SNOW HILL – County officials voted not to approve a solar project in Snow Hill.
A motion to approve a utility scale solar project on Timmons Road in Snow Hill failed with a 3-4 vote by the Worcester County Commissioners on Tuesday. The solar project is proposed for about 28 acres of a 103-acre agricultural parcel on the northwest side of Timmons Road.
County staff presented the commissioners Tuesday with plans for a utility scale solar project on lands owned by Charles Waite III to be developed by Chaberton Solar Snow LLC. Kristen Tremblay, the county’s zoning administrator, said the 7.54-megawatt project would take up about a quarter of the site.
“Approximately 75 acres of this will remain in agricultural production,” she said.
Tremblay said the 28 acres with panels would be surrounded with woven wire wildlife fencing and would feature adequate setbacks and buffering. Tremblay said the Worcester County Planning Commission had recommended approval of the project.
“The planning commission concluded there will be no adversarial impacts on surrounding properties or county services,” she said.
Commissioners pointed out that the project would require the company to put up $582,000 for decommissioning.
“The bonding goes through the state. It doesn’t actually come through the county,” Tremblay said.
Roscoe Leslie, the county attorney, said the company would be required to show the county they had gone through that process with the state.
Commissioner Jim Bunting pointed out that when the site was decommissioned there could be disposal issues.
“There’s a lot of materials that we probably can’t accept at our landfills,” he said.
Leslie said there was a chart accompanying the bonding requirement that showed how the $582,000 figure had been reached.
Andrew Reese, a project manager with ARM Group, said disposal shouldn’t be a problem.
“Almost all of the material is actually salvageable,” he said.
Reese said companies disposing of the materials would need an e-waste recycling permit but that he expected the number of companies with those permits to increase during the next few years. He believes that’s an up-and-coming market.
“You’ll see there’s going to be companies specifically developed to address solar recycling,” he said.
Commissioner Eric Fiori asked about the deterioration rate of the panels. Reese said modeling suggested a half a percent degradation of the panels per year.
“They’re estimating 30-to-40-year life cycles,” Reese said. “The financial modeling is actually conservative for most of these projects, only out to 25 to 30 years.”
A motion to approve the project failed with a 3-4 vote. Commissioners Joe Mitrecic, Diana Purnell and Caryn Abbott voted in favor of the project while Bunting, Fiori and Commissioners Chip Bertino and Ted Elder voted against it.
Following the meeting, Mark Cropper, the attorney for the applicant, said the future of the solar project was unclear.
“Based upon the fact that the commissioners asked very few questions, made no comments and did not make clear any findings as to why the request was denied, everyone in attendance is left unaware why the project was denied,” Cropper said.
Jennifer Keener, the county’s director of development review and permitting, said the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) would decide the future of the solar project.
“For a utility scale solar project such as Snow Solar, the Public Service Commission is the approving authority on the siting of the project, and local jurisdictions have an advisory role,” she said. “The PSC may take the Worcester County Commissioners’ opinion into consideration during the decision making process.”
