DAVISVILLE, R.I. — A 10,000-panel solar project proposed for 36 acres of woodland at the end of Firwood Drive in this North Kingstown village is the latest unnecessary assault on the future.

Even after a decade of discussion and heated debate, Rhode Island’s elected officials have failed to grasp the enormity of the problem: The relentless carving up of open space combined with forest fragmentation degrades free ecological services, severely limits the natural world’s ability to mitigate the climate crisis, and stresses public well-being.

Renewable energy, including solar, most assuredly needs to be the present and future, but, to borrow the word used to describe a group of pandas, the Statehouse embarrassment largely ignores Rhode Island’s rich collection of gray space that could host ground-mounted solar arrays, solar carports, and rooftop panels.

A few miles away from in-the-crosshairs Firwood Drive forest are several vacant lots of pavement and concrete for lease along heavily developed Post Road. They’ll sit unused as more trees are bulldozed.

Programs that incentivize the reuse of already-damaged space receive little funding from Statehouse power brokers. These initiatives are typically given some lip service and minimal support for year or so before they disappear. The embarrassment has no interest in fixing a rigged system.

So the pandas watch as campaign donors, disgraced former colleagues, and bully developers gobble up green space, solely because it’s more profitable to destroy than protect.

This self-centered system of governing has defiled the state and left taxpayers holding the bill for the embarrassment’s ongoing scheme to enrich themselves and their family and friends by screwing over the rest of us and the future. Destroying the natural world, especially needlessly, leads to destroying so much more.

Underfund state agencies and then hire consultant friends to do PR; pass a bill that pushes the climate buck out of the Statehouse; allow rogue polluters along the Providence waterfront do as they please; gray green bonds; and reward incompetence.

I’ll let former Rhode Island Attorney General Arlene Violet describe the pattern.

“After the fiasco with Deloitte during the Gov. Gina Raimondo administration where the original cost for boosting enrollment and tracking membership under the state’s Obama health care under Deloitte went from $135 million to $364 million and didn’t work. Rhode Island then begged for federal taxpayer money of an additional $124 million. The governor eventually tried to withhold multi-millions of dollars for the woeful system. Later she gave a keynote address at a Deloitte conference,” Violet wrote in a recent column. “Lawsuits abounded over food stamp delays. Then, incorrect tax forms were sent out to 3,000 Healthsource RI members and $11 million was paid to almost 11,000 dead people. An oversight report found ad seriatim flaws, yet Deloitte continued to receive about $100 million under the McKee administration, and he recently signed a three-year extension with Deloitte into the future.

“Now it is a giant ‘oops’ where close to half of the state population’s personal info has been stolen by a cyber-criminal organization. … Lest you think that this was just one bad choice, you should remember that the state picked a firm under indictment to tear down the bridge. The company, Aetna Bridge, has won three RIDOT contracts for $210 million while being the highest bidder on all three. It is also being sued for causing the problems for the Washington Bridge failure. Then, one of the last two selected finalists to propose a construction proposal is Walsh Construction Corporation who paid more than $11 million to settle a “fraud scheme” and “faulty design” litigation in neighboring Massachusetts. The company has also been cited more than 25 times for workers’ health and safety violations.”

These shenanigans aren’t limited to the Statehouse. Elected municipal officials use city and town halls across the state to cater to the needs and wants of themselves, family, and friends. Self-enrichment is the true objective, not public service.

For example, take the Firwood Drive ground-mounted solar project, proposed by NKGM I LLC on two adjacent lots for a combined three dozen acres. It took about six months for the project to receive all of the necessary approvals. A lawsuit is the only hurdle left.

In March, before residents even knew about the project, the state Department of Environmental Management 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 Resort & Spa, a private sporting club about 20 miles away in Richmond that has attempted to get the state to legalize captive hunting.

The Preserve “spans 3,500 pristine acres, offering a sportsman’s paradise with the best in outdoor experiences.” Activities include shooting sports, golf and tennis, zip-lining and rock climbing, fishing, equestrian activities, and canoeing and kayaking.

I’m guessing there are no ground-mounted solar arrays on those immaculate acres. Trees and open space are for the wealthy and privileged, not people living in 1,200-square-foot ranches in a middle-class neighborhood hosed by the state and town 17 years ago when reconfigured Route 403 opened.

Abutters were told a sound barrier would be erected, to help keep traffic noise reasonable. It was never built. The only barrier, beyond scattered residential trees, is the woodland Mihailides wants to turn into a utility-scale energy installation.

“At the time, the neighborhood was very quiet, 39 decibels, and they said, ‘Look, it’s going to go up to 65 decibels and with that it requires sound mitigation.’ Well, guess what? They didn’t put in any sound mitigation,” said Jason Bergenstock, a neighborhood resident opposed to the solar project. “So why does that matter today? Because the only thing that is protecting the neighborhood from the highway noise is those acres of trees, and if the town allows the destruction of that woods, well, guess what, it’s going to be much, much higher than 65 decibels. And not only that, in the town ordinance, 65 is the max, and we’re already there.

“Well, we talked to DOT [Department of Transportation] and DOT said, ‘Hey, it is a municipal problem,’ so that kind of back-and-forth.”

The two wooded parcels are in a community wellhead protection area, a groundwater recharge area, and a Natural Heritage Area. The first two are both key designations for one of the state’s few municipalities that can provide its own public drinking water separate from the Scituate Reservoir. The latter is a designation that is meant to conserve and protect the state’s rare, threatened, or endangered plant and animal species.

If built, the 4-megawatt project would generate $20,000 in taxes annually.

A group of abutters, with support from neighbors, has filed a lawsuit, claiming the project threatens the integrity of the local environment, doesn’t follow the town’s comprehensive plan, and ignores a town ordinance regarding nonresidential traffic through adjacent land zoned for residential use.

The two lots are zoned light industrial, but the only access to the proposed solar site is through a “paper road” owned by the town that bisects two residential properties. For the past decade, one of those homeowners has been mowing the small town-owned parcel.

Mihailides has partnered with Mark DePasquale, founder of Green Development, to cover much of the 36 acres, which wrap around modest homes, with solar panels.

DePasquale embodies the tension surrounding renewable energy development in Rhode Island. And controversy, cease-and-desist orders, notices of violation, and broken promises typically follow.

For instance, in proposing a utility-scale energy project for a residential area in western Coventry, DePasquale paired plans for a 5-plus-megawatt solar array with a therapy farm that would serve people with special needs.

But beyond a rough site plan and a letter sent to neighbors of the proposed facility, there is little proof the farm concept was anything more than a facade. No business license was pulled. No permit was ever filed.

When DePasquale was in early discussions about erecting turbines off Victory Highway in Coventry, he mentioned that he had plans to build a renewable energy education center near one of the turbines. The facility was never built.

DePasquale also isn’t shy when directing Green Development attorneys to make legal threats and/or file lawsuits. He also spreads his campaign donations around, with nearly $80,000 since 2018 given to an array of Rhode Island politicians. His North Kingstown compound is on the market for $17 million.

Frank Sullivan, who has lived on Firwood Drive for 20 years, recently told me the neighborhood didn’t find out about the project until July, after most of the paperwork had been submitted and approved.

The 81-year-old East Providence native, who calls himself a “political junkie” and worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for 13 years, alleged town manager Ralph Mollis, a former Rhode Island secretary of state, and Town Council President Gregory Mancini, a lobbyists for the construction industry, worked with Mihailides and DePasquale to keep the project a secret for as long as possible.

“This was thrust on us at the last minute. It was a done deal long before we found out about it,” the LaSalle High School and Providence College graduate said. “They’ve got a clique and it’s going to destroy the whole texture of this neighborhood.”

Sullivan noted DePasquale has promised to plant trees to buffer the area. But he’s not buying what the controversial developer is selling.

“I mean DePasquale doesn’t do anything he says he’s going to do,” Sullivan said. “He even had a botanist at the hearing.”

Bergenstock is also concerned about unkept promises. “They said they’re going to do a nice buffer with landscaped areas with certain types of trees and certain types of shrubbery,” he said. “But there’s nobody that will police that after it’s been built, to say, ‘Hey, you said you’re going to put in this.’”

In early August, the Conservation Commission voted unanimously “not to support this project as it stands.” The commission noted it would reevaluate the project if some of its concerns were addressed, including the need to clear-cut an established woodland, the project’s location on a groundwater recharge protection area, and increased noise from Quonset highway.

About a month later, the Planning Commission approved the project. Chair James Grundy said NKGM had received the necessary approvals from state agencies, including DEM and the Department of Transportation.

Note: ecoRI News has written a trove of stories in the past decade about the clear-cutting of forestland to make way for ground-mounted solar installations. A sampling of those stories — which are just a fraction of the projects completed, in progress, or proposed — can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.