Updated: Planning board rejects Route 25 solar farm

A proposed solar farm off Route 25 near Charge Pond Road was denied site plan review approval at a Planning Board meeting on Monday, Dec. 18. This decision stops development on the project, barring a potential legal challenge or appeal to the board's decision. 

The planning board denied the project primarily based on its lack of compliance with a required 75-foot setback. Members of the board also expressed concerns that the project might contaminate the groundwater and the aquifer near the site. 

For want of 75 feet

Wareham PV 1 LLC, a division of the national company Longroad Energy, first proposed a solar farm at 0 Route 25 in 2021. 

At that time, the company filed an Approval Not Required plan with the town. This plan protects the use of the property against changes in zoning bylaws for the following three years. If a change to the zoning bylaws would ban the project, the zoning laws in effect at the time of original filing will apply. 

Wareham's solar bylaws have changed during that window, and an amendment was approved by the state’s attorney general in September 2023. One effect of this change was that the required setback for solar projects in residential areas was increased from 50 feet to 75 feet. 

The most recent plans for the Route 25 solar project conform with the 50-foot setback, but not with the 75-foot setback. The applicants have argued that a 75-foot setback would reduce the size of the project by reducing the amount of buildable land, thereby making the project unaffordable. 

"When the setbacks became understood by the applicants, they said the project was no longer economic," said Planning Board member Sherry Quirk. 

Quirk added, "We were then in a position where, because we can't waive the setbacks, we couldn't make a decision that would approve the project they wanted to be approved."

The Planning Board and the applicants disagree on whether the 75-foot setback applies to the project. 

Longroad has argued that the 75-foot setback can't be applied to this project, because the Approval Not Required plan protects it from adverse zoning changes. 

The planning board has argued that the Approval Not Required plan protects against changes to the use of the property — say, a zoning amendment that bans solar farms outright — but not against regulations that change the allowable size of the project. 

For Longroad, the two are one and the same. 

"Imposition of a 75-foot setback in this instance would dramatically reduce the available project area to such a degree that no [large scale solar farm] would be economically feasible at the site," reads a letter from Longroad's lawyers. "As application of the 75-foot setback to the site would have the practical effect of prohibiting [large scale solar farm] use at the site, the Approval Not Required plan freeze protects against the imposition of the 75-foot setback."

Planning Board members anticipated a possible legal challenge to the decision. 

"We're making a negative finding here. The court may reverse the setback finding and say the setbacks are fine, or we should have allowed the setbacks," said Quirk. 

When it rains it pours

The Planning Board also questioned the project's environmental credentials, and specifically highlighted the potential for the project to pollute the environment around it. 

"The project as proposed has the potential for significant impact to the area water resources, including the Plymouth Carver Sole Source Aquifer, the drinking water source for Wareham," reads a passage from the Planning Board's decision. 

This aspect of the project has received much attention at past public hearings. 

Opponents of the solar farm project have expressed concerns that the panels could leak harmful chemicals, such as PFAS and cadmium telluride, into the groundwater, and that increased stormwater runoff would have harmful effects on nearby wells and water sources. 

Representatives for Longroad have pushed back against that characterization, and said there are no PFAS in the solar panels used in the project and the cadmium telluride in the panels does not pose a significant threat to the groundwater. 

The Planning Board debated the issue in making its Dec. 18 decision.

"We had [a] lot of testimony about potential leaching, potential accidents and other harms that could arise from the solar panels. And there was a lot of back and forth between the applicant and between the members of the public," said Quirk. 

Planning Board member Carl Schultz said, in his view, solar panels posed less of a risk of contamination than other types of development that has already been approved. "Because the batteries were removed, I was getting to the point where I didn't think the potential for an adverse impact was great," said Schultz. 

An earlier version of the project included solar battery storage facilities. That version was denied by the planning board in April 2023, and the applicants resubmitted the project in June without the battery facilities. 

Other members of the planning board remained concerned about the potential for groundwater impacts, and the board left language to that effect in its final decision. 

"There have been real concerns expressed at this table about potential effects on groundwater and the aquifer, and this would be a way to put it in the decision and preserve it," Quirk said. She added, the board is putting the burden on the applicant to address the potential impacts if the project comes back upon appeal.