HOWELL – The proposed 239-acre solar farm to be constructed atop a capped landfill never reached a vote by the Planning Board, as the testimony in the case fell flat during the applicant’s presentation.
Appearing before the Board on behalf of the applicant, Monmouth Solar 1, LLC, attorney Grace Chun brought planning, engineering and environmental experts seeking approval for a Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan to construct a solar energy facility located at 2921 Lakewood Allenwood Road, the site of the former Monmouth County Howell Landfill. While the current maintenance and pump buildings are to remain, an existing gravel access road through the facility and a perimeter fence became points of contention before the Board.
The unique quality of the site, a capped sanitary landfill surrounded by four streams and associated wetlands, made the applicant come up with creative ways to set up the solar panels, given that the site only has a three-foot layer of soil currently atop the landfill’s cap. Extending the support poles into the ground could easily breach the cap, making it possible that contamination would seep out into the surrounding wetlands and streams.
Should the cap be breached, the gradient of the land could cause storm water runoff to carry contaminants that may potentially reach the nearby waterways and riparian buffers at the site. To circumvent this, the applicant’s engineer, Rob Moschello, advised the board that the solar panels would sit on ballast blocks, which are “basically tubs that are filled with concrete and placed on the ground.” The supporting framework for the solar panels would then rest atop the ballast blocks to avoid any incursion into the soil. The site would generate 19 megawatts of power and would tie directly into the JCP&L power grid at a point near the north end of the site.
Board Chairman Brian Tannenhaus questioned the applicant’s environmental expert, Michael Kovacs, about potential harmful effects to the surrounding wetlands.
“No, I don’t believe there is harm,” Kovacs replied. “Because most of the activities are on the capped landfill. The (State Department of Environmental Protection) has already let us know that those impacts would be acceptable.”
However, the Board’s main issue with the application came from the existing fence and part of the gravel road that traverses the site. While the submitted plan calls for those existing structures to remain, Township Planner Jennifer Beahm took firm opposition to this.
“That’s not a variance this board grants lightly, at all,” said Beahm in response to Moschello’s testimony. “And quite honestly, it’s something that can be mitigated through this application. It’s not really something that I would support. There’s really no justification to leave it, so I would be looking for you to be compliant. Ultimately, it’s up to the Board but I can represent to the Board that there’s a way to make this compliant without continuing to have intrusions into the buffer.”
The existing fence and gravel road comes within the 50-foot buffer the township requires in this zone. The applicant’s planner, Annie Hindenlang, attempted to convey that the structures are a pre-existing non-conformity, and should be allowed to remain.
“I’m trying to explain it’s pre-existing and we’re not modifying it or intensifying it,” Hindenlang said. “So, it’s not something we have to address.”
“It is something you have to address,” Beahm replied. “You’re here for preliminary and final major site plan on this site. Existing conditions on this site are non-compliant. This is our opportunity to make the site conforming. So, you do have to address it.” Beahm then cited an earlier letter about the condition, and said that it had also been raised in a subsequent meeting of professionals.
“Just because you don’t want to address it,” Beahm said, “doesn’t mean you don’t have to address it. This comment was in my letter in February. We’re in May, and the fact that you don’t have the information to address it is concerning to me.”
When it was explained by the Board that because the applicant was proposing a new use for the site, the existing structures would not be allowed to remain in violation of the ordinance, Chun sought to have Moschello assuage the concerns of the Board. Moschello again cited the unique characteristics of the landfill site, including the topography of the site, which has elevation changes of nearly 50 feet.
“I don’t know how anybody else on the Board feels, but Ms. Beahm is pretty passionate about this one,” Tannenhaus said to the applicant’s panel of experts. “So, to hear you say that there is no solution is tough for me as a Board member to hear, when our professionals, who we trust, known for years, [are] telling us that there is a potential solution. I don’t know what is true, except I’ve got to stand behind my professionals.”
“So, if you can create an installation, a solar installation that doesn’t dig into the cap, you can figure out a way to put a fence,” Beahm added. “And clearly, a road is not going to dig into the cap, either.”
Moschello’s explanations failed to sway the opinion of Beahm, who again cited that these issues with the plan were enumerated in her letter to the applicant’s legal and professional experts.
“I wasn’t issuing them in the letter lightly,” Beahm said of her concerns regarding the buffer. “It’s something that you guys should have probably taken a little bit more to heart when you evaluated coming tonight. You can accommodate this internal to the two-hundred-acre site, and not require relief. You have provided no information associated with this road and the fence, at all, to justify whether it’s pre-existing. You provided no information whatsoever.”
Perhaps sensing that if the proposal went forward to a vote it would be declined, Chun made the request to stop the proceedings and do further research, in the hopes of returning with a new site plan configuration to satisfy the buffer, or with legal evidence that the fence and the gravel road be allowed to stay in its current position. The Board granted the request, and the applicant will now look to have their new evidence submitted prior to Memorial Day, with the hearing scheduled for June 2.
