraph where he was encouraging us to consider encouraging installations on parcels that are rated A or B in the Massachusetts Technical Potential of Solar Study. And then he was encouraging us to take out that statement. Oh, maybe I took it out because it or he suggested taking it out because it was repetitive. And then oh, and then there was a sentence about this article strives to encourage and regulate solar and energy facilities in a manner that reflects the equity and justice of the impacts and opportunities across all sectors of Amherst's residents with particular concern to our low income and marginalized communities. So his comment there is that there's really nothing in our bylaw that addresses this concern or this issue. And I tend to agree with him on that. So but anyway, okay, I guess just I'll state my own opinion first and then we'll go and try to do this quickly. I guess I agree with some of the specificity on the forest land. I think it's a bit of a late addition to start thinking about using the DOER technical potential study and the grading system that they used and so forth. The one thing I would push back on is I think it was a missing and important and non controversial statements to have at the very beginning with regard to being in line with the town greenhouse gas goal as a motivating purpose for this bylaw. Yeah, that first section and to be consistent and the being cognizant and supportive of the commonwealth goals as well. I don't see why we wouldn't have that as part of our purpose and intent. And it's kind of generic and more vanilla if you will, but also really important context. Yeah, okay, let me hear from Laura. No, I agree with what you said. I think this first piece right here under intent and purpose these are just facts. You know, I mean, I don't see none of these reasons controversial demands and that's why we're all here. And I do think it's the same when we talk about DOER. I mean, it's consistent with the state. I'm fine if the group hasn't had a chance to research further down. Anyway, the DOER parcels A and B are right here. I hear you, Martha. It's all, you know, I get if we haven't had a chance to look at it. But I do agree with the way in that it was an oversight to not come up and say that. But the first piece, I think, I don't think any of this is, I think it's just at least that intro piece actually just adds to our document. I suppose adding anything controversial. All right, good. Jack and then Janet? Yeah, I just want to say, generally, I don't want to make this more verbose, but I generally, I like the comments and changes that Steve put in there. So I just, from what I have read, I don't have no issue with anything that's in there and would be in favor of just approving everything. That's how I feel anyway. Well, I have some several, several issues here that I'll need to bring up when it's my turn. Okay, let me go to Janet and then Dan. I would like to second the motion. I don't know why. I mean, we've talked about this introduction and both next statements over and over. We actually agreed on it. All this information that's been added could be sent to Steve by Steve Roof to whoever's handling this next, or it could be in a summary, introductory document, introducing the town council. But are we going to start arguing about deleting this piece about farmland and forests and A or B or what percentage? And I just feel like we're going to never end here. We've been here before. Let's just move on. Scott Cation had great comments. We didn't adopt most of them, but invite people to participate in the process. Steve Roof has come to every one of our meetings and I wish he had brought this up a month or two ago when we were talking about this. I think we always did say not that we had left time for it, but we would circle back to this beginning section at the end. I remember that. I thought we were done and no one's in love with it, but no one's, everybody seems accepting it. All right, Dan. Yeah, I agree with Jack. I think that these are really good revisions, especially the very first paragraph that was added. It's extremely important. And so I'm open to discussing these revisions, keeping many of them. I think I kind of agree. The DOER might be a little late in the game for that, but yeah, I think these are really important revisions. Martha, are there any, let's start with the premise that we keep everything from Steve and then what would be his comments? No, no. Thanks first. Okay. If you look down at his needs, Chris, you eliminated two statements that were general in here and then you put in Steve's that says the need to meet legal greenhouse gas reduction commitments. It was not a law. It was an adopted goal. I checked that with our town council president just to make sure. So that is an incorrect statement. It needs to be removed. Well, the state has legal commitments. Excuse me, Martha, I did not make these deletions. These were things that were recommended by Steve Roof. I made the recommendations that he suggested and I don't want anyone to say that I made these deletions. I made them only because they were comments that I received just as I made changes when I received comments from you and from others. So I don't want to have my work here mischaracterized. Thank you. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, but Steve is not a member of our committee. But so the original statement was the need for noncarbon forms of energy generation and storage to meet our action goals and then the need to promote the health safety and welfare of the people of the town of Amherst and the region. And so we need to remove the one that says, you know, implies that the town of Amherst made a legal commitment to this because they didn't. That's not a law. And then the idea of the next one, the need to promote the health safety and welfare of the people of Amherst by reducing the health impacts caused by pollution from combustion. You do that by reducing the driving gasoline and diesel powered vehicles by conversion of buildings to heat pumps and so on. That's not something relevant to solar. And so I would like to suggest that those two be removed and the original ones put back in. Okay. And otherwise, you could live with what Steve has. And then otherwise, any other thing is in the far section. Steve recommended taking out a sentence that says, recent research clearly shows that global climate goals cannot be achieved without significantly increasing the amount of carbon sequestration. And I had previously sent a couple of research articles to the committee, you know, some months ago, but there really is a lot of research to the UN and the international panel and so on that we are not succeeding in reaching our goals of sequestration. And then maybe Stephanie, if you could just show that plot from the state. Sorry, Martha, I'm trying to follow where you are, but you were breaking up so I couldn't hear the language. So can you tell me where? Yes, I was wondering if you could then show that that plot from the state plan that shows that we need the state climate goals for 2050 show that we need 15% of our quote net zero needs to be made up from carbon sequestration and our present level is at about 5%. I'm sorry. So you asked me to leave this document, find another document and display that. Okay, never mind. I'm just thinking time wise. I mean, I hear you, but I'm just not sure that's sufficient. I sent you the warning, but never mind. But anyway, I just requested that that statement be put back in that says recent research clearly shows that global climate goals cannot be achieved without significantly increasing the amount of carbon sequestration. I think we need to go line by line because there's quite a few substantial changes in deletions. Can I, I want to suggest because everyone's jumping around. So I think it really just makes sense to start and just go through these. I mean, we started to do that. And I think it's just going to make a lot more sense to do that now. It sounds like this part was not particularly controversial. I mean, this really is just stating what's in the carp. And so, I mean, I would say start there and just, Martha, you pulled out a few things specifically. So let's just. Yep. And I do this. Okay. So I'll start with the, this bylaw aims to balance multiple needs. So the first sentence was, was recommended to be removed by Steve Roof, the need for non carbon forms of energy generation and storage to meet climate action goals. And I would put that back in. Martha wants to put it back in. Yeah, why don't we go in favor of that? Unless anybody else says anything. Let's keep going. Yep. The need to meet legal greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments formally adopted by the Commonwealth of Mass and the town of Amherst. That's the one that I object to because it's not a legal bylaw. It's commitment on a goal. And I think that having the other one of saying that, you know, of having put in the goals here in the original part and then saying that we need to, you know, go to our non carbon forms of energy to meet climate goals is sufficient. So I would just point out, I would, I mean, I'm fine with taking out the word legal at the same time it is a legal commitment by the Commonwealth, not by the town. So we might parse that out and say legal greenhouse gas commitments by the Commonwealth and the goals and the, and the commitment goals of the town. Didn't we just say that in the language? Well, it is redundant that way. That's what it spells out at the beginning. This is more about balancing these various needs. So maybe it's worth repeating. I don't know. Why don't you just say the need to reduce carbon emissions and then just move on? We all, I mean, you know, it's like, I don't know. It seems like we're just reduced the carbon emissions as committed by the town and by the Commonwealth and the town. Yeah. Yes. That was the original one. The need, the need for non carbon forms. We need to use carbon. We all know that and just move on. I don't know why we're here. But anyway, I think the need to promote health, safety and welfare, the people of the town of Amherst and the region period, because we all know health, safety and welfare is a very broad category. And so if we start adding, you know, of course we have to reduce health impacts, but we also have to support the local economy, you know, produce, you know, protect our farmland and our forests. And we're just going to keep on going in a circle on that. I'm good with scratching that added new clause. Yeah, I just want to say I'm in agreement with Martha for these first three bullets, you know, just keep them as they were. That's yeah, okay. All right. The need to preserve the natural environment, protect resources of carbon sequestration and storage and minimize impacts on scenic, natural and cultural resources in unresidential neighborhoods. I don't see any problems with that. Yeah, I threw that in just for our dover issues in terms of setbacks. Okay. Okay, the need to preserve prime farmland and agricultural soils to provide for local food production, support farm to table dining, farmers markets. I think this is actually something that Janet had, but maybe not. Anyway, it seems fine to me. It doesn't seem controversial. The need to implement the goals of the state's climate action plans and the resilient lands initiative initiatives goal of no net loss of forests and farmland. And the other things are just text. Okay, the need for farmland and agricultural source to produce healthy food, food products, support farm to table dining, farmers markets. I think Steve was saying to take that out because it's redundant, but I can leave. Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we'll leave that out. All right. Okay, the need to protect all natural resources in town, including forests, forest resources that support the local economy. Okay, then the next one is take out the need to implement the goals of the state's climate action plans and resilient lands initiative. I think that's redundant. Also, do people agree with that? Okay. Wait. I think we already said that before, didn't we? We haven't talked about protecting natural working lands and no net loss. No, we just did. Where? It should be in once rather than twice. Is that the idea? Right here. Where is it? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see that. Okay. Yes. Yes, that one update. Yeah. Okay. Okay. The need to implement the 2021 climate action plan, climate action adaptation and resilience plans goals of reaching emission reduction commitments in ways that support good climate justice, economic prosperity and community resilience, as well as streamlining solar project permitting, encouraging responsible sighting, et cetera. So is that all okay? That's okay. All right. And then this is the one that people have trouble with this article strives to encourage putting these things on parcels A and B. I also have trouble with that because I don't really know enough about the state's designation of these parcels. So I would be perfectly happy to take that out if everybody agrees. Yeah, I would maybe just revert to the original language. Okay. Revert to original language. All right. This article balances the critical goal of increased solar energy. I think that's also redundant, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. All right. And then this article strives to encourage. So what do people think about that, that social equity thing? I really don't think we made an attempt to do this, but if other people think we did, then we could leave it in. I think it was an aspiration, but we didn't actually do it. I think he's right. I don't think we talked about low income at all here at any point in the document except for this line right here. I actually, I'm not sure I quite agree because a lot of protecting the farmland and the forest land, I think we're a really unique community in not only having a lot of local food production and jobs, we also have the fresh markets, making sure that local food goes to their survival center and the fresh markets. And then the fact that we have all these conservation lands and forest lands means that everybody has access to it. And every neighborhood in Amherst, you can walk out of, no matter if it's a low income apartment complex or not, you can just walk into scenic roads, conservation lands. It's for everybody. It's not just kept for more exclusive neighborhoods. And so I've always felt like we're really good at sharing our resources and beauty and forest and the ability. You don't have to go on vacation when you live in Amherst because you can just walk into a forest or down farm road and stuff like that. So I think that we share a lot of towns are kind of enclaves and we're not an enclave and we, everybody has access to the things we do. I'll do. I think nobody would disagree with that. I'm not sure whether this, whether we really, this needs to be here or maybe it doesn't hurt. But Jack. Yeah, the, I think the last bullet covers the spirit of that, of this particular paragraph. So I think it's redundant for the most part. And well, I would leave it in, you know, maybe we can, they can debate it later, but I think as a community, we really try to share our resources to have local food, get it to the, you know, survival center, get it to the farmer's market. We have a whole myriad of ways of getting local food to low income people in our community. Well, we talk about local food and the importance of that earlier. I'm not sure if we need that sort of. What's part of equity and justice, you know, it's, it's making sure that the resources in our community are available for everybody. And I think we, I think we've done that, you know, a lot of places like, you know, you solar, you cite unpleasant projects in a poor community. And here we're saying, you know, it can be X, Y and Z, not just putting it into like low income area. That has always been in my head as I've been working on this, frankly. I would say that I have seen when I think about low income, there are, at least when it relates to solar, very specific ways to support low income communities when it comes to solar. And we did not address any of those here. So, for example, community solar in the state of Massachusetts, under the smart program, there's a car vow if you're providing power to LMI communities. And, you know, New York has these two. We didn't, I mean, I hear, I hear you, Janet, I just, as it regards, as it relates to solar, I haven't seen anything. Listen, I don't, we can leave it in as if we want to make it, you know, for me, I don't really think it's real. But, you know, just because when, when, when I go to events or speakers that talk about low income and solar, none of the, none of the ideas that are included have been incorporated to these bylaws. But I'm not going to, you know, move on. Anybody feels, other than, Janet, anybody feels strongly for keeping it in or putting it back in? Me. Also, I just want to say the farmers who actually work the land are usually kind of low income. It's not like a big money field. So, I think, I don't know, I just think, you know, I think we're, we're pushing a little bit on this equity that we really didn't address. I would sort of maybe put it up if you wanted to add that to an earlier part where it said the need to proverb prime farmland to support farm to table and support the local economy and equity commitments of the, of the town. Access to food by low income people. Yeah. Okay. And that might suffice if we add that to that earlier bullet and support the local economy and access to low food, local food by, by our low income communities. Something along those lines. Okay. That's it, right? Chris, for this section, what we needed to look at here, the rest, I think we've looked, are there major edits? We've looked at things pretty much. Steve Roof had a. Okay. Next statement. Do we need a next statement really in terms of forest because we're not really controlling forest that much anymore? You know, the, the town council town attorney said we need next statement. So those would be excellent. Okay. So yeah, I thought our next statement was fine. And I find it astounding that anyone doesn't think we need to increase carbon sequestration because you can just go to policy, UN policies talking about, you know, I mean, it's not just ending deforestation. It's reforestation that it's like an international goal. And it's in the state plan. It's in the, you know, it's in the town. It's, you know, it's just, it seems remarkable to me that. I think his point was, may I just, I talked to him at length about this. And I think his point was that Massachusetts doesn't have the capacity to increase carbon sequestration because of the climate that we have and the landscape that we have. Other places in the world do have that opportunity. And he didn't think that that statement was appropriate for Massachusetts. So that's why I'm suggesting. Why are we talking about the only disagree with that with Steve on this point? I mean, yes. Well, let's not, let's not talk about Steve's comment. Let's just decide ourselves. Whether we want to have this in our next statement or not on the, on the basis of the Massachusetts climate action plan for 2050 that clearly states that to reach net zero, they are predicting that we need 15% of sequestration and that we're not there yet. We need more. When Jonathan Thompson came and spoke to us about forests, he clearly stated that in the wintertime, our conifers do continue with their carbon sequestration. Steve's comment is, oh, well, because Massachusetts has seasons and, you know, no leaves in the winter, we don't, we aren't contributing. And that's not true based on Jonathan Thompson's statements. It's also not true in the articles that MoMA has written. It's not true in the forest. I don't quite have the right title, but there's an article on forest lands that was put out by the UMass climate extension that talks about that. It was talked about in our UMass solar forum. This was mentioned. So there's lots of evidence. I've also read very recently that the Amazon may be past the tipping point in terms of fires and destruction so that we cannot count on our tropical forests as being, you know, the soul survivors. So I would very strongly disagree with Steve. I mean, he's entitled to his opinion, but he's not the only expert in Massachusetts. And so I request that the statement, recent research, which clearly shows that global climate goals cannot be achieved without significantly increasing the amount of carbon sequestration be reinserted. Go ahead, Jack. Yeah, I mean, it is true and I'm good with, you know, putting it back in. But what again disturbs me is that, you know, it's not just forest. It's all undeveloped natural lands serve this purpose. And I just feel like this sequestration thing has been a little bit used as some sort of lance or whatever. It's been used in the wrong spirit in my mind because really we just have to be careful about development in general and what we're removing. But yeah. Could we put in something about wetlands or something in here? Because I mean, yes, I agree that the wetlands are the most important. Of course, forests are what are kind of protecting the wetlands, you know. Wetlands are in the middle. I mean, I think there's also, I mean, I would also argue we should put in the point that a well-developed solar field can also, you know, isn't devoid of carbon sequestration, it's just diminished carbon sequestration. Yeah, but anyway, just that statement, though, that we had in there before was general. It wasn't, you know, specifically saying. Yeah, it's also very, it's a global statement. It's not really, it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't get to Massachusetts per se. Stand up. I don't know if he. Oh, sorry. Where's Dan? I took it down because it's irrelevant now. So. Okay. I see no harm in including it. I mean, it is a statement. I agree. I think it's a bit out of place because it's, it gets for the whole globe. And it's relevant specifically to the town of Amherst, isn't. Well, the context there. Can I jump in? Sorry, but just add the word global in front of carbon sequestration. So it's recent research clearly shows that global climate goals cannot be achieved without significantly increasing the amount of global carbon sequestration. I think that's, I would agree with that. I think we're just going down a rabbit hole. Like the whole statements, the whole purpose of these statements were to support, you know, different, to address the Dover amendment and the SJC's concerns that we have to give reasons for our regulations. And this is a nexus statement on forest lands. I'd be happily throwing in wetlands because we've the wet as far as I've ever walked in. But I think we're just like, I don't know what the purpose of these comments are by Steve Roof. Like, I could say, well, Jonathan Thompson said the, you know, Massachusetts forest are still increasing sequestration because they're young. And I mean, but it's just like, you know, this isn't a scientific debating thing. It's just these are sentences that are clearly supportable. And we're just talking to the SJC. We might even have bad reasons, but these are the reasons we gave. And that's what the court is asking us to do. So I think, you know, I feel like I'm in this weird debate, but we, we, this whole introduction and these nexus statements serve a purpose. We agreed on them. And now we're sitting here at, you know, our, let's just continue to go through. We're almost at the end. And I think we're making good progress. Yeah, we're going to leave that in an ad global before carbon, second car, I guess, you know, I mean, I mean, we're all attached. I don't know. All right. What are we doing? New England has experienced river flooding, hillside forests, subroutine water, forest buffers also act as natural filters. This was something that Scott Cashin added, but his wording was a little bit weird. So I, I reworded it to say forest buffers also act as natural filters, increasing filter infiltration of water into soil and slowing and minimizing sheet flow of water. So that's not a statement that anyone needs to argue about. I don't think I thought forest, forest reduces the infiltration of water because they transpire a lot of the water. Yes, that's yeah. Increases infiltration of water, doesn't it? Forests? No, it doesn't increase runoff. Yeah, I would not make any change. I'd leave it as it was. There's a vast amount of transpiration for forest. So that's in error. What did Dan say? Forests reduce infiltration because of evapotranspiration. So it should be returned to what, return to what Scott Cashin had initially. That's what you're saying. Right? I didn't know what he said. So leave the word, leave the word slowing. Take out the word increasing, right? Yes, correct. Thank you. Okay. All right. What's next? Anything? Next is statement for farmland. Okay. So there were comments here about, you know, just making sure that you have the references correct. So Massachusetts soil maps, which are, and I checked with our GIS guy and he says they're digital soils maps created by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, US Department of Agriculture, which can be found at that link. And then someone added, Amherst is fortunate to host over 2180 acres of farmland permanently protected. I think that was something that Steve Roof added. And then let's see, access to locally grown food is important for the health, safety and welfare of our residents. Much of Amherst local farmland is devoted to raising vegetables and other food crops for humans and animals. That was something that Steve Roof mentioned because he thinks that a lot of what's grown in Amherst is hay, I guess, for horses and cows, et cetera. And then, let's see, Amherst boasts a thriving farmer's market subscription services for weekly produce, the local university and colleges buy food from local farms. I think Jenna put that in. And then at the very end, let's see the town of Amherst schools regarding combating climate change as outlined in the Climate Action, Adaptation and Resilience Plan dated June 2021. So that's all good. Indeed. Okay. Yeah, I just, I don't like this being specific about the number of acres there because that's just going to change. Can we just say Amherst is fortunate to host significant farmland permanently protected? Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Thanks, Jack. Okay. Is that a wrap? Is that the end of it? It is now. Yeah, it was the end of the next. You were getting to definitions and I didn't know. Yeah, we don't. Well, there were other changes suggested by Janet and also Scott Cashion, but I don't know if we need to go through those. Those didn't seem particularly controversial to me. In definitions? Submittal requirements. And I guess definitions, that was one thing. Someone suggested having a more robust definition of prime farmland. So I made it more robust. It's very wordy, but okay, that's important. That's fine. Submittal requirements. There were a lot of things added to submittal requirements. You want me to share that again then? I don't know if it's worth it going over it because we didn't, I don't think we spent a lot of time on submittal requirements in the first place. So it's really more of a zoning board and planning board thing. I would like to talk about permitting path and where do we go next. Yeah, let's do that. And to the extent that we can cover that fairly quickly and then get some public comments where we can finish up today. Go ahead, Martha. Yeah, do we need to make a formal vote that we approve of this draft of the bylaw? I mean, this is going to go to a town council. So shouldn't we have a formal vote? Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. You want to make a motion to such? I move that we approve the draft solar bylaw as discussed and amended in our meeting on November 9th, 2023. Is there a second? No. Do you say no? Do you say no, Janet? It was a joke. It was a joke. Martha, I second your motion. Like a moment of levity. Okay. Then no particular order, Hannah? Yes. Gregor? Yes. McGowan? Yes. Morkren? Yes. Jemsak? Yes. Aguilarulo? Yes. All right. All right. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. Mazel tov, everybody. Is there any public comment? We're going to have public comment. But first, well, let me ask for people, if we could have 15 more minutes of people's time today. In which case, maybe in deference to the public, maybe we should look for public comments first and then we'll look at the schedule. Yeah. I think it would be a better protocol. So let me ask if there's, we have five attendees. So if anybody would like to offer any thoughts or comments, please raise your hand digitally. Okay, so question, you can go ahead and unmute. Yeah. Oh, thank you for all your input. Yeah. Yeah. Just to clarify that laundry list of bullet items I added at the end, that was intended just to be helpful. In reviewing the bylaw, there were some sections that had quite a bit of specificity and others that didn't. So I wasn't sure sort of what path the committee was going down in that regard. I will say that, especially with regard to mitigation, it's really important to be as specific as possible. This, you know, document is, I assume, intended to sort of be a standalone thing that is going to exist for, you know, quite some time. And, you know, what you want to avoid is, you know, a decade from now somebody saying, gee, this, this isn't what we really intended or we don't know what the intent was here. And so to the degree that you can be as specific as possible, it's beneficial. But those bullets at the end don't need to go before the town council is something that I wanted to add. It was really just, you know, I just kind of slapped them in there as things to look at. And if you found a bullet that was useful to add, so be it. And if not, you can just delete those. So that's all. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you, Scott. And I do recall you came to town recently, maybe not so recently and really encourage you to stay involved in all this with your expertise. Okay, anybody else wish to offer any thoughts? All right, good. Okay, great. So, Stephanie, maybe we can share the document that was in the packet with regard to the next steps. Can we first go back to the document that is an excerpt from the category, the use table in the zoning bylaw because it has specific requirements for permitting of these things. And I wanted to make sure that everybody agreed with my recommendation. I'm sorry. Read the title of that. It's page 37. It's an Excel spreadsheet. Yeah, yeah, this spreadsheet. Is it this? Sorry. Yeah, I know. I'm just I've got things saved here as PDF. So it's the section 3.3 use class. Thank you. Yes, that's it. Yep. Just give me a second. I also need to make it bigger. While we're waiting, Janet, did you have a comment? Yeah, I think we could we don't really need to vote on the next step in terms of what happens to the bylaw because it says in the charge develop a solar bylaw that will be transmitted to the town council and the planning board for review. And so I think that you know, that's our next step. And I'm hoping, you know, and I think it's admirable to send it to town staff for their comments. You know, but I don't when I saw that step about the comments, you know, like town staff making comments, and then it going back for more ads and changes, I think that I think we did our work. We should send it to the town council and the planning board. Let them figure out what they want to do with it next and, you know, not get into some of a long discussion. I mean, I just think, you know, here's it's just a clean statement. And I don't I don't not want to hear what town staff thinks about it, but I don't think it should be part of our process. Or it should have happened like a month ago or two months ago. And so I just, you know, we can't approve a bylaw and then have ads and changes made it and say it's still our bylaw. So I'm ready, you know, and get just give it to the town council and, you know. Well, let's get to that in a moment after we cover what Chris wanted to cover. I don't think we had the right document shared. We're looking at a zoom, a big zoom screen. I was making me nervous. Sorry, I have it. I just didn't have the right screen click. Hold on. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so can you scroll down to page 37? This is quite a document, by the way. I didn't know how to extract page 37 from this document, so I'm sorry about that. I thought I had done that at one point. I thought so too. Yeah, I thought so too, but go up. Oh, that's 36. I'm sorry. Okay. So where keep going? Where is it? It's not showing up. It was in red, if I recall. Very strange. Wait, wait, wait, I think you had given, I took this from what was sent to me, so I'm not sure. I think we went over it, because I saw something about TV antennas. Isn't that the energy facilities thing? Well, it's 3.3. 3.340.4. So maybe keep going. Maybe it's not page 37. Maybe it's some other thing. Yeah, it's for hits here. Right? Keep going. Yeah. Utility uses. Isn't that it? Here it is. It's on 44. All right. 44. Okay. Sorry. All right. So what I'm saying here is that these things should be allowed in all zoning districts, but only by special permit from the zoning board of appeals. And that is so far the way we've been approving these things. Now, you may not want to vote on the battery energy storage system since you didn't review that. You may only want to vote on the large-scale ground-mounted solar installation, but here is what my recommendation would be for permitting path for these types of installations. And I think we did discuss this at a previous meeting and there is, I think we thought to just keep it as a special permit throughout. So that's okay with everybody? Do you need to take a vote on that? Can we blow that up a little bit? Or I can do it on my end, I guess. Yeah. I don't know how to blow it up without losing. You're going to end up losing some rows at the end, but that's okay. So above, you see these little gray and white columns are the different zoning districts like residential and RO. Yeah. So that's the different zoning districts. Some of them are. Go ahead. I was just going to say it's special permit all the way across. Okay. Which, yeah. Okay. I feel safe doing it that way. I don't see any reason for doing it another way. Initially, I had thought maybe we should make it by side plan review in one or two of these districts, but I don't really think that's appropriate. I think leave it all with the zoning board of appeals. They seem to be doing a good job so far. And now that they have a solar bylaw or now that they will have a solar bylaw to guide them, they'll do an even better job. Okay. So maybe you don't need to take a vote on this unless you feel like it. I think we should vote on it because I think, you know, it gives us a, so I make, I make a motion to approve site plan review for all special permit, special permit for all large scale ground mounted solar installations and best or battery energy storage storage systems. All right. Before we go for a second, let me hear from Jack. Oh, I was just going to say I second that. Well, it's a raised hand. Okay. Hold on. I have a question about my motion. When we say best, we're not talking about battery systems that are going on houses with arrays. Is that, is there, I don't want to know. Okay. 150 kilowatts in your backyard on the ground. Okay. So we need to vote and I'm going to ask the people unmute themselves and get on camera. Can I have a. Yeah, go ahead, Chris. Go. Okay. So in no particular order, McGowan. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Motion passes. Hi. Sorry about that. What did you, did you just pass? You're good to go, Chris. Okay. Good. Thank you. And now we can not talk about, we don't have to talk about next steps in approval process. I can make recommendations on, you know, as a planning director, but you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Yes. I do have a couple of questions about the next steps in the approval process. So I think it would be helpful if we could display it and go through it. Yep. Since we've never seen it until this week. I think you did see it for your last meeting in a different form. I believe it was sent to you in your last meeting, but. So, so the idea here is that what we have voted on today is in a. Not. It's not ready to be approved by town council and the current form that it's in. It doesn't have any section. Numbering and some of the formatting is off and it just needs to be kind of put together in a format that we can hand it to town council. Then they can refer it to the planning board and the CRC for public hearings. So my proposal is to take the document and have staff review it. And then that includes the building commissioner and senior planner, Nate Malloy and Stephanie Ciccarello, who hasn't really had an opportunity to make many comments here. And Aaron Jock, who's the wetlands administrator and Chris Bascom, the fire prevention officer, and they should review it and make sure that it fits within the requirements of their jurisdiction. And then Stephanie and I would take those comments and insert those into the document and into a report to town council. And then we would bring it to KP law. The document that we finalize that Stephanie and I finalize and send it to KP law for its comments because we know that there are issues related to chapter 40 a section three having to do with how much cities and towns can regulate the solar arrays. And then on December 4, we will present this to town council and we'll say to them, we could say to them, here's the document that the solar boiler working group voted on and agreed to. Here's the document that we have refined into a format that can be adopted by town council. And then the town council will receive that. Now there could be another step which would be to refer it to the community resource committee for their refinement, or we could leave out that step. It could be taken by town council and referred to the planning board and the CRC for public hearing. What I don't want to happen is that some unrefined and kind of raw document is given to town council for adoption because I think that's going to cause confusion. So I put in these other steps because they're going to say, well, is the building commissioner reviewed this has the wetlands administrator reviewed this, what does the fire department think of this and what does town council think of this so going through these extra steps. I think is really important. And so this would be my recommendation about how this gets transmitted. I can transmit the document that you all voted on today. I think there's a refined version of it. That would be staffs recommendation having heard from these other entities. I mean, another would be to any any changes based on these reviews by these staff people are included as track changes so that there's a preservation of what what our committee voted on to approve versus changes that occurred subsequently. That's why I was saying to give town council the document that you approved today. And then also give them the document that we will refine but if you think that the document that we will refine should be in track changes that would be fine. Either way, I think it's fine with me I would just, I would agree with you Chris I would assuming you what you when you say give to the town council what we passed today. I would at least take that through your your first edits to polish it up and format it and make it look like a bylaw that's kind of ready to pass but but it's going to be out for public for some of these not public but some of these staff comments so yeah not the raw draft that we have but polished up with your formatting and so forth. All right. So, any thoughts on that. Martha and then Janet. Yes, I mean, I, of course, I think that's an excellent idea I mean you've been working so hard on on all this and trying to keep up with everything that we've changed and so on that I think that it's a, you know, an excellent idea to then take some time to get it, you know, polished and, you know, consulted and see if we, you know, missed some important detail that the building commissioner or the fire department knows and so on but I would like to request then that when you get what looks like a formal final version that before it actually literally gets submitted to the town council that it is sent to the members of the solar bylaw working group so that we have a time to read it and if we wish submit any written comments. And if you don't mind, I think it would be helpful if that occurred later on I'll tell you why we're on a very tight timeline. The town council currently has four meetings left in the year. We're proposing to give this to them on December 4. We're proposing to have any further work on this until 2024. And I think if we were to have to come up with the final document and then send it back to the solar by the working group for final comments and then send it back to town council that's probably not a very efficient way of doing it. Another way of doing it would be for when this does go to CRC for members of the solar by the working group to submit comments at that time. That's my, that's my recommendation. We at least have the opportunity to see it. I think you can have the opportunity to see it. You know, formally sent a copy to say this is, you know, our, you know, final version. And then if we should see, you know, at least we then we have the opportunity so that if we saw something that somehow, you know, somebody said, oops, that really wasn't our intention or something that we would have the opportunity. I mean, I think we've worked for 18 months on this, although Chris, you've actually been the one to do most of the work and trying to take everything that we've discussed up down and sideways and get it into something that looks like a coherent draft. I still would like to the opportunity to at least see it in its final form. I think that's reasonable. Yeah. Is that, is that okay with people? No, I have to say in the strongest terms this is the, you know, I think it's a great idea for Chris to do the formatting and numbering and the refinement so it's in a good shape, you know, because there's definitely some stuff, you know, strange lettering but I don't want more comments made and changes made by other staff members and have that come out as solar bylaw working group stuff and I, you know, I just, and I don't want to come back here and start arguing over changes is that this is the draft that we're breaking up at least for me. Oh, so this is the year when she's good. So this is the draft that we approved of. If edits are put on by different staff members, it's no longer our draft. I'm, I think we should, you know, I think we should basically send this draft with, you know, with the formatting and the numbering edits and refinement refinement sent to town council. They're going to want, you know, CRC is going to want to hear what the, you know, other staff want to do, let them handle the changes but if we start having red line change saying oh this is by Chris and this is by so and so and this is by so and so but this is the language. It's going to be a mess to send that to the town council. I just, I don't, and it's not going to be what we agree on and so I'm going to jump in real quick because I hear you Janet and I actually agree with you. My understanding and Chris not to sort of mess with your process but my understanding was that we would send the version that the solar bylaw working group is doing. We would send it to the council and then in a parallel path, staff would have their comments and our comments would then get submitted through the other like planning and CRC review processes. I have to agree with Janet, and I'm sorry I, I'm not not to ever go against you Chris or contradict or anything but I, but I do think we had discussed that and I think it just makes a lot more sense because I do agree that it wouldn't be the product of this, what this group just voted on. I agree but I, you know, it's just a lot to think about and I know we're trying to balance how staff weighs in as well but I think it would make more sense for staff comments to go through the council process. Let me, let me just ask, I mean, to Chris's point that you know if I was a town counselor, and I received this, I guess the first comment would be has the, has the wetlands person looked at this has the fire person looked at this. And so, and, and so I think, so I'm sort of grappling with how to be most efficient to that and helpful to the town council. So, I have for myself I have no problems giving them the raw, not the raw but the polished version of exactly what we agreed to today, but would there be in that transmission would there be a statement that oh this to the town council that this is now currently under review by staff and you'll be getting a, a separate, a separate copy of revised version that includes staff. Any thoughts and comments. Yeah, that'd be my, my approach to this is changing as you're speaking, I think it is correct to give town council, the document that the solar by the working group worked on today, and I will just do that give them that document in its clean form. And then I will send town council a memo with my recommendations about what happens to it now. What I don't want to happen to it is that town council takes the document that they receive from the solar by the working group and immediately sends it to the planning board and this and the community resources committee for public hearings because I don't think it's in a form that would be appropriate to send to those two groups for public hearings that needs more work. And so anyway, that's I'm agreeing with you that I will send them the document that you voted on today. I might spend some time, you know, putting some numbers and, you know, page, what do you call it paragraph numbers and things like that in it, but I'll send them what you have come forth with today, and then I will accompany that with a memos making suggestions about what happens to it after that. All right, super. All right, any other. And thank you, Chris and Stephanie for working your magic on on that end and the best process through through town hall. Martha. Yeah, on that I mean realistically I mean we've just had election town council is going to be changing they're really not going to do anything serious with this document. Until well into January or even February, I would say, because you know they're going to have to get reorganized reorganize each of their committees, etc, etc, after the first of the year and so on. So I think that would be, you know, ample time for you to be able to then, you know, fairly, leisurely and organizing. You know, proceed with what you just suggested there would request that after you've, you know, polished up the document and you know, neatened it up so it looks nice and you know put in what you thought we heard that you heard today, etc, etc, that you do then just send us all a copy, so that we can just read through it. Yeah, that's this is that okay. Yeah, yep. I do agree quickly with Jen everyone I don't think we want to open up for more comment right now otherwise. You know, I just, you know, just meant for, you know, just letting us see the, the, the final, you know, the thing that you're going to submit that's all I meant there. Yeah. So, I mean, I do have comments on on something else along here but but let's finish this first. Okay, are we good then with at least the immediate plan. I have, I have a question about another aspect of it here if you're ready. Yep, go ahead. Yes, and that is that one of the other things here is that our esteemed chair, I think, is supposed to write a report. Is that right are you, are you planning to to write some kind of a report from our committee or do we need to write a report. It's just a memo, and we're drafting it just to go over the process, it's very. It's more just the procedural and the process. We already started drafting it and it's literally, literally, there's nothing controversial or anything it's just about this is when we met this is when it was voted on this is how we had our meetings. Okay, so it's very, very process oriented. And then all of the things that you requested to be included like we think that maybe there should be a forest protection bylaw developed that includes all development not just solar. Those comments Dwayne will add on his own. I'm doing more the sort of process and procedure. Chris will review that and add I'm sure to it. And then Dwayne will just add the stuff about the things that you all want to include for the council maybe future action. So it's nothing that you all need to, you know, it's nothing that the group needs to be going through and vote on its, you know, Dwayne is just going to write this memo on behalf of the whole process. I would Dwayne, then I would like to request that our committee, you know, have an opportunity to, to read this lovely memo that you're going to write I mean it seems normally it's it's pretty standard procedure in any committee that when it finally comes to its end and the chair prepares a report that it is reviewed by the committee members. I have no problem with that. As long as it doesn't do that. I have no problem with that. As long as it's we're not talking about another meeting we're just talking about. You don't you don't want another two hours. And as long as Stephanie or is that okay to have people review a draft. As long as you're sending it to them for them to review and any comments get sent back directly to you and not the entire group, because after today's meeting your pretty much your done really so you can, you can sort of do that just to weigh in on the letter independently with Dwayne but you know again there is a timeline here that we're kind of working on and I'm, I'm hoping to finish what I'm working on I'm going to take time tomorrow to wrap up my piece. Yeah, yeah. Eagerly Stephanie. Um, could I suggest that maybe we follow the process or when the planning board. When we have a report on zoning Chris drafts it she sends it to everybody everybody writes the comments and I don't know if we do like an approval process saying I agree or something like that but I do think it'd be good to see, you know, because there's things you might miss or just unbelievably offensive because I don't know whatever. But um, you know, so I think it'd be good because you know if it's the report of the chair that's one thing and it's a report of our committee we need to read it and understand and participate in that so. Again, this is not going to be a report this is going to be sort of a memo of here's what we done. Here's some of the some of the some of the issues that were worthy of a lot of discussion and thought we would inform the town council and others. Uh, the record of these issues that we discussed. And that's sort of it it's and and and there are some other deliverables that go associated with this like the mapping exercise which will be part of the procedure in the town survey and so forth is the final sort of the trans middle of our meeting the charge of the of the committee. Stephanie thank you for kind of drafting a good portion of that, I will add sort of more from the committee on on summarizing. I'm not writing a report I'm just summarizing sort of the issues that we discussed in a paragraph form. I think it would make sense and I'm all for sharing that memo as a draft to every with everybody for some feedback, not discussion, but just feedback to myself and I guess Stephanie to or at least just to me or Stephanie yeah. Um, could we, and I was trying to think of some way to add like the input of the experts like Scott Cation and, and Kip Clance because I don't know how that gets to the, that could go. They're all listed. I already wrote that part up of who came I listed every expert that we had come to the meetings. I included the dates, and I might have said there because they're all available on the town's YouTube so I'm pretty sure that I gave the experts and the dates that they presented. And then it also makes sense maybe the CRC and planning board should look at that too. You know I just I think they had some useful company they spent a lot of time on their comments and stuff so okay thank you. And so Dwayne, do you have an estimate of when you might get that your memo done and send it to us. I'm waiting for Stephanie. Tell me the deadline that she wants to submit this but that was on that was on the schedule that we were just looking at so I know it's in the next week or so. And so, that's a bunch of it's this weekend or maybe a little bit time tomorrow. I'm going to put that together and feed that into us definitely. Yeah, so we're talking fairly soon. My recommendation is always you get yourself some chocolate ice cream and then you go. Go straight chocolate. That's going to crash my paleo diet Martha come on. I can't tell you. Candy this week. And I can't do the chocolate night. I'll figure it out. Okay. Anything else other than bidding everybody a fair add you. I would like to say thank you to everybody for working with us on this. This has been really a joint effort and appreciate all your input. Thank you. Thank you for that Chris and let me also say thank you to the to the working group here. I think we kind of facilitated things but really learned a lot. And I think we all got to know each other and learned a lot and recognize this is can be hard stuff. But important stuff. And I think we did good for the town of Amherst. And let me so thank you everybody. Great to get to know people we'll see you around town. Stephanie and thank you guys. And a big shout out to Chris and Stephanie for leading leading this process. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you to Martha as my code. And I think you guys have been really nice and weekends you really spent when we started getting emails from you at what was definitely not normal working hours you know you you both spend just a huge amount of time on it so. I'd like to I'd like to thank to all the note takers out there that that got me up there. And as well as everybody is it was really a fun group to be a part of and I learned a lot for sure. So, absolutely. You all did a really great job thank you so much for your service to the town and it's been a pleasure to work with you all. And Dwayne thank you for sharing in your leadership. I don't think you anticipated that that would happen but thank you. Well you asked me a long time ago and I was like okay. Okay. But it's all coming coming to its own. It's coming to an end. Yeah. So, okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. And thank you also we have four people left as attendees but everybody who joined us in the public that's really important input as well. And thank you for that. Okay. Bye bye everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye.