Solar Farm Would Clear 15 Acres Of Forest

The tornado of 2018 mostly spared the wooded mountainside next to Dawn Talmadge’s house at the end of Hunting Ridge Road in Hamden, and when she looks north she still sees a thick canopy of oaks and maples.

If a solar developer gets its way, the 15 acres of forest by her house will not be as lucky.

Last week, Talmadge (pictured above) and her neighbors got letters in their mailboxes from Distributed Solar Development (DSD), a solar-energy offshoot of General Electric and Blackrock based in Schenectady, N.Y. The letters informed residents that the developer plans to install a solar farm on the mountainside at 360 Gaylord Mountain Rd., and that there would be a virtual informational meeting on Thursday.

Talmadge was one of about 30 people at Thursday’s virtual conference. As she had feared, the developer plans to clear cut 15 acres of forest. Solar panels would take up seven acres.

The cutting would come within 20 feet of her property line, DSD said at the meeting. The property line runs along the edge of her yard, meaning the developer might leave a layer of just a few trees deep between her house and the vast open expanse.

Talmadge clarified that in general, she supports solar development. ​“There’s a place for it, and this isn’t the place,” she said. ​“You don’t destroy nature for renewable energy.”

Talmadge is not the only one who thinks so. Town officials have also said they oppose the project.

“I personally don’t think it is in the best interest of the neighborhood or the town,” Mayor Curt Leng wrote to the Independent.

At Thursday’s meeting, Town Planner Dan Kops did not mince words when giving his opinion of the project.

“I think it’s a bad place to put solar panels because you’re essentially destroying the environment to supposedly save the environment,” he said. ​“All of us are probably strongly in favor of expanding the use of solar energy.” He said his main concern is that the solar installation would require clear-cutting 15 acres of forest.

As DSD employees explained Thursday, once the farm is up and running, the power would be sold directly to the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system. In particular, it would power Gateway Community College in New Haven, and might also power Southern Connecticut State University. The schools will save money by buying the power, and will also have a greener footprint, said Amol Kapur, DSD’s business development lead on the project. And DSD will turn a profit.

The property is owned by Vertical Bridge, a telecommunications company based in Boca Raton, Florida. It bought the property a few years ago and installed a tower on it. DSD would lease the land to put up the solar farm.

Hamden’s zoning regulations do not allow clear cutting, Kops said at Thursday’s meeting. A few years ago, another solar developer applied for a permit for a solar farm on a nearby plot. The Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission denied the application because it would have required clear cutting.

Hamden’s zoning regulations will not have any effect on whether this project comes to fruition, however. For electric generation facilities operated by private producers with capacities over 1 megawatt, the Connecticut Siting Council has sole jurisdiction over land use applications and siting.

DSD has not yet filed an application with the siting council. As DSD representatives told residents Thursday, nothing is set in stone, and the project is just at its beginning stages. DSD held Thursday’s meeting in order to inform neighbors about the project and get their feedback.

“Community engagement and community involvement is core to our philosophy at DSD,” said DSD Senior Director of Development Nichole Seidell at the meeting. Afterwards, she said, the team will go back to the drawing board to try to incorporate neighbors’ feedback into the project as much as possible.

“Literally A River”

As Kim Talmadge stood at the bottom of her driveway Friday, she gestured to where Gaylord Mountain Road, which abuts her farm, becomes a torrent when it rains. (Kim Talmadge lives near Dawn Talmadge in a different residence. A number of loosely related people named Talmadge are involved in this issue.)

“It is literally a river from behind my brother in law’s garage all the way down the street,” Kim Talmadge said.

She pointed to the red barn and garage on the other side of the street, up the slope in the woods that may one day be cleared. The water comes from there, she said, and then flows down in the street and then into her neighbor’s yard, flooding it.

Northern Hamden’s tree canopy has suffered in the last few years. In May 2018, a tornado swept across town, flattening large swaths of forest. Hillsides that were once covered in a thick canopy are now wide open.

The flooding has gotten worse since the 2018 tornado, Talmadge said, because the trees that were downed at the top of the mountain above where the solar farm would be used to help keep soil in place and prevent flooding.

“Not only did the tornado destroy the mountaintop, but now you’re trying to cut 15 acres across the street from my house,” she said in Thursday’s meeting.

Residents brought up a host of concerns about the clear cutting Thursday. Many said it would make the flooding and erosion much worse, especially for residents at the bottom of the hill. One resident said his yard becomes a river every time there’s heavy rain, and clearing trees would just cause more erosion and flooding.

DSD’s preliminary design includes a large basin at the bottom of the hill to capture water, right across the street from Kim Talmadge’s house. It would also install a level spreader at the top of the hill to spread out drainage, allowing it to infiltrate soil better and preventing it from flowing into one torrent.

Residents also said they are concerned the project will lower their property values.

Kathy Hoyt, a real estate agent who lives nearby and sells houses in the area, said she thinks the project could produce a significant depreciation in the values of the abutting properties.

“Property value is certainly a real concern,” said Mike Libertine, director of siting and permitting for All Points Technology, which would partner with DSD to construct the farm.

He said some studies show that solar farms can depreciate nearby home values as much as 20 – 30 percent, but that others show they have no effect on property values.

Last year around this time, West Woods residents packed into the West Woods School for an information session about whether their property assessments would be changed to reflect the damage the tornado had done. Northern Hamden’s forests still have downed logs, and piles of branches still dot the sides of roads, left over from the tornado. Dawn Talmadge still has a pile of branches at the base of her yard from the storm.

If there are so many plots of land that are already denuded of their tree canopy, residents asked, why not build the solar farm on one of those already empty plots?

Finding a site for a solar farm is more complicated than it might appear, said Kapur. DSD looks for sites as close as possible to the customer buying the power, he said, which put Hamden in the right distance range. Sites have to be near the right electrical infrastructure. The land can’t be too steep. And the owner has to be willing to have it turned into a solar farm.

“We are beholden to having willing landlords,” said Libertine.

Kapur said DSD had found the 360 Gaylord Mountain Rd. property because it has a business relationship with Vertical Bridge, the owner.

As residents peered at the preliminary map of the site that DSD had proposed, they began to question why the panels had to be exactly where they are, and take up so much room.

Why can’t they be under the power lines that run through the property? asked Tom Talmadge, who owns another abutting property Or on the other side of the power lines where no one would see them? The power lines are an Eversource transmission line, and the whole area on either side of them has been cleared.

To the west of the power lines is not possible because the grade is too steep there, replied Matt Gustafson of All Points.

Under the power lines is also not an option because you can’t put electrical infrastructure beneath active transmission lines, he said.

The solar installation must be as large as it is because it is approaching too small to make money. You have to balance the environmental impact with the need for the farm to turn a profit, he said.

That means that in order for the project to go forward, it would involve clearing the forest that neighbors are so accustomed to living next to. Both Dawn and Kim Talmadge said they and their neighbors would continue to fight the project.

And DSD will continue to tweak it, according to the staff at Thursday’s meeting. ​“We really are listening and we really are trying to take everything you’re saying on board,” said DSD Project Manager Jenny Nicolas.