 Okay, we are now recording all right. Thank you Stephanie and welcome everybody to the September 15th 2023 meeting of the 10 of emmer's solar bylaw working group. Hope everybody's having a good day. And we have a lot to cover today as we're getting down to the end game, if you will. And so what we want to do is really focus on the bylaw language. We have a bit of a we have an agenda but then we also have a list of issues that we want to address in the bylaw, hopefully getting through today. And then have the opportunity to read through and work work through the entire bylaw from from the full document at as we close this out at a next meeting. But let me also just welcome attendees we have from the public. And for the record I guess there's six of them at least to start the meeting so welcome to you all. Okay. Great so what I'd like to do is work through the agenda and fairly quickly as we can. Let me also in terms of the minute taker sorry. I think Dan was teed up for today. But that's not going to be possible. Laura took them last time. I do have the person who took them. The furthest into the past at this point was Bob. So are you able to take minutes today. Yeah. I appreciate that Stephanie sent around the packet to us that included the agenda. We have minutes to approve first. Do we don't have the minutes from eight four, but we do have the minutes from nine one. Exactly. I was, I was stumbling a little bit there because I saw nine one, but not eight four. So I guess eight four still kind of being worked on a bit. I forget who drafted. I haven't received them yet. Laura, she, she's aware that she has to get them to me. Gotcha. Okay. Okay, so that'll be a bit ancient history when we review them, but we'll do that. But did people have a chance to look at the minutes from last time nine one. And do we have any comments thoughts or emotion to approve those or desire to go through them. I'll move to approve the minutes of September 1st or a second. 1st 1st 2nd. Okay. And if I can have your approval. Or not by voice vote. Please be sure to have your microphone open. Breger. Yes. Hannah. Yes. Gem sec. Yes. Brooks. Yes. McGowan. Yes. And it's approved. Great. Okay. All right. Now for staff updates, and then we'll have committee updates and then we'll get into the bylaw. So Stephanie or Chris, any updates for us? I don't have any updates at this time. Chris, any on your end beyond. No, no updates. Yeah. What's on the agenda today. Yep. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Okay. And then the staff updates. Martha, did you have a. Well, I noticed that first, I think is giving a review of the master plan to the. A special town council meeting on, on Monday. Is that right Chris? Might be interesting for us to listen to. That is right. It's essentially the same presentation that I gave last year. So if you, if you were there last year, you are. And you're mostly the same presentation, but everybody's welcome. Thank you. I'll just. I think next remind me Stephanie next Thursday is the block party for the town of Amherst. Sorry, yes, the 21st from 5 to 9pm. Encourage people to enjoy the town, celebrate the town. Ecac. We'll have a booth. Along with some other energy affiliated folks, but. Feel free to drop by the ecac booth and say hi. Janet. Next, or this coming next Wednesday. The planning board will get a presentation on the application by pierce guy. To build a. The solar array on the Colesland in North Amherst. And I think it's like involves. I think it's 10 acres of panels and 40 acres of forest clearing. And Chris has more to add. That's been rescheduled for October 4th. So I, I know that the minutes of. Some recent planning board minutes said it would be on September 20th, but the applicant has chosen October 4th as a better day for them. So it will be on October 4th. Okay. Okay. And then just to add, which is not quite in the context of this is I. Jake Marley had offered to do a tour of his dual use. And so I did a little emailing back and forth about what's a good date for him. And so Monday, September 25th. At 1 o'clock he's offering a tour. I think he could probably change the date or time that time, but it was hard to find time. So I think that'd be great if people came. The broccoli is growing. And we've seen pictures that and stuff like that. So that's an open invite to everybody. And I could send out like a reminder or Stephanie could before that. Okay. So. Janet, if you send me the info for everybody, I'll just make sure everyone has it. Okay. And then, you know, if, if people need a better date, I think we could chop that too, but it was hard to find dates. So. Super. Okay. Any other. Updates. Okay. So. What we did prepare for today's meeting to try to keep us. Organized and scheduled was a. A document that was in the packet, which was. Remaining topics for discussion. Would it be helpful to have that on. The screen will have other things on the screen, but basically the idea is to, to go through the. Topics, the key topics that are remaining. In a discussion today. We have some time. Frames that we want to try to stick to. So we get through this. It includes look issues on farmlands. Forest land. Battery storage, stormwater management. Construction. The section on construction. And then. And then some and hopefully get through that today. And then we can pick up. I think that would allow us then to sort of have a final. Draft that Chris has been putting together. That we can review in its entirety. At the next meeting. So have people, do people have that document available? Jack. Well, I just had a question. What's our meeting schedule for some reason? I didn't have today's on my calendar. I just want to make sure we have the next. What we'll go with this at the end of the meeting, but you brought it up. So I thought I'd ask. Well, I think part of what we want to discuss at the end. Is what is our schedule between now and October 6. You know, if we, if we continue with the every other week. That brings us to the, to the 29th. And then we have sort of that's the only remaining, that's the only remaining meeting left if we stick with every other week. I suspect I sort of inclined to think we need two meetings. And so. If we stick with the 29th, I guess there's a. Yeah, there's an issue because I'm not available to 6, I'm out of out of the. The state in California. So that wouldn't work. So. I'm not sure if we want to go through this now or. At the end. Depending on when we what we get through today. But I'd be open to trying to find time for. Another meeting in addition to the 29th. Okay, Stephanie. So we do have meetings scheduled, including October 6, we have the 20. The 22nd. Or I'm sorry, the next meeting in 2 weeks, which would be the, I'm sorry, the 29th. And the 6th, where the final 2 meetings. But obviously Dwayne, because of your schedule, the October 6th meeting sounds like we would have to reschedule. So. Officially, you do have 2. It was including the 6th. All right. Yeah. I apologize for that. I'm literally in California celebrating my son's wedding. On. And that day, I'm going to be very busy. So I have to find, find another time. Let's okay. Let's just go quickly. I didn't see the order here, but Chris. Sorry. So continuing on with the discussion of scheduling, I am going to be out of town on the 29th. I have a funeral in Ohio that I have to go to. So. Yeah. Okay. You know that. Okay. Janet. So very quickly, if Dan can't make any of these Friday meetings, I don't. We should think about, I don't know if we did this right now, but think about, I don't want to lose him as a member. So, I don't know if we need a different day or what, but I just want to, I don't think this can be ironed out right now, but I'm not sure if Dan's like. I think he has a class or something. So. And most of the day, most of the day Friday. And given that I'm, I'm not available. On the 6th and Chris is not available on the 29th. Fridays aren't looking too good. Martha. So are we going to wait and discuss this at the end, or do you want to finish it now? I guess while we're on it, I'm not opposed to finishing it now. I think we need 2 more meetings. At least. At least I like to get 2 meetings scheduled. And I'm not sure. Whether this requires a doodle poll or what's allowable Stephanie. In terms of scheduling a meeting. A doodle poll is fine. What would be helpful is if you all have some dates that you know, like we already know now that the. Next couple of Fridays are not going to work. So what would be helpful is if there are maybe a different day of the week that at least the majority of you are here. Can agree to. And then we could figure out times and I can send a doodle poll and that's perfectly acceptable. I'll send that up to the whole group. Yeah. So, so I, I strongly recommend that we start right now and schedule 2 meetings in September. Friday is the default if we can't agree on any other time. I don't think we're going to have a 20 second, but I urge you, Stephanie, if possible today to send out a notice saying we need 2 more meetings and with a doodle poll for. Those dates is that. Sure. I absolutely. Oh, Lord. So I put it in the form of a motion. Not sure if we need a motion. I think. Yeah, if Stephanie, if you're willing to do that. I just said that I was willing to do just that. So I don't think that differs from what I just said. So I'm willing to, I just need to know, but you need to have at least a, you should at least come up with. What I was suggesting is that you find a day of the week that might work for everybody because then we can break, break it down in terms of times or a few days. It seems like other than the 22nd, which we can include in the list of potential dates and times we can include Friday, the 22nd of September. But if there's other days of the week, that's what I'm asking you to maybe hone in on because it would be helpful to know like if somebody absolutely can never make Mondays or Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays. It's good to know that. Yeah. Well, maybe the members present now and hearing this could right after our meeting could could send Stephanie your schedule tell tell her a morning afternoon for each of the next days of the week. Would that be okay. Yeah, I would take Tuesdays off the list at least in September while our solar forums going on. Yes. And go ahead Bob. Okay. Mondays I will volunteer it's a survival center I can't do Mondays and then just coming Friday the 22nd, since there are very few Fridays I've already planned travel out of state. Okay. So it looks like Thursday, how about Thursdays Wednesday or Thursday. Thursday. After noon after after 12 o'clock PM works for me. Bob, did you have something more. Yeah, so Thursday. The doctor to have my shoulder repaired I have to be a mass general on Thursday next week. 21st. Yeah, I figured this was going to happen so yeah. Okay, we're we're Wednesday, the 20th. Wednesday, the 20th sounds good right. Could, could we also look at evenings like maybe I was going to ask that I was like five o'clock. I was like hard for people with young kids, but I've 36, you know, one day or something, but Bob, you're saying no. Yeah, I can do anything next week during the day because I have a class Monday through Friday, like all day class, but otherwise I'm pretty free. So I'll be just sending out a doodle poll with different times. What I was trying to just get you to focus on was a day. And the times would include evening hours as well. So I think what I'll just do is it sounds like Wednesdays at least for the most part are generally pretty good for people. So, because next week Friday the 22nd I know Bobby are not available but I think, you know, it's not likely that you're going to have the perfect date that everybody's going to be able to make it. It's very unlikely so at the very least what we're looking for is the majority of people. So we'll look for at least a quorum, if not more. And I'll get the results out to everybody. So I'll get that out at the end of this meeting. I'll work on putting that doodle poll together and getting it out. Okay, and do include the early evening. Yes, it will have evening times as well. All right. Thank you, Stephanie. Okay, figured that was going to be hard. Okay. Shall we jump into the. Remaining topics. And let me. Stephanie, do you want to be the share of the screen. Happy to are you looking at the draft solar bylaw remaining topics for discussion. I would look at that first. And then as we jump into the each of the topics we can revert to Chris's documents. Okay, I'm not sure this is the latest version. I think it is a V2 at the end. Yes, it does. So I'll share that I've got it up already so just give me a moment. Okay, so this was in the packet and this was. This was a courtesy primarily of Martha. And thank you, Martha for. Outlining this. It was, it was hers with then my. Hacking it a bit. And main by maintaining what I also appreciate on this is the time allotments that she's provided us. And so we're going to try to stick to these time frames as we go through these topics. And so we have some things to. Finish up with regard to farmland. Forest land and then some other issues. If you count up the hours or the minutes here, it's about. If we scroll down, we can get to hopefully to. Before it says future meeting through, through these topics today. And then be in good shape to. Potentially talk about these other two topics. In the next. Two meetings. One is what Chris has sort of put together. With some ideas with regard to. Apart from zoning sort of the permitting process. That we might. Recommend with regard to. Solar development. As a function of the zoning district. And again, obviously this is for all large scale, large scale solar, not residential scale solar. And then, and then a final meeting. Or a meeting and a half. Of trying to do a final pass through the entire document, which Chris has been putting together. So that sounds okay. Let's. Move back to the top of this. And talk about farmland. And maybe people, this packet is in your, this. Document is in your packet. So maybe you can bring that up and have that available to look at. As we then also look at. And Stephanie may would be good to share the screen then on the, on the. Farmland document. Okay. And it's in the packet, by the way, as well on the online packet. Yeah. Yeah. For folks. Okay. I'm going to stop sharing a second. What I also thought I would do is to keep us on track. Cause I'm not very good at that. Martha, would you be able to share that? Yeah. I think what I would do is to keep us on track. Cause I'm not very good at that. Martha, would you be willing to be. Somewhat of a time keeper. Okay. I can try. I mean, what I recommend is that. Each of us have a chance to voice our opinion. Question that comes up, but keep it to an elevator statement. Exactly. Yeah. Good point. Let's. We've heard. Lots of. Conversation and discussions and issues on these. On some meant most of these topics, if not all. But let's just try to keep it to the pithy. Issues that you want to bring forward as we sort of reach a decision on these. So. On farmland. You know, I guess the one. One of the issues I guess I'm reverting back to the remaining topics for discussion. But it sort of comes down here in the agricultural. Agrival takes required section. And as it's written currently, and I, as I recall the. Lawyer. His opinion was that we, it would be, we'd be hard pressed to make a requirement, but we could have a strong encouragement. And sort of a requirement that they do it unless they can demonstrate otherwise that it doesn't is not feasible. This is Agrival takes on farmland on farmland. So. Let's hear about that issue. People's thoughts on that. So. Yeah, so I have already commented on these, and I think everybody knows what I'm going to say. I do not think we need more restrictions. I think that if we should encourage possibly even reward, if there are resources to do that, I think farmers are hard pressed as it is. I'm not sure we should be requiring them to do anything. They will make the best financial decisions. All right. Good, Janet. You muted. Oh, I was going to say, I think Martha was first. So. Okay. Okay, there you are, Martha. Okay, go ahead. So, okay. Well, I would favor the wording that says. That the farmland is. Excuse me, that the Agrival would be required unless. The developer or applicant can demonstrate that it doesn't make. A lot of financial or technical. Feasibility. Although I don't feel so strongly that I would insist on it. My reasons are. One is. The state's goal of no loss of. Active farmland. The second is. That I think that the wording here has. A good legal out that says, unless you can demonstrate that it doesn't make sense. And maybe we couldn't make that not quite so strict. A third is that since we're here in Amherst and you mass of the ones that are really working hard on the Agrivoltaics, it seems to me it's a good opportunity for a mutual benefit of increasing the data and the research and getting you masses help to farmers to actually do this. And the fourth is that I think that that was what the respondents to the public survey favored. All right, good. All right, good. I'm certainly inclined and favorable on the language is basically written here. That is. That we don't provide a restriction, but that we. Hold their feet to the fire to. To do Agrivoltaics unless they can demonstrate that they can't. But not, but not overly restricted. And as Bob suggested as well. Okay. Janet. So I talked to Jake Marley about. You know what, how much, you know. You know, with the state adder for Agrivoltaics and he said that his company offers between eight to 10,000 an acre in terms of, you know, extra, you know, to the farmers. And I, then I also say, well, what if it was just a traditional array and he said it was like two to 3,000 an acre, you know, a hay field, maybe 900 an acre. I don't really have numbers on different vegetables, but it seems, you know, and I think when we talk farmers, we should talk about landowners and farmers. And so I think for me, I think, you know, the requirement that of. Dual use. If, you know, unless it's infeasible, which I'm not even sure why it would be infeasible on anyone's land. So that was one of my questions, like what would be infeasible. You know, if you can default to a hay field. And then the other question I had about this was why five acres was picked. But the other thing I really wanted to do is add language that. You know, not to, you know, we could require. Agrivoltaics unless it's infeasible for whatever reason, but also to require spacing for future farming. So it might not work for someone this year or next year, maybe they don't have the machinery or something, but maybe in 10 years. You know, we're going to need that farmland more than ever, as we can see with the floods recently taking out, you know, the Hadley land. So, and so I asked him, like, what's spacing. Do you need for Agrivoltaics? And Jake said he thought like a separation of between the panels of 20 feet. So they would still get money from putting solar panels in. Obviously you'd make less, but there'd be space for future farming. And so I thought that would be kind of a failsafe thing. But I really did wonder what would be economically infeasible because, you know, you said that your UMass is giving out, you know, certifications. There's a plan A, there's a plan B. You know, you know what I mean? So that's, that's my elevator questions and hoping to add something to it, some information and an extra requirement of just the spacing, allowing dual use. All right, I would just comment on that. I don't think we need to put spacing or specific numbers in there. The state eligibility requirements for Agrivoltaics has specifications that are designed to address these sort of issues. And particularly the issue with regard to the flexibility of the farm, so that, you know, this is going to be a 20, 30 year asset. So, you know, what's plan A, what's plan B, if this first crop, the first agricultural process and crops that they're planning to grow does not work well in the environment. What can they do next and to assure that the array is structured in space to have the flexibility to allow for a plan B and a plan C. And I, I think, I don't think we're in a position to say 20 feet or any specific number, but would leave that to the state design of the program, which is, you know, not, not perfect or ideal, but there's no other state in the country that has looked at this as closely. I wonder if between, you know, I love the state right now and I admire, we have a great team really looking hard at this issue, but we don't know what future administrations would do. I'm not tied to 20 feet, but I wonder if we have some language saying, you know, so, you know, to allow future, you know, dual use or something, because right now we're all behind the state standards in 10 years, we could have a different administration. So some language sort of saying it needs to be open for dual use. Does that. Well, I think. So that's, that's a suggestion. I think people should think about it because, you know, I always mow is in the world of what happens when things go bad, you know, because that's the world of attorneys. But what happens when, you know, the administration has rolled back that program isn't funding it anymore. And that may be a reason why we wouldn't require it if it's not economically feasible. If they do roll it back, which I don't think there's a suggestion that they would, but and it becomes economic infeasible, then it's not clear what these landowners, what their options would be. Okay, Martha. Yeah, a simple suggestion for how to do that is down under where we have agrivoltaics design and reporting requirements, and the developer has to submit the plan. We could simply add the statement that the plan includes the spacing of the array. Then that takes care of the problem. We don't have to put anything else in. Would be my suggestion there to. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously the plan as it stands now for the state would include the spacing key. Mine is actually two, two dimensions of the spacing. It's in between the roads, but also separation of the channels within the row. And I think the more important issue to some extent is what the state has is the no more than 50% shading requirement. That that's not specifically to has doesn't specifically have to do with row spacing. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so it sounds like that would take care of the of Janet's concern then. If we just say no more than 50% shading. We want to say that in our rules. If the state has that in their rules and then, you know, and then the science changes to say, oh, you know, we really need 60% or 40% changes the rules. That's better than us having to change the rules. Okay. Go ahead, Chris. I think Janet is suggesting that even if you don't choose agrivoltaics. That if you put a solar array on farmland. You must comply with certain spacing requirements. And so you would not. Harkin back to the. ST, STGU. Because it wouldn't apply. Excuse me. Okay. Yeah. And then I actually would favoring, I mean in favor of general language without specific, you know, numbers, like percent shading or numbers, you know, I mean, if we did put in a specific numbers, you know, the town also can later change with, with the state's revised thinking, but I do think he's puzzling in general. And I could do is I can send some language out. That might soften it or make it more flexible, but also have a requirement that this land just can't be taken out of production because, you know, we all know the reasons why it shouldn't be. I mean, from the state plan, from the town plan, from the town residents preferences, you know, and then also it keeps land open for farming for farmers that don't open on their land. And, you know, who are not exactly a moneyed class and easy. It's not easy for them to buy farmland. Yeah, that, that being said, I mean, I guess I, and maybe to Bob's point as well, if, if. For some reason the state does away with the agrivoltaic incentive. And farmers can because with that, I think it would be hard for. To demonstrate that it's not economically or technically viable. But without that, it could, it would very well probably be hard to justify as economically viable. And. At that point, I'm not sure if, if. If we would. Not allow a landowner. A farm owner to put up an array. That seems to be a bit of a restriction. On, on their land use. I do understand the points with regard to wanting to maintain. Food production. But it gets at the heart of the issue of, of. Of. Over regulation, perhaps of the landowner. I would like to hear your thoughts on that, Martha. Yeah, again, again, I think it might be covered. Okay. Down for the other. The point that we need to discuss in the next five minutes. Is down under the agrivoltaics design and reporting. No under. We have this, we have the statement that says, oh, yes, design and reporting requirements. Number two, that says substitution of other agricultural uses on prime farm land currently being used for food crops, you know, in order to accommodate the solar panels is prohibited unless an equal or large acreage of farmland not currently being used for farming is converted to the growth of food crops. And so it seems that would cover the situation so that if you want to put up an array in one place, you simply then need to have your have your, you know, food crops grown somewhere else every farmer knows their land, and they know where things grow best, and where it makes sense. And that would also protect renters who are, you know, use five to 10 acres to grow food crops and if the owner decides to put up solar panels there that it would protect them if we had that mitigation requirement and I think that would take care of the concerns we have discussed in the past few minutes. Right. Janet go ahead. I'm trying to try to stay on the elevator. So, you know, any kind of regulation of property with the zoning bylaw is reducing the options of a landowner to do things on their property so I can't open a copper smelter in my yard. And, you know, that I have lost some economic value there's very limited commercial uses I can have my property because I'm in a residential zone. So, you know, and pretty, so I just want to point that out like if you're against all regulation of property, we shouldn't, you know, you're not going to vote on any part of this bylaw so we should, you know, it's it would be reducing the economic, the economic, the money you can make from a solar array doesn't take away from your ability to make money from farmland. And, you know, right now all the things are pushing for agrovoltaics and you kind of being saying not to. But I think I think that requirement of leaving land open for future use is really important because they're not making any more farmland and the state is telling us to protect our farmland and expand it. The other part of my elevator speech is I sent Chris, a couple of extra requirements that we'd go under agrovoltaics design reporting. And I think I pulled that off of, I can't remember it's Kip Colenskis or Scott Cation I'm kind of lost right I think it's Kip Colenskis who does farm stuff. And so I'm hoping we can just send them out. You know, she can send them out to consider. And it's about like road widths and utilizing already compacted areas and you know, eliminating, you know, it's just like very, very practical things that might feel like oh that's over regulation but I think when I was working with them I was thinking, you know, the audience for the zoning bylaw isn't just the person applying but it's also the ZBA, or the planning board who isn't going to have a knowledge of what specifics would work, and what's important issues for farm soils, and things like that so there's like for them. And so I'm hoping Chris could sort of send them out later, and we could talk about it next time or it people can mall it in between. I'm off the elevator. All right, you've hit your floor. Okay. All right. Do we have. Yeah, go ahead. What we need to wrap it up in the next two, three minutes. Can you, Dwayne, can you summarize what you thought you think the majority fee. I think I think I hear that we'll keep, we would keep the main section here that Agrivoltaics for farmlands. Well, we said greater than five acres but there's a question about that that's been an active farming for five years that if they wanted to develop solar on that land it would need to be Agrivoltaics as defined by the Commonwealth. And unless they can demonstrate that it does not make a technical or economic is not technically or economically feasible. If in some for some reason, it's not economically or technically feasible perhaps the state incentives go away. Then they would need to demonstrate that a comparable amount of acreage that is being lost from the solar array of farming is that acreage is replaced somewhere else. It's not exactly clear whether that's on their own land or some other in Amherst or some other land in Massachusetts. I'm not clear on that part. Janet. I have a quick question. So when we say five acres. It's a 10 acre farm and so it's probably going to be only about three acres of panels right because of setbacks and spacing and roads and stuff. Is that right? Well, I would, I mean, I thought the five acres would be five acres of active agriculture. It could be on a 10 acre farm so there may be plenty of it may, it may, the solar array may make it up the full five acres and still have setbacks. Okay, I just, I would just. So I was wondering what the thinking behind that was but that. Anyway, so that's, but thanks for the clarification or maybe it's not clear from the language there. Do we want to threshold or is it any, any, I mean, we don't want to implement this on somebody's backyard garden that they've been actively farming for five years. That might be a 1 1⁄8 of an acre or 1⁄10 of an acre. Yeah, yeah, I figured five acres would be what's that. That's like a mega. That's a megawatt. That's fairly substantial. Maybe five acres is too large for this. I'm trying to remember how many acres. Jake's broccoli and Joe's broccoli crop, broccoli patches. But that's probably less than an acre or less than a megawatt, I think. I'm open to what that should be. The idea there would not to, you know, if it's a really small farm that we're not that concerned about the net loss of farmland in that small acreage. And the economy is the scale of doing agrivoltaics maybe harder for very small projects. I didn't want to necessarily implement this for, for small price. That being said, this whole regulation only applies to 250kW or greater. So maybe, maybe we don't have to say anything about acreage. And if it's over 250, then 250kW, then it, it's applicable. Maybe I would suggest we do that just not mention the acreage. And if it's less than 250kW, then it's not really the zoning rules are not really applicable to that project. And that would be a quarter of an acre. Maybe we should let Chris speak to that. The reason I chose five acres was because the state really looks at five acres as being a cutoff for an agricultural operation. And something that is five acres or more is, is allowed to have some exemptions from requirements of zoning and things like that. And so that's why I chose five acres. So it doesn't, you know, it's not a magic number, it's just a number that is kind of generally recognized as being a minimum size of a farm. Our bylaw, our zoning bylaw doesn't have a minimum acreage for a farm. So you can, you know, have a farm that's smaller than that under our bylaw, but under the state it's five acres. But the state also recognizes two acres or more if you make $1,000 or more in income per acre per year. So, okay. That's how I came up with the five acres. I guess, you know, I guess I would have some, I mean, in this, in the, you know, maybe hypothetical case, but a case where, you know, it's a small farm, five, four, five acres less than five acres. And there's really the landowner is like retiring. It's not really a succession plan. It's been in farming for five years. But the farmer landowner farmer doesn't know what to do with it next and there's no real succession plan. I'm not sure if we would require him. He may not be he or she may not be able to do agrivoltaics. If they don't have a succession plan and plan to keep to keep it in farming. Because agrivoltaics by the state for the state, you can put them up high but you need to do active farming. You know, that's in the case, Janet. And then let's wrap this up. I think we have a sort of a really good point, Dwayne, and I think probably at that point you could just call Hyperion and say, Hey, you know, this might be a project. And then you work it because they'll probably find the farmer that could do that or, you know, lease it or something like that. But I think that's a really good point. I think maybe the clarity that the, for me that what would make it clear is instead of saying any LS SPI that is over five acres say any farm. You know, it's like, is it the way or is it the farm that you're catching? I think what Chris is saying it's the farm, like any farm over five acres runs into like a bunch of state regulations and it's the array. It really is the array. I was thinking of the array that's over five acres. Okay. Yeah, so I think maybe, okay, so that's, that's clearer in my mind. I hope the language captures that. Yes. Okay. Okay. All right, good. I think, I think we're making progress. Was there anything else that we didn't cover on the farmland? No, those, those were the main thing covered it. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, yep, go ahead. Shall we move to the forest land. Forced land. So you didn't have something about forest land in your packet this time, but I did email the latest version of it to Stephanie this morning. Or like a half an hour ago. So, if Stephanie can find that in her email, we can look at that. I think it wasn't a past packet, but I just forgot to put it in this packet. I guess we had these on the topics remaining for discussion. We had a few bulleted items that we can walk through in the meantime. I'm working on it just. Yeah, yeah. So I think what Martha said to admit the entire soil requirements section, which I think makes sense for farce, because when you go in there and you start removing the timber, and then you remove, then you grub the soil, you know, grub the tree roots out. So I really do disturb the soil quite a bit. So, putting in place requirements to conserve the soil is hard to imagine, and it's hard to enforce. So I think it probably doesn't make sense. So that was one thing. So, Stephanie, if you can move this down to the next part, this is the next statement. So, starting with ecosystem protection. For all LS SPI's, there shall be no farce clearing on land designated as core habitat and critical natural landscapes on Massachusetts GIS Biomap three or on land designated as priority habitat, habitat or estimated habitat as defined by Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. So, this could be controversial. But maybe not. I spoke with Aaron Jacques, who is the wetlands administrator and she thought that this language made sense in a forest area that you would not want to have solar arrays in these places, but people may argue against that. So, just putting that out there. Any thoughts on that. Jen, is that a new hand. Yeah, what is the critical natural landscape. It's something that's connected with the Biomap. And I attended a webinar that talked about what core habitat is and what critical natural landscapes are. And when I look at a map of Amherst, the area of core habitat and critical natural landscape isn't very large. Aaron showed it to me on a map. And so I thought it would be reasonable to include that. Is that then so, you know, I, I understand like the endangered stuff, but in looking at the north. West corner where there's a lot of forest land does that encompass a lot of that or none of that or just some of it. It encompasses some of it. Is it, is it larger than the. The, the stuff that's protected as drinking water supply is it larger than that. It's not really connected to drinking water supply. It's different. It's a different type of map. I guess I'd like to see that and see what we're protecting and not protecting. That'd be important. Okay. Is this the Biomap. I do have a, I do have a snippet of the Biomap map map for Amherst. In honesty, I did that a while ago and I don't know if it's Biomap three specifically. I'm not as familiar with those that work, nor whether it includes the priority habitats and, and so forth. But, but yeah, it is. There are sections of Amherst for sure. But it's not, it's limited. And it covers some areas of the northeast. But not all for sure. I think if you go online and you look up Biomap, you can explore it and see where these two areas are in Amherst. If people wanted to do that. Unfortunately, I don't have that readily at hand. Yeah, Jack. Yeah, I'm just looking for a link or rather than. What do you want us to do? Google Biomap. Amherst mass. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can share my screen and show you what I did a couple of weeks ago. Okay. Unfortunately, it's not, if Jack, if you want to, in the meantime, try to draw, draw up the interactive map, I just got the map focused on Amherst and then did a snippet of it. It's not interactive. But I can share that. In the meantime, if I, much of I can unshare you, Stephanie. I think I might be looking at it on my phone, but I'm not going to be able to screen share. I apologize. I just had a call that I had to take. I'm sorry. What was that doing? If you can unshare it so I can share. Yeah, you can you would knock me right off actually, but that's okay. I don't want to be rude. That's okay. I would not take offense. Okay. So this, you can see Amherst in here. And this I truth that I'm a little bit. Again, I just, I don't know what the light green is versus the dark green. But these were the areas that came up as bio in Biomap. I believe that the dark green is the. Core habitat and the light. The dark green is the core habitat and the light green is the. What is it called natural. Landscapes. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's really only a small area if you're right. Yeah, I mean, this, this I think is the Mill River area. It's a lot of areas along the rivers. Yeah. So it looks like it encompasses a lot of the Northwest section that people are so concerned about, especially our loyal followers in the audience. Northeast. Yeah. Northeast. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So don't follow my directions anywhere, please. So it makes, so it makes sense to me to leave this requirement in. What do others think? I'd be in favor of that. I think it's aligned with. Sort of what I've been hearing. Obviously from, from some community members as well as. Sort of maybe shifting state priorities to try to really. Minimize to the extent that we need to. Work with some natural lands to try to minimize the. Damage. Or the impact. Associated with that. Bob. Yeah, I'm fine with that section. Those requirements are common in the wellness protection act. So it's really nothing that's really that. New or unique. All right. All right, let's go with. That. So we'll leave that in for now. Or anybody gets on the elevator again. Okay. Until the next. Sorry, Stephanie. The forest language. So. So the only other topics that. The. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The. The only other topics that I had thought were important was to, was the state, the mitigation of. Yeah. Here. The present preservation of forested area elsewhere, that. Happy that requirement in. Well, why don't you go back to the bottom of the preceding page? And we can talk about whether we should say anything about what Cutting of more than either five or 10 acres for the purpose of installing the solar arrays shall be prohibited. Unless the landowner does X, Y and C. So, yeah, what do you think about the five or 10 acres? I'm inclined to go with 10 acres. But that's a topic that you guys, you all should discuss. Go ahead. So, I, you know, I haven't, I'm not, I haven't seen the project on Schittsbury Road that has been proposed, but it's 10 acres of a panels and 40 acres of clearing. And so, that's a lot of land being opened up. And so I was, I was happy to see the five. I think Belcher 10 has five and that's past muster, at least with the AG, I don't know if it's going to get challenged to the SJC. But I don't know, I thought five was less. And, you know, we're talking, you know, if you're talking about grubbing, you know, 20, 30, 40 acres of land, I think that's a really substantial change to the ecosystem, to the groundwater. We're at that point just, we're not helping on the forest, the goals of the forest, you know, preservation, you know, I mean, if you can find and create, you know, 20 or 30 or 40 acres of forest somewhere else in Amherst, I guess that's your mitigation. But I don't think that's going to happen. So I was, I thought five was good. Because then it would be like 10 acres of clearing and hopefully not 20, but I'm not sure how would, you know, why that was one of my questions to the planning board is like, how do you get 10 acres panels and 40 acres of cutting. So realizing that might be a possibility makes makes me hesitate to go to 10. I think that is cutting of five acres or 10 acres and then assume that the array is going to be smaller than that. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be, I'm a little bit resistant to go as small as five and would be inclined to go with 10 but interested, mainly because I think most of the projects will be 10. Which may be reason to have this in here but you know just the economy of going in and doing this work is you're probably talking about larger arrays and we want to for various reasons interconnection and so forth. And, you know, if we wanting. Yeah, so let me hear from Martha. Okay, first of all, we're saying that it's in the residential area. Right, that's not anywhere. It's in the residential area. So that already means that it's an area that's going to, you know, impact people where they're living. And so I would vote for the five acres because what we're saying is down further than is, if you're going to clear cut a larger area then you need to mitigate it somewhere else. So we're leaving an option open, I think. So that's my vote, five acres. I was just, I was looking at the zoning. Sorry, the districts. What do you call them zoning districts, Chris sorry. Designations on a map I found in Amherst and while the residential, our own residential. Outline. It does imply that there's residents around there. It's pretty low density. There's roads and there's certainly could be well away from homes themselves. In those districts, but still in the RO districts, which are pretty prevalent in the region. Go ahead Chris. Those are our biggest districts and just because they're called residential doesn't mean they are residential so most of our farmland and forest land is in the RO or RLD. The other big districts would be the PRP, Professional Research Park, which is pretty big, but most of the other districts are relatively small except for, you know, general residents and, you know, things that are close into the center of town. So it covers a lot of the forested areas and the farmland areas to say RO and RLD. And it doesn't necessarily imply that it's near housing. And I think in order to actually have an array that's worth anything, you probably have to clear at least 10 acres. So I feel like we don't want to make this so onerous that nobody is going to want to build solar in Amherst. We want to in some ways, you know, encourage it but not encourage it to be too impactful. So I think 10 acres is a reasonable number. Yeah, okay. I tend to agree with the 10 acres for those reasons as well. I know there's views on the other side or at least going smaller but Jack, yeah, be good to hear from others. Yeah, I would lean toward the 10 acres. I'm just thinking five acres or, you know, the size of some residential lots and a subdivision in places. So, yeah, so I agree with 10. Yeah, okay, I concur to the majority there. Right. But Bob. Yeah, Bob. Yeah, I, as you probably can guess, don't agree with this whole section. I'm not sure we should prohibiting 510 or any acreage. I mean, I have no problems with regulation but this restrictions, or letting them by their way out is just important. I just can't agree with this at all. Okay, but let me also just be clear. Chris, this is we're setting this up as not a restriction, but if you do more than 10 acres, then you have to do these various things. That's correct. Yeah, I get your point Bob that that's still. It depends and we'll get to those things in a moment, but it's still more substantial regulation than saying they're not having those. Yeah. Janet. Yeah, go ahead. One last. You got a short ride up to the fifth floor. And house floor. So I'm actually looking at the zoning map. I, you know, it's not going to help me to hold it up to you but I don't even think there's that much land left a forested land. I could think of some you mass lands that are off of Northeast street. And then, you know, parts of off of Henry street and think behind that and stuff like that. So I don't. I don't think there's that many lots that would fall into these categories to begin with. So just just that perspective. Okay, let's I'm hearing the 10 acres as a. I'm not sure about a consensus, but at least some majority. At this point, so let's go with that, but then let's. Chris, what was your where you're going to go through the next. The next part is to talk about if you do clear more than 10 acres, then. Should you be required to set aside an equal amount of land somewhere else either in Amherst or in a town of budding Amherst. And just to give you a frame of reference shoots berry requires a four to one designation. So if you cut an acre of forest and shoots berry to put in solar, then you're required to preserve four acres elsewhere. And I think there's another town that does the same thing and I'm trying to think of it's Belcher town or not. But anyway, it is something that other towns do. And it seemed a reasonable mitigation to me. But that's up to you to decide. I guess I would make a comment on that first and then Janet. I'm sort of inclined in some to go in this direction to some extent hearing sort of what I've been hearing from the state and certainly from constituents. I, I question whether the solar developer and the land owner or the applicant I should say, is in the best situation to find the and preserve the best, the forest land and particularly the best forest land available to preserve or whether that's best left to the town or a land trust, and whether this should instead, which I think maybe the or after this is that some payment in lieu. Is the terminology would be required from the developer so that that's then paid to either land trust or the town, so that they and with some rules about that. So that then they use that money to really target that forest preservation in an in an area that is well chosen. So that was, that sort of was my first idea on that. Janet. So I think all the towns around us have a four to one set aside requirement. I think it's like, I remember that chart that Doug Marshall made. I think one for one is is is it's not first of all buying up the development rights to forest land isn't that expensive. It's not as valuable in terms as far as as ag land. So I would do a higher requirement. And, you know, I think that pretty much, you know, it's not that hard to find land nearby that has still has the development rights on it and, you know, we could get some guidance from land conservation groups, you know, I know they're trying to put together big pieces, you know, to preserve a big chunk and they're trying to get some land to be, you know, you know, return to like a wild land so I think it wouldn't be hard. I'm sure they if a person with a project person could easily find acres nearby or adjoining, you know, in our in our area that they could buy up rights to or you know temporarily probably permanently but it's not that expensive. Go ahead. Martha. Okay, well, I would strongly favor say a two to one mitigation and what I read from KP law was that that had passed the AG's approval and other places. I am strongly against the or payment in lieu I think that's that's that's wrong that's ineffective. It opens a can of worms when we talked about this in a previous meeting, everyone said that was a quote can of worms, I think, and it seems to me I agree with Janet it's, it's not that hard to find other farm land that you could buy up or donate because we do, in practical sense have one large landowner in this general regional area that could, if it's a different developer, they could buy up some of that land to to set aside, or that land could be donated to the Kestrel Trust or and you could get a good tax right off in the process. And so I strongly favor keeping number one. And as I say my preference would be a two to one, but not having the option of just a payment in lieu that's ineffective it dumps things on the town the town doesn't have that greater reputation for really following up and it puts a burden on town staff. I would just go to with with number one. So number one, I guess, depending on how it's written I mean how. Yeah, how do we, it may be easy to buy land locally but I'm not sure if we want to limit it to Amherst or how what's the geographic limit would be and what's to keep them from buying land further away then then then we'd rather them do. I guess that's one one point but I get your point and you know maybe it's it's it's some language about that they have the the applicant has to purchase this land set it aside but it has to be in some way approved as by the town. I don't think meeting requires certain requirements I don't, I don't, I'm not sure if I'm overthinking it. I would be inclined also to go with the two to one, four to one seems a bit like well beyond the net net loss criteria that we're looking, looking to achieve. And I had one other point but I'll have to get back to that. I think of think of it. And it gets to the one and not the. I guess yeah I guess the other thing is, this is for 10 acres or more. I do wonder whether it would be a side note. Yeah, I think there was some, some issues raised, maybe by the lawyer as well I don't know but you know is this is this are we picking on solar developers as opposed to any other developers in this on this issue, and whether there should be a side note to the council or the manager that while we're suggesting this to be this the the bylaw that the council should consider a similar requirement for other development that takes more than 10 acres of forest land. That was what I was thinking. Okay well according to my little watch we're out of time so this final comments on on any of this. Janet. I wanted to, I want to take a little time, you know, before our next meeting to ponder the soil changes. And that makes me want to go back and look at what the rest of the bylaw requires I know we're requiring to save topsoil and things like that so I don't want to have the bylaw repeating things over and over again and looking so dense and so I just want to you know reserve a little time to look at that. I wondered if we wanted to do a requirement to use the wood, you know what I mean, like a lot of times people just chip, and that I think Jonathan Thompson made that point, like, if you're not using the wood for furniture or something permanent or building, you lose all the carbon that sequestered so we might put a statement saying, you know strongly favor and courage, you know part of the mitigation is to save, you know as much wood as possible, and things like that so that's something I was just thinking I'm glad you brought that up Janet, because that was actually something I had thought of before and I think I raised that many many months ago when we were looking at this before. And I feel like, from what I know peripherally about foresters and forestry that if there's merchantable, good merchantable wood is quite valuable. So that will generally make its way to the marketplace. That being said, on the margins that may not be as, as you know, it's a lot easier to chip it up in many ways so I would, I would, again, I know, as you say, I'm not sure if they would be kind of a strict requirement to have to but I would, you know, maybe make some statement that there needs to be within the applicant needs to demand needs to report to the town in its planning documents of what it's how it's going to make use and and of the wood that's harvested from the forest and to demonstrate that they're maximizing the extent to which it is merchantable and offered into into market sectors that would maintain sequestration of that wood. Yeah, I'd be inclined to add that. I did look at Jonathan's calculator and that I actually played with that that specific liver or whatever it was it didn't as make as much of an impact as I thought it would, but still it helps. Okay. Well, we have time now we have half an hour, which is time for one more topic. So we need to choose battery storage or stormwater management. I'd make a plug for stormwater management because I haven't written anything on battery storage yet. Sounds good. Okay. I'm pulling that document up. And, and Stephanie you have that what I'd sent you about the four principles that I do but I can't. I was going to just show this first, I think, or I don't know how you want me to do that. Well, that's up to Chris, I guess. So, Well, we can look at what what Martha sent, but I think the two things that are shown here. Are the first part in black. Those are regulations and laws that people have to follow when they're developing land in Massachusetts and in Amherst. And so there's a lot that's already been written about, you know, types of erosion control devices and how do you control sediment and, you know, lots about stormwater management. So I don't really feel like it's necessary to rewrite all of this. And if we did rewrite it, we would be writing a book. And, you know, that's not really what a bylaws about so I put together this list of regulations and laws, and I had Aaron Jacques, the wetlands administrator look at it and she thought it was a reasonable list she added some things to it. And she said that we should probably add links to these references, which I think makes sense. So rather than, you know, reinventing the wheel. Just having these references in here and saying that these solar arrays need to comply with these requirements, I think is reasonable. However, the red writing down below is in response to concerns that were raised about drinking water. So the water supply protection committee did have specific regulations that they recommended in order to protect drinking water. So I think we probably want to review those, but I wanted to get a general sense from you that the items in black were sufficient. In other words, when we allow, you know, a shopping place to be built or a subdivision of homes. These are the documents that we rely on. We don't specify in the zoning bylaw how to control erosion and sedimentation and stormwater for all of these different kinds of developments. So I didn't think it was appropriate to, you know, to get all that specific about these things. So I just wanted to get some sense of consensus that you all agree to the black writing here. Good, Martha. Yeah, you asking us to agree to have only the black and none of the red. No, I'm asking you to agree to have the black with the links to those documents. And then in addition to that, to have the specific requirements for drinking water resources that are in red. And that was something that Jack brought up in an email that he sent out this week. He thought these things were very important. So I added them to this section. I just scrolled down just a couple of lines to just see the see the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, I think those were good. And then I like the one of phasing things in so you're not disturbing more than 10 acres of time. And the other thing that I might suggest is that we could include here maybe the from the original forest land section that we agreed we were just going to shorten where we wanted to say that we left a certain margin of uncut forest land next to residential properties or something is that in here or do we need to add that. That is not in here, but I did include it somewhere. Let's see. There's so many versions of this floating around. There were two sentences that I put into the forest section having to do with setbacks and I will bring those I will bring those back to the surface for our next meeting. Okay. Yes. So I like the and on the slopes business we are going to say that we're just going to stay with our 15%. I think that's reasonable I think 33% is, you know, it is something that you see in developments, you know, particularly when you're putting in a road, you would see three to one slopes and you can mow a three to one slope but given all the disturbance that goes into putting in solar arrays it seemed to me that 15% was more reasonable. Yes, because it may take the vegetation a while I mean like even a few years to really get, you know, a step well established. Yeah. So some of these things in red would probably apply to all solar arrays. And specifically it would be the slopes and the one right below it to limit land disturbance to areas of 10 acres or less. So those two things should probably be put elsewhere in the bylaw for all solar arrays. These things in red just relate to solar arrays that are potentially in an area where drinking water supplies are potentially threatened. Okay. Okay, so that I guess, and then we'll go to Jack for in a second. I guess I have some questions about the 10 acre limit. For so the idea would be that yet the phases projects so you do 10 acres at a time, essentially and what are we talking about the whole array is basically constructed on 10 acres and then you go to the next 10 acres. That I guess I wouldn't mind getting Lars and put on that. I don't know what that may have some serious ramifications on the logistics and and economics associated with installing solar to the extent that you have to bring some specialized equipment on numerous times. And then and then get your crews out there to do certain things at several different times as opposed to at one for once swipe at it. I do get the the the issue with regard to constraining the the impact. But I guess I I hadn't. What is there precedent for this in other communities or the solar industry I guess I wouldn't mind hearing from Laura on on her take on that. That would be a good idea. I think it comes from talking with Aaron Jacques about development of solar. And she recommends that. You clear and grub and stabilize and install. 10 acres and then you move on to the next one where you clear. Grub stabilized like doubling the logistics of. Or we're more than doubling. It's kind of like the preservationist conservationist is talking to the solar installer and they're not in the same place. Yeah. And so we need to come together about what we want to do here. Yeah. Okay, Jack. Yeah, I don't recall, you know, the. Where the seed for this idea came from, but I guess. There seem to be some limit in terms of putting the brakes on it in terms of how much develop because, you know, the larger the area, the more likelihood of some sort of sediment and erosion control malfunction happening. And that sort of thing. So we kind of, I guess the attitude was to keep it. You know, to put some limit doesn't have to be 10 acres to give me some, some other number, but to kind of phase it in and just and heighten the control and make sure that the sediment and erosion controls are done properly. And I think that's what we gathered from, from the project that went. Went badly in the area that they, they, I don't think they were, I think they were larger than the 10 acres sort of thing and just kind of out of control and it just didn't get the focus on the project that it probably should have. It's been a while but I think that's the, the, you know, the rationale for putting in any limit whatsoever to the land disturbance at any time. And then that my would have a question. So if you compare this. Well, I shouldn't compare it to any project that's coming before us, but some projects would propose that you clear grub stabilize an area and then move on to the next area clear grub stabilize and do that until you are. You know, until your whole area is ready for installation and then you come in and you install in the first phase and you install on the second phase and you install on the third phase so that's, that's the mechanism that seems to be most agreeable to the developers. So, it would be interesting to hear from Laura about is that the way we should go or is this idea of doing the whole thing. You know, completing the whole phase and then moving on to the next one. Okay, I get, I do get the issues. I guess I, you know, one thing that we I think would need to hone in on was it mean by. What, what, what constitutes a phase is it all the way to the array construction and then you move on to the next one or is it that stabilizing. And then allow the, the equipment to just come back and do the next set of acres and so forth and then and then have the array constructed all together on all two or three phases, sort of one after another. But I guess, if we do have something along these lines would be interesting to hear from Laura of what the appropriate break should be in these phases. All right, go ahead, Martha. I think one of the problems is these relatively recent and ongoing torrential rains that that happen like look at what lemonster just in the past couple of weeks and so on and so that's, I think is the reason that we go along with whatever common sense things Jack suggests, but having in mind these potential drastic downpours that can cause erosion. All right, super. Janet. I think we do need some clarity about what the term disturbance means because, you know, as you know not being an expert in solar arrays but when I think about it. You know clearing the site, you know establishing vegetation putting up your, your erosion controls is one thing right but then if you, when you put all the equipment in that's a huge disturbance again so if you had 50 acres that was, you know you had seated your erosion controls, and then you're digging it all up again. And you start having rain or the controls fail that I think is the disaster scenario that you know people have seen and you know I talked to the Palmer thing and erosion was a huge problem for them and stabilizing site so you know maybe having better slopes will help but you know 50 acres of erosion is different than 10 acres and so I think I'm guessing that disturbance of the site is digging, you know digging the stuff so and putting things in. I think it'd be good to get clarity on that because it's we're all going to need that when you implement it. I'd like to raise the question. I have a big arching question so Chris clarified that these red things are in addition to the million other stormwater things. I had sent around some recommendations from the national renewable energy lab and I think the University of Wisconsin or Minnesota and never can remember. Apologies to that state saying that solar arrays need different stormwater controls because you know the rain hits and then it slides off and it, you know, kind of falls off on a drip edge which hardens the soil and things like that. I think Jack saw that I have no expertise in this area, but I'm wondering. Are there stormwater controls for arrays that are different than the normal stuff and I've read some stuff where you know there's like a little weird thing in Massachusetts memo saying yeah it's different but we haven't enacted that yet. And I asked Jack is these these solar array stormwater management controls are they different better needed. Are we missing something. I'd love to have the answer to that. So I feel like if the federal national renewable energy lab is saying let's do something different for this I think we should really do that too. I don't know what the difference is because it's it's beyond my ability. Yeah, I I would say that it really depends. Well, if we're talking like conversion of force to solar that that's one thing but you know and we're talking about conversion of agricultural land or, or other you know, fallow type plan to solar that's that's another so each each of the sites have unique situations that would be presented to the developer and the permit granting authority in terms of engineering, especially with regard to how to do the erosion controls but in and of itself the the there's short term with the construction and then there's long term with regard to the established solar array there's two different kind of stormwater issues that you're looking at, you know, so, but in and of itself that that situation where you you're looking at the water coming off a panel which is, say, you know, six feet by 10 feet that in and of itself is not the most of a nature. I mean, you think of a gut or off a roof. You know that's 20 foot high you know this is going to be on the order of six to eight feet. The area of those panels aren't that large so. Yes, you know there there will be, you know, a drip line, but then you also have you have a lot of vegetation the whole area is going to be vegetated. And this kind of is is buffered by the fact that the ground is grasped beneath the solar so there's not enough energy to wear those types of rains for an established site can really do damage with regard to erosion is my understanding. And then, you know, again, here we are in human New England there's a lot of studies, you know, in other areas. There's an arid situation where you get, you know, a cloud burst in because they're already susceptible to to erosion because as the nature of, you know, no, no vegetative cover whatsoever out there. And it's a different story. So that's, that's all I guess I can say on that mark so for in our world I don't think there's anything unique about the stormwater. Or excuse me about a solar array in special provisions that need to be made specifically because there's solar panels there beside other than say some other type of land development. Thanks, Jack. Yeah, Martha. Yeah, Stephanie, could you quickly put up that that slide with the four principles that I sent you was I read, you know, many of those documents that that Janet and Jack are referring to. And it seemed that there were of what came through and every single one of them was what that I took a snapshot of four basic principles that have to be applied that that somewhere in our in our bylaw these get put in. And, and I, if Stephanie, if you could put that up because I think we've covered much of them, but we can just quickly see that. I see. Yeah, there that this seemed to be what all the documents were basically talking about. And so if we have the requirement somewhere in that, you know, there has to be this, you know, as part of the initial report they have to do the study of the of the soil the soil compaction and the density and the soil depth. And then you know what you're dealing with in terms of what you need for erosion. And then as Jack has mentioned the establishing the vegetative ground cover. And then fourth is something that Janet had brought up with farmland but again the distance between the arrays, so that you do have enough space for the water then that runs off to filter in so it would seem that somewhere in our bylaw. So four things should get inserted and that seemed to be common to all these documents. So, maybe I can ask Chris I mean to what extent are some of these things already infused in some of those other laws, or in some of the language we have so far. This to me that what's written here applies more to agriculture, but I'm not sure, but I do think that a lot of these things are already incorporated into the documents that are listed in the beginning of this section. So, you know, I can look into that. Stephanie may be a good person to talk about this with because she used to be the conservation officer in Amherst and she was often dealing with issues related to run off and things like that. I. So, I will look at the documents that we list to see if these four items are incorporated into them. Yeah, because I mean, I think we do have language about ground cover and so forth. The distance between the arrays, I don't know if that's so much of an issue for what Jack just told us and also, at least in the north northern latitudes arrays. Economically it'll just be spaced out further than they are in southern latitudes. Jack. Yeah, I was going to say this seems more like of a. What a higher level kind of guidance. Which is appropriate this is this is all good but when it comes down to a bylaw, I know, not sure that we need to get in the weeds. You know, like this, I just don't think it's. It's just, it's just. Verbiage I think it is already taken by account of for by all the references that we listed initially. You know, for in that stormwater section that Chris went over. There's just best management practices. So I, I don't know. I don't know how you would fit this in, but it doesn't seem necessary to me. Because I mean, there's already state documents that they have to abide by that. I think. Take all this into account. Great Jack. Thanks. Jen and just a heads up we have about 5 more minutes and then we want to hear from our. Other attendees down to 15 seconds. I. You know, speaking as a planning board member. I would, I, this kind of information would be really helpful to a citizen on the ZBA or the planning board who didn't understand all the depth that Jack has. And I wonder if it could be worked in a way that kind of is informative to in the bylaw that says, you know, these are the things to look for. So I just, that's one thing. The other thing I want to talk about maybe quickly is I was a little bit lost between the 100 foot buffer and the 400 foot buffer. 100 feet for private wells, 400 for public drinking water supplies. And I thought that, you know, what if we just did 400 for everything and that would take care of people's concern about groundwater recharge. And also it's not that far, but I think it would, I don't know if it overlaps with other buffers. And so I'm a little buffer zoned. The complicity consistency 400 feet isn't that long. If you're worried that you're not going to have recharge for your well that might be feel good. I'm not sure why we had 400 feet for public water supplies and so I'm just kind of like lost in that maze and it doesn't have to be resolved right now but I'm a little. Not clear. So that can maybe speak to them. My recollection is that a public water well is thousands, if not tens of thousands of times as much draw from the, from the. What's the purpose of a 400 foot buffer zone that wouldn't be served. That's the zone one for a public water well is 400 feet and that's been hardwired into any municipal or community water supply for, you know, the last 50 years, and then they have a zone to which is something that is more directly contributing to the well that is focused more on this upgraded sand and gravel aquifer and then zone three is the watershed that contributes into the zone to. So the zone one is 400 feet. It's unprotective it's got a history of decades for these municipal wells which pump, you know, thousands times more than a private well and that's where the zone of influence of a private well is small ish to where we're setting, you know, septic systems to set back 100 feet. Any, you know, an oil tank would be set back 100 feet. All these things that have a much greater threat to a private well are 100 feet. So why go 400 feet for a solar field which is innocuous basically, you know, I'm sorry, Jack, but why go 400 feet for the public drinking water supply like could you have an oil tank 100 feet away from it and still protect that supply or like what's the purpose of the buffer zone to just give space for recharge or make sure nothing leeches in right, but the community wells are pumping so much water that it is a their influence in an area that is enveloping that that buffer zone. There's a there's a rigorous, you know, communication between the land use within the 400 feet and that community well, whereas a private well is is like taking you know, you got to think of orders of magnitude in terms of the area of influence of a private well that it is only taking a few hundred gallons a day versus millions of gallons a day. It's more like it just the 100 foot is more, you know, is is has a history of being protective of the private wells of known contaminate sources which I mentioned tanks septic systems. So that's why that's a. That's a no brainer number to use for private wells. Yeah, good. Okay, Bob and then let's just real quickly, Janet said it's relatively insignificant 30, 100 square foot buffer is 31,000 square feet, a 400 foot pepper is 500,000 square feet. It's a significant difference. All right, so good. So, is that give you sort of for this for this stormwater area. Give you the feedback we need. You need this. That's good. Yep. Thank you. Right. Martha and then we'll. Yeah, so Dwayne and they and these next two minutes then we really need to think hard and get organized. It seems to me that the things we covered today that that first, you know, if you've either taken good notes or listened to the recording or something you'd be able to incorporate the comments today pretty much and then as soon as you can send it around a draft for people to look at in advance of the meeting. So it seems then we have several things are charge for this committee was not just to draft the bylaw, but it was also to look at the, look at the maps make recommendations of where we thought that the solar was most appropriate, and then also to write a sort of a report quote guidance and direction and et cetera, et cetera, as was mentioned today, like direction to the planning board or ZBA and so on. And here it is September 15. You're going to be away October 6. This is due. How are we going to get there from here. I think I think before public comments. Yeah. Yeah. I would take some guidance from Chris and Stephanie with regard to the other deliverables. You know I think the main focus is the is the draft bylaw recommend recommendations for the council and the manager. I've always been a little bit reluctant to start drawing preferences on a map myself. But, but I guess we'll need to address those issues and wouldn't mind hearing from Stephanie or Chris on that. But Janet first. Sorry, I'm muted myself. I raised this issue a year ago about what our charges and so I don't think they, I think we can do the rest of the things I don't know if we can do it by October 6 I'd be happy to do a first draft. And we're supposed to, you know, what are the community values and I think that would be easy, you know, based on the survey and, you know, I feel like you look at Amherst and you can literally physically see the community values. You know, the solar survey gives the priority locations. You know, we have all this expensive mapping that we did, and you know where the, where are the places for you know large scale solar or whatever you know and so we have some mystery areas which other universities and colleges, which actually have the largest areas but I think that information is also around but I'd be happy to sort of do an outline, providing those things and getting it done it doesn't, you know, I don't have to always put the burden on Chris and Stephanie who seemed beyond busy. You know, we have firepower here and you know, putting together a report or a summary and having people comment on is, you know, straight in my wheelhouse in terms of what I can do. I wasn't suggesting that Steph, we would burden Stephanie or Chris with that but just their take on what, what. The town council's charges really clear and it repeats it over and over again. Do we need, I mean, is there any lack of clarity when you read the charge but what we're supposed to do, you know, I mean, there is some I mean to some extent in terms of the mapping I, I don't want to put, you know, draw my preferences or even the committee's preferences of where we think solar should go. I definitely view that the work that Gza did on our behalf and the town's behalf I should say is really where we would want to go with with regard to that deliverable, as well as their, they did a write up already of the, of the survey results and so forth. So that could be, we could write up a memo around that and with that as sort of the appendices as the, as part of the deliverable. But I wouldn't mind getting just Stephanie and Chris is any your thoughts you have in terms of guidance of what we might put together on those other deliverables. May I speak. Yeah, please. I think, you know, we have a map, we have that interactive map and that gives us a lot of information about where solar is feasible. It's, and we have zoning and I had sent a chart showing how solar could be permitted in various zoning districts we haven't looked at it yet but essentially it's special permit everywhere except for I think the PRP zoning district. So, I feel like we don't actually need a map that shows that we prioritize solar in this location and we forbid it in some other location. I think there are a lot of unknowns. And if we have, you know, the zoning by law set up to require the zoning board of appeals to review most solar installations and we have five that have been approved so far and as far as I know we haven't had trouble with them. One of them is being constructed now, but you know, I feel like the zoning board is pretty capable of reviewing these things and I don't really think that we have to have a map that shows here we want them here we don't want them. I think that there are so many unknowns. The solar developers, you know, have a lot of criteria that we don't necessarily, you know, we're not privy to. And if we want solar to happen in Amherst, I don't think we should put too many restrictions on it. So, the map that we have is a resource for everybody. It's a resource for the boards and committees and for citizens as well as solar developers, but I don't think we should put together a map that says here and not here. Okay, let me, I do want to give the public their, their opportunity so let me suggest and anybody who wants to sort of put together some thoughts and outlines of what these other reports might look like I would agree with Chris I think we have the material. It's more writing a memo around them. If anybody wants to offer to do that or work on that we can, we can look at that at our at our next meeting and discuss in earnest how we're going to get get over the finish line on that as well. I do want to hear from the attendees here so hopefully we will be meeting twice more. And we'll work on that scheduling with so look out for Stephanie's doodle poll coming up. Okay, let me. Anybody from the attendees, and I'll say we have 11 for the record listening now. Anybody would who wants to make a comment if you can raise your hand and then Stephanie can unmute you. I thought you can go ahead and unmute yourself. Okay, thank you. A couple comments. One in regards to the threshold for compensatory mitigation for impacts to forest land. If the, if the threshold is 10 acres. I suspect that you're going to get a lot of 9.9 acre projects. There's two implications of that one is, does the bylaw need to clarify that the 10 acre threshold is a cumulative total per property. So that you don't have a 9.9 acre project and then a year later you have another 9.9 acre project, you know, on the same property right next door. And then the other is, does having a bunch of 9.9 acre projects that don't have to provide compensatory mitigation undermine the objective of, of what the town is trying to do here. So that might be a reason for lowering the threshold, but that's something to consider. And the other thing that I wanted to bring up was the issue of criteria for mitigation land. And one thing that I've seen a lot is, you know, there's sort of a concentric circles. And so, you know, ideally, the mitigation would be within the town that if that's not possible, then what's frequently used is within the same watershed. And if that's not possible, you know, then it would be further out. Oftentimes, when you get into that scenario, the mitigation ratio increases. So, there's sort of a tiered approach if you had two to one for mitigation in the town. Maybe it's, you know, two and a half or three to one for mitigation in the same watershed and four to one if it's further out but I do think it's important to establish criteria for the mitigation land. Well, thanks Scott. All right, anybody, any other public comments and unusually bashful group. Okay. Let me just mention, I think Scott makes a good point. I, as he was saying that we could, we could have another way to slices maybe five to 10 acres you need to do one to one five to 10 acres or 10 or more acres you need to do to two to one. But I get his point also in terms of whether it should be a multiplier depending on how proximate it is to the town. So things we can take up. I'm not sure if Scott is raising his hand again or is this holdover from before. Oh, come on. That was a holdover from before. Sorry. Thanks Scott. Janet Keller. Yeah, I just wanted to say one thing, which is that it would be important to factor in what we've learned about extreme weather. This year into all of these deliberations and particularly in protecting downstream properties from the erosion. And I would think it would be good to look at how many households are actually in the path of the runoff from from obviously the one that's being permitted now, but some of the other obvious places. Thanks. Right. Thank you, Janet. Okay. Any other public comment. We have one more. Sorry. Two more now. So, okay. Jenny, yeah. Hello, everybody. Thank you. That was a great session to circle back to community engagement. I believe the engage Amherst website still has solar bylaw there from the survey. Stephanie can help us maybe understand that. Except for the group who has been enjoying all these sessions, the rest of the community doesn't realize that the draft is almost finished. Could we consider either posting the draft for the whole community to have a look. Or have a link to your last session. So the same people who participated in the survey and beyond that could have an opportunity to send you. The comments and weigh in so that the charge that the community values and point of view be incorporated could have full circle as you're finishing your work. So just the suggestion of giving a broader information to a larger community. Other than our little group who's been following you with great devotion. Would know that the draft is about to be finished. Thank you everybody for all the great work and devotion to that. We appreciate it. Thank you, Jenny. Good afternoon. This is Steve Roof from South Amherst speaking for myself. I just wanted to raise one issue I know it was raised in your meetings by some of your members. Just remember that protecting lands from solar is not the same as protecting lands. I think you've had discussion before about the perverse incentives and the danger that if you make it difficult or impossible to develop solar on some lands. Landowners may develop that in other ways. So as you go through and finalize your, your restrictions on solar development. Just keep in mind that perverse incentive concept so you don't inadvertently cause worse developments than solar. It's not the great work. I'm rooting for you to finish by your deadline. Thanks Steve. Renee Moss. Yeah. Hi. Renee Moss. She's very road. Once again, thank you for all your hard work and we know this is, I just want to make one comment not specific to any one thing that was discussed today but many of us and I thank you Dwayne so much for your department putting on these, these sessions about solar and many of us have spent many zoom hours after only two sessions I think seven hours the other day with everything going on I was on for nine hours but these sessions, I think, and I know I've seen some of you on these sessions have been so helpful and so informative and really rolling out what the Healy administration what scientists are seeing as 2023 science. And I feel like what is rising to the surface, no pun intended, of these sessions is that we really need to try to avoid developing solar as much as possible on forested land. And I feel like when we don't pay attention to this word we're applying 2018 science to what we're trying to plan for 2023. The upside of Amherst not having a solar bylaw is that we now have the opportunity to use 2023 science as the basis for a bylaw that we develop. And, you know, I just think, you know, we sit through, you know, hours and hours of these sessions with all these fabulous presentations, and they feel like we come here and a lot of that is ignored. So I hope that what we're learning at this moment in time we're at a pivotal moment in time a tipping point where the science is looking is different. We really need to embody this into our bylaw and make the best use of what we know now, not what we do in 2018 or 2017. So thank you for your hard work and I hope you will incorporate all this amazing stuff and particularly Dwayne I want to thank you for this for these four Tuesdays they're there they're fantastic I just feel like I'm learning so much. Thank you. Appreciate that Renee thank you. The sessions are excellent I am halfway through the first one and I saw the second one just amazing. Is it really a stellar crew. The second one is is particularly relevant for our work and so to our members if you haven't listened to that it's it's worth going back and listening to the recording. Okay. Seeing no more comments from the public and that we are right on time. So everybody great progress, a lot still in front of us. Let's plan to make similar progress in the next two hopefully sessions that we can schedule and apologize. Because I know Stephanie will most likely not be able to find a time that works for all of us. And so we're going to have to work through that in some way, but do respond to Stephanie quickly so we can get these on our schedules as soon as we can. Okay. All right, and to Stephanie and Chris thank you so much for your dedication work. I know you both are so busy on so many different things. Okay. Okay, have a good rest of the afternoon and a weekend. Yep. Thank you. Thank you.