Davisville Solar Project Draws Ire of Local Residents
Siting of ground-mounted panels in Rhode Island remains controversial
July 22, 2024
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — A proposal for a solar project off Route 403 in the village of Davisville is meeting some early opposition from local residents.
Cranston-based Green Development LLC has proposed a 4-megawatt, ground-mounted solar installation on undeveloped land between Route 403 and some homes off Davisville Road. The project, known as NKGM Solar, would clear 36 acres of otherwise untouched land to make room for 10,000 solar panels, and extend Firwood Drive, a sleepy suburban street, into an access road for the solar array.
Jason Bergenstock, a local homeowner who is speaking for residents opposed to the project, expressed a series of concerns over Green Development’s proposal. Bergenstock said he and others are worried about noise from the project’s construction and impacts to wildlife habitat and groundwater. They are opposed to clear-cutting the land for any development.
“You shouldn’t clear tens of acres of woodlands to put solar in,” Bergenstock said in an interview with ecoRI News last week. “There’s a Walmart parking lot, there’s brownfields all over the place in North Kingstown, there’s many, many, many other areas you could do it in.”
Bergenstock said he and the other residents aren’t opposed to solar unilaterally, but note the proposed location is close to a lot of sensitive areas. The parcels are in a Natural Heritage Area, a designation that is meant to conserve and protect the state’s rare, threatened, or endangered plant and animal species, but information is minimal.
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management doesn’t currently put a lot of time or money into cataloging such species.
In fact, since 2007, the program has been led by the Rhode Island Natural History Survey, a small nonprofit with a limited budget.
Notably for North Kingstown, the project is in a community wellhead protection area and a groundwater recharge zone, both key designations for one of the few municipalities in the state that can provide its own public drinking water separate from the Scituate Reservoir.
A spokesperson for Green Development declined to comment on the project.
The project has received a few preliminary approvals. In March, DEM sent a letter to Paul Mihailides, who owns the site under the name Frenchtown Investors LLC, informing him the solar project doesn’t need a freshwater wetlands permit. Mihailides is most well known as the owner of The Preserve, a private sporting club and resort in Richmond that has previously attempted to get the state to legalize captive hunting.
Decisions over solar siting, where to install ground-mounted arrays, have become big news in Rhode Island for the past decade. In almost every community in the state, local residents have opposed utility-scale solar development on open space.
The concerns are frequently the same: heavy truck traffic during construction; a lowering of property values; and the continued elimination of green space while already-developed areas (parking lots, big-box rooftops, brownfields, highway medians) are largely ignored.
Lawmakers passed protections for core forest areas, tracts of unfragmented forest greater than 250 acres, but those protections only kick in for some of the state’s most rural areas. Suburban towns with a good amount of development, such as North Kingstown, frequently don’t have as many protections for their remaining forestland.
It’s a difficult needle to thread. The state needs solar projects to meet its renewable energy goals, but the cheapest places to build solar and make a profit are typically undeveloped parcels, with an added bonus if the developer or property owner can sell the felled trees for more cash.
Bergenstock said he doesn’t believe it’s appropriate to site a industrial-scale solar project so close to homes. He noted there are several developed areas in town where ground-mounted solar panels could be sited.
“It shouldn’t be able to go through a residential neighborhood to do industrial work,” he said. “It’s incorrectly zoned doesn’t make sense. You can’t go through a residential neighborhood to get to an industrial area.”
NKGM Solar is expected to be considered by the Conservation Commission in August, with a September hearing date in front of the Planning Commission likely.
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Once again, the lack of an adequately staffed and funded Natural Heritage Program is highlighted: “The parcels are in a Natural Heritage Area, a designation that is meant to conserve and protect the state’s rare, threatened, or endangered plant and animal species, but information is minimal.The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management doesn’t currently put a lot of time or money into cataloging such species.”
Which once again begs the question: When are we, the environmental community—acting through the organizations we fund with our membership dues—going to demand an effort to restore a fully funded Natural Heritage Program? And when are we going to begin a discussion of the companion problem: the lack of an “incidental takings” statute, such as Connecticut has, that would apply the data of a fully functioning NHP to land development proposals such as this in order that species in trouble are actually protected?
The real problem here isd the failure of the legislaturer to protect forested land from solar. Parking lots should be thenumber 1 priority of solar companies. Clearing forests for anything is the worst thing to do for the planet
Rob, it’s hard to say that already-developed areas (like parking lots, big-box rooftops, brownfields, highway medians) are largely ignored. All are great candidates for solar, but each have their unique challenges. Developers have actively looked at and continue to explore projects on each of these areas.
Parking lot solar can be ideal, as long as the array isn’t obscuring the view of the business or tenant there. The parking lot arrays at the RIPUC office in Warwick and the Martin St., Cumberland are amazing examples. Strip malls and larger malls don’t want to lose tenants because people couldn’t see the store signs and also because that’s their reserved space for future development. Adding a Starbucks to an existing mall lot generates more revenue than a PV canopy. The insurance costs for solar canopies are higher than other types of installations. On top of that, don’t forget that us Rhode Islanders can’t drive, so this would just be another thing that gets hit before we walk into the WALMART.
Big box rooftops are great too. Big box companies that own the building and land typcally install rooftop solar on their facility. There’s hesitancy for the many companies that own the land and buildings and rent to big box stores, or any group in a specialized field because more often than not, their tenants require special rooftop units, HVAC, venting, etc. Putting rooftop PV on that could preclude the landowner from multiple fields of potential tenants.
Everyone, including energy developers want projects on brownfields. The costs and timeframes to identify, remediate and permit them have been prohibitive, expecially in RI.
Highway medians could be a great option in the near future. The legislature completed a committee on this exact topic and we could probably see this in the future. Two things to consider. First, how will this affect wildlife that crosses highways for survival, and would this be unintentionally advancing wildlife habitat islanding? Second, have you seen Rhode Island drivers? We can’t keep our cars on the highway, let alone avoid a highway PV array.
Have to 100 percent totally agree with Greg Gerritt. Legislators that have allowed cutting forests for solar installations have missed the bus and should be replaced. There is no excuse for cutting trees for solar. Greed and short -sightedness.
I agree with Greg also about locating solar in already existing places! Please don’t clear cut any more trees! Rhode Island DEM needs to get on the ball and staff the Natural Heritage Program.
I too agree with all those opposed to losing this natural areas for a solar “farm” aka industrial sites.
I hope the environmental community will stop calling all renewable energy “clean energy” this example shows that is not true, indeed when considering mining for materials, manufacture, siting, transmission, maintenance, disposal, there is no such thing as “clean energy.” But the term gets in the way of prioritizing reducing energy demand – for example thru efficiency, a stronger conservation ethic, better land use and transportation policies, slowing population growth…
One thing that caught my attention was mention of this being within a well head protection zone. PFAS chemicals are used during manufacture of solar panels, wiring and other components. The jury is still out on just how much of this might runoff into the ground, if any, but extreme caution should prevail. Once in the groundwater and aquifers these chemicals truly are “forever” and cannot be removed easily from water systems. They are also difficult to test for. Cutting down the carbon sequestering vegetation and trees to install solar panels is counterproductive since the vegetation does significantly more than just capture carbon. As for putting panels within highway medians, consider where snowplows pile snow in winter and where cars pile up during snowstorms. Exactly, the medians.
Agree with all concerns. As always we are two steps forward, 4 steps back.
A Natural Heritage Area, beside a river, with an upland forest, has great value to the niche species and migrating birds. Pine trees abound, and an understory of fruiting shrubs attract Warblers, Siskins , Kinglets, to name a few. There are owls. It s also a well head protection area. There is a well to the north, before the Hunt exists to the Bay Look at the overhead layout of this site and the slope of land to the NE that is the groundwater recharge area- much developed since Brown&Sharpe and then Rt 403 slicing in two , the very important land meant to be kept clear of contaminants. It’s shameful our well #6 to the south had to be shut due to PFOAS. Is there nothing more important than leaving natural the WellHead? The river flows to the NE through the encroaching development already done. We MUST keep this high area as a living sponge of water retention , and its soil and trees continuing as natures working purification system.
Great points in the comments. I suggest that any one living in that area organize with others and go to all relevant town meetings, talk to & write to your town reps and committees, look into what we did in Warwick to pass our Solar Ordinance & the language used, etc. I live next to one of these projects that got through before the Solar Ordinance was passed and know how many trees they felled (50+!) and how it has negatively impacted human & wildlife in this area (ie: noise from construction for months, inverter box noises at night, lowered bird populations, deer & coyotes in residential streets, which we NEVER had before in 12+ years). It’s also very near to the river, which is crazy to think that was allowed/passed zoning, and if we get another flood like the one in 2010, you’d better believe it’s going to reach the panels! Then what? Yeah… preventative action is key. You can also use this handy info – https://ecori.org/2020-8-23-solar-study-finds-rhode-island-has-lots-of-room-to-expand-responsibly/ that shows “Rhode Island can produce a greater amount of electricity than it consumes by installing solar arrays on more roofs, landfills, brownfields, gravel pits, and parking lots.” Just because cutting down trees & developing green space is “cheaper” should not be the basis of choosing those sites. The future of this state shouldn’t be dictated by whining & pressure from solar companies!!