Harvard residents got a second chance this week to challenge the way that the Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) wants to measure whether the Evergreen Solar panel manufacturing plant on Barnum Road is as quiet as DEC’s rules and regulations say it needs to be.
The opportunity for additional comment was the result of a procedural and largely civil dance between the DEC and the Harvard Board of Selectmen (BOS) that ended last week. The dance began with a formal request from Harvard that the DEC reopen discussion on a recently adopted protocol for measuring Evergreen noise so that Harvard residents could voice their concerns publicly. It concluded when, following an emotional hearing on Jan. 26, the BOS agreed to withdraw its request for reconsideration—a move that threatened to raise the stakes for both the DEC and Harvard—in return for DEC’s agreement to accept additional written public input received no later than Feb. 9 and to hold a public meeting to discuss it on Feb. 23.
As of the Tuesday deadline the DEC had received a three-page “Neighborhood Response” from Jay Wallace, co-owner of Dunroven Farm on Old Mill Road, as well as supporting findings and recommendations from Richard Horonjeff, a Boxborough sound consultant hired by the Perrys of Old Mill Road, and a legal opinion from Michael Giaimo, a Boston-based lawyer with Robinson & Cole, also hired by the Perrys. In a separate letter, the BOS asked the DEC to confirm which parts of its regulations applied to Evergreen so that the debate could proceed with an “agreed understanding.”
At issue is the so-called Long-Term Monitoring Protocol approved by DEC in December 2009. Although Evergreen managers have modified the way they operate their plant and have installed new pumps, barriers, and mufflers, said to cost “millions,” they have been unable to keep noise reaching Harvard within the bounds required by a Noise Violation Resolution adopted by the DEC in July. The resolution was the product of negotiations between Evergreen officials, including CEO Richard Feldt, the Harvard Board of Selectmen (BOS), and abutting Harvard residents, and was agreed to by all parties. As of this February, Evergreen has met most of its milestones, including activation of a final underground pump just last week. It has yet to demonstrate, however, that it can operate continuously within resolution noise limits or pass a “worst-case scenario” test in which it meets those limits with all equipment operating at maximum capacity.
The problem, say sound experts, is background noise. Get rid of that, they have said for months, and Evergreen will be able to demonstrate compliance. The protocol at the center of the current debate was devised last fall as a way to separate Evergreen noise from sounds originating at other Devens facilities, such as the RockTenn paperboard plant on Independence Drive, as well as Devens trains and trucks, and even insects and wind. This is accomplished by measuring sound levels next to the plant rather than on Harvard land, which is hundreds of feet away and where sounds and their sources become confused. For a variety of reasons, however, residents fear the levels set by the protocol will leave them with more noise on their property than promised by DEC’s regulations, which specify absolute limits at the Harvard property line.
Over the next week, DEC and Evergreen sound consultants will review the comments and post their own findings and recommendations at the DEC website no later than Feb. 16. Then all parties will debate the issues at Devens on Thursday evening, Feb. 23.
Asked whether the DEC was likely to modify its protocol after hearing further input, DEC administrator Peter Lowitt said, in a phone interview with the Press, “[The protocol] is a creation of the commission. It’s required under the noise resolution. [But] the noise resolution is not required under the regulations. It was created as a means to address the issue at hand.”
“[The Commission] could say,” he added, “‘You guys are making a really good point here, we should throw out the entire noise resolution and just go back to enforcing complaints.’” Or, he said, commissioners could vote to modify parts of the plan, or to just keep it the way it is. “We’re trying to be open. We’re interested in hearing what the neighbors have to say. The only thing we’re trying to do is implement our regulations. The more objective and the more data-based the process, the better it is for us.”
Asked what it was like to live near the plant after all of the months of measurement and mitigation, Dunroven farm co-owner Wallace told the Press, “It’s still too loud.”
Harvard residents should care about this, he said, because “Devens is a big neighbor and abuts a lot of Harvard land. It’s an industrial use next to a residential area. It’s a situation that has to be watched carefully. The [DEC] is not looking out for the health and welfare of Harvard residents. So we have to defend ourselves.”
