The drought is having an impact on plantings meant to screen the Tucker Lane solar farm from the public and is rendering that screening as an ongoing issue with the project.

The Marion Conservation Commission on August 10 discussed a letter sent by Jay Myrto of Clean Energy Collective stating that, although the developer had difficulty finding trees as tall as the ones originally proposed, they did finally purchase them and the installation was completed.

The commission, however, followed-up with a subsequent on-site visit and lamented over what the members found.

“There are eight [plants] that were planted and seven of them are dead,” said Chairman Cynthia Callow. She said the evergreens “didn’t look indigenous to me,” and said perhaps the Planning Board should be informed. “The eighth one is going to be soon dead. It rained today, but we’re in the middle of a drought.”

Callow mentioned that residents of Tucker Lane can still see the solar arrays from their properties, and commission member Jeffrey Doubrava suggested sending the Planning Board a memorandum regarding the matter.

“And suggest that when the weather breaks in the fall that [Clean Energy Collective] needs to go replace them,” said Doubrava.

Although Myrto in his letter requested that the Conservation Commission “close out” the matter after the plantings, Doubrava pointed out that the enforcement order is for two years, “So there is no closing out,” Doubrava said.

In other matters, the commission received a request from John Rockwell asking that the commission accept the current flagging of the wetlands at the area of the proposed bike path, but the commission decided to hold off on the matter for now.

“We were supposed to do this this week, but we didn’t” said Callow. It’s going to take us about an hour to do it. It’s a long way to walk and we don’t really have a plan.”

Commission member Norm Hills was concerned that Rockwell had not submitted a formal filing for the request, either as a Request for Determination of Applicability or a Notice of Intent.

“We need formal documentation,” said Hills. “I think we should have formal documentation.”

The commission members all agreed and decided to wait and see what Rockwell would produce in the near future.

Also during the meeting, the commission continued until August 24 the public hearing for Doug Thackeray’s Notice of Intent to construct and maintain an aquaculture project east of Stewart’s Island at Sippican Harbor.

The commission also briefly discussed imposing fines for residents who complete projects without Conservation Commission approval, ending up as after-the-fact filings.

The commission guesses that anywhere between 5 to 10 percent of filings are after-the-fact, which it deemed far too many. After some talk, the commission determined that it did have the right to impose non-criminal fines of $300 per day that a resident is found in non-compliance, but Callow felt that the commission could take some action first to try to prevent future after-the-fact filings.

“…Ignorance is not an excuse … but I don’t think we (the commission) do a good job educating the public,” said Callow. “I think we could do a better job with that before we start fining people.”

The next meeting of the Marion Conservation Commission is scheduled for August 24 at 7:00 pm at the Marion Town House.

By Jean Perry