By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
More detailed information of water runoff will be submitted in coming weeks before the Hillsborough Township Planning Board reopens its hearing on a quarry’s proposal to clear 20 acres of trees to install 14 acres of solar panels.
On Thursday night, May 2, the hearing opened with testimony from the engineer who drew the application.
Afterwards, people who live near the 750-acre Gibraltar Quarry off Long Hill and Dutchtown-Zion roads asked questions and gave their own idea of how water would flow off a partially deforested hillside. They asked how the project would affect existing streams and ditches, roads and water recharge for private homes’ wells.
The next meeting will be Thursday, June 14.
The applicant is KDC Solar, of Bedminster, which would lease the land and install the panels, and then sell power back to Gibraltar. The goal is to meet all the quarry’s power needs, engineer Mark Lukasik said.
KDC plans to offer testimony from a forester, an executive in the company and an environmental consultant.
KDC would install about 10,000 three-by-six foot solar panels in a roughly trapezoid-shaped area in the southern section of the 750-acre quarry, near the Hillsborough-Montgomery line. It would cut down trees on 14 acres for the array installation, as well as another 6 acres of surrounding trees in order to avoid shading and having 100-foot-high trees potentially fall on the future panels.
The company said it would satisfy a fire marshal’s questions about access to the panel area in the event of a fire by buying a $31,495 Polaris Ranger vehicle for the fire department.
About 2.3 megawatts of power would be generated to serve the quarry operation, not to feed back into the overall energy grid. In that way, the array qualifies as a permitted accessory use, not as a separate commercial enterprise.
Wires on poles would connect the array to a switching station downhill and across the township line into Montgomery.
The Hillsborough Township Environmental Commission had asked if part of the array could be located on an open five acres near that station.
That would put it in Montgomery, which has 200-foot buffer requirements (versus 50 in Hillsborough) and would require a zoning variance. Attorney Richard Schatzman said KDC would be “hard pressed” to prove the plan was a substantial benefit to a master or zoning plan.
Also, that area is flatter and facing in the wrong direction, Mr. Lukasik said. It would also mean that perimeter trees in two areas would have to be cleared, almost negating the use of the open space, Mr. Lukasik said.
Solar panels would be fixed in place, and not track the sun’s seasonal path. When board chairman Steven Sireci asked if less area could be used if moveable panels were used, Mr. Lukasik said fixed panels were “the business model his client had chosen.”
Mr. Lukasik explained how the engineers chose the site with the quarry’s 750 acres by working around steep slopes and wetlands-constrained areas, and by the need to have the panels face south or southwest to capture the direct rays.
Tree stumps would be removed in the array area, but would stay in the six-acre buffer area to help prevent erosion, he said. The entire area would be reseeded.
