The citizens of Amherst successfully prohibited a WDCowls housing development in Cushman Village. Now an even worse proposal looms in Belchertown.
The Pelham Hills have long been regarded as conservation worthy, for their role in regulating the water shed that provides drinking water for them, as well as for Ludlow and Amherst. A lucrative scheme calls for the construction of an industrial scale energy facility on the site, with clear cutting, stump removal, and destruction of the surface across 100 acres of steep slopes along Gulf Road.
Despite objections and misgivings, the town, like others, is caught — updated zoning to regulate solar array placement is incomplete. Now, under pressure from state directives and incentives programs, we’re struggling.
Once forests are removed, they cannot regenerate, and while the erosion and devastation is plain to see on two other nearby sites, in Ware and Orange, those do not pose the same threat to residences and drinking water sources.
Rather than town by town, project by project battles, it would be much more productive to call for a moratorium on massive installations, retract incentives to multinational contractors, and reorient policy toward granting energy rebates to standing forests, as has been done in California. It might help the Cowls company avoid defiling a long record of forest husbandry and conservation projects.
As forest owners work to overcome a stagnant market, we could avoid the David and Goliath contests currently underway. To avoid permanent changes to drinking water, and the sight of massive arrays in the neighboring hills, I urge people to contact Cowls and state and local officials to express concern.
Judith Mann
Belchertown