Could the end really be in sight? If the sudden conciliatory behavior of Evergreen Solar’s chief financial officer this week and the response of Harvard residents who live near the company’s solar cell factory are any indication, a long-running dispute over noise from the plant and its contribution to the Devens clatter and din heard in Harvard may be about to end. For the first time in anyone’s memory, the Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC), its staff and consultants, Evergreen Solar, and the Harvard neighbors seemed to finally agree on a way out of a debate that has lasted for more than a year at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees and monitoring equipment.
By a unanimous vote—and only after Evergreen had reversed its earlier stance—the Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) agreed Tuesday evening to replace its mechanism for determining whether the Evergreen Solar plant is operating within DEC noise limits with a new so-called “bright-line” standard. The new approach, with more stringent sound limits than the current protocol, will give Evergreen 90 days to take the additional steps that will be necessary to meet the stricter limits of the revised protocol. But the new mechanism requires only two monitors, both located next to the plant, and it sets unambiguous night and day limits to the noise Evergreen is permitted to emit at those spots. If Evergreen can show it is operating at or below those limits, then no matter how much Devens noise there is in Harvard, the company, in the words of Harvard commissioner Jim de Zutter, “is off the hook.”
Harvard residents along Old Mill Road were jolted from their bucolic lives in early 2009 when Evergreen Solar began to manufacture solar wafers and cells at its state of the art factory on Barnum Road. Racket from the factory interfered with the work and sleep of its neighbors, disrupted horseback riding at Dunroven Farm and elsewhere, and led to two notices of noise violation from the DEC. Evergreen responded by installing equipment to quiet its blowers and fans and halt noisy deliveries of gases used in its manufacturing. But as the plant grew quieter, it became increasingly difficult to determine how much noise was coming from Evergreen compared to sound from trains, construction, and other activities at Devens.
In late 2009, and in response to a request from the DEC, Evergreen proposed a way to measure its own contribution to the noise and, working with the DEC’s consultants, set up sound monitors next to its cooling towers and fans. After collecting data over a number of weeks, the DEC and Evergreen agreed on day and night sound levels at the two locations, which data suggested would result in acceptable levels at the Harvard boundary. Evergreen says it has been in compliance with those numbers ever since, a matter that is not disputed by the DEC’s sound consultants.
Harvard neighbors of the Evergreen plant, however, continued to complain of noise and argued that the limits permitted Evergreen at its plant were too high, and in December the Harvard Board of Selectmen asked the DEC to reconsider the Evergreen protocol and allow more time for collecting data. The number of sound consultants multiplied, lawyers entered the picture, and a solution that would satisfy everyone seemed only a remote possibility.
The evening meeting this Tuesday did not start out well, either. After listening to statements by Chairman Bill Marshall and a presentation of two fresh options by the DEC’s staff and sound consultants, Evergreen appeared ready to dig in its heels. Options presented included the “bright-line” standard and one dubbed “the gray area,” a version of the current protocol that calls for the use of 10 monitors, three more than are currently in use, which would cost in excess of $1 million to operate annually.
Evergreen’s sound consultant Greg Tocci presented a litany of technical objections to the DEC’s proposals, while the company’s land use lawyer made a presentation that appeared to show how Evergreen might challenge a new protocol in court.
Tocci said Evergreen believes the current long-term monitoring protocol is appropriate and best serves the DEC and Evergreen.
Commissioner Phil Routhier wondered if the DEC was holding Evergreen to a higher standard than other factories at Devens. The protocol, responded DEC legal counsel Edith Netter, was “a methodology—mutually agreed upon—to make life simple. I’m certain the intention was not to treat EGR any differently than any other factory, but to simplify the process for everybody.”
It was Harvard’s alternate commissioner, Victor Normand, who seemed to tip the discussion toward a resolution. Observing that both the neighbors and the DEC staff favored the bright line, he asked, “Would it be appropriate to ask Evergreen again?”
After summarizing the two options—“gray” and “bright line”—proposed by the DEC staff, Marshall put the question to El Hillow. “Would you consider having a protocol with the bright line, so all that you would have would be two monitors and you would have to establish on your own the mitigation necessary to achieve that?” he asked.
El Hillow turned to the neighbors in the room and asked, “If we hit these numbers, would you be fine? What the DEC is saying is, if we hit these numbers, no one will call us. Are you comfortable with that protocol?”
And as each of the half dozen neighbors in the room responded positively, some with a surprised hesitation, suddenly there was an agreement in the air.
Now the DEC staff must draft the new sound protocol. While there are legal questions that remain up in the air, the DEC is likely to formally adopt the new measurement and compliance documents at its next meeting on July 8.