Business reporter Jon Chesto recently wrote about skepticism of Governor Maura Healeyâs energy policies at the local level. Towns in Western Massachusetts are wary for good reason.
Many projects, particularly large-scale solar and battery storage, threaten to eat up more forests and fields, at a time when Massachusetts is losing about 5,000 acres of land per year to development.
Large-scale solar and battery energy storage facilities could be the largest such threat to the region since the 1930s. Driven by rising statewide energy demands and cheap land prices in the western part of the state, proposals for these renewable energy projects are popping up everywhere. Although Healey formed a commission to look at proper siting and permitting for energy projects, the voices of local residents seem to have been largely ignored.
For example, in my town of Wendell, a hill town with a population of around 900, a battery storage facility has been proposed in critical habitat near 2,000 acres of wetland and forest sanctuary surrounding Osgood and Whetstone brooks. The developer petitioned the state Department of Public Utilities for an exemption from local zoning despite residentsâ concerns that the town lacked the infrastructure to deal with a battery fire (the town is completely on well water) and after being denied a permit from the local Conservation Commission due to impacts such as those of noise on wildlife, fragmentation of habitat, and other ecological concerns.
Healeyâs energy policy is important but not at the expense of natural resources, which humans have already affected enough. The governor must curb cutting down forests, mowing down fields, and crossing wetlands for clean energy before her policy severely damages the natural resources of the state.
Raymond DiDonato
Wendell
The writer is a member of the town Open Space Committee. The views expressed here are his own.
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