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r2d3x9 t1_izf0y99 wrote

Reply to comment by Unique-Public-8594 in Residents ‘Horrified’ Over Proposed Solar Farm Near Waltham/Lexington Line by ak47workaccnt

Solar farm takes up space where trees will not be allowed to cast shadows on the panels. So where do they plan to plant these new trees?

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mini4x t1_izfsixr wrote

There are hardly any trees there already, it's got a power line ROW through the property.

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r2d3x9 t1_izfwh4e wrote

The electric utility will not allow trees to be planted under or next to their high voltage lines

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mini4x t1_izfxix6 wrote

Like I said, the ROW is there already so a huge swath with no trees.

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abcde__edcba t1_izgsbgd wrote

They can't build this in the row. I believe it is because laws prohibit it. This is why these long strips of naked land exist all over the map if you look for them on google maps. They're all over the place.

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[deleted] t1_izfuv99 wrote

[deleted]

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Platinum_wolf_420 t1_izlalfu wrote

They will, they’ll just plant a non native species that does nothing for wildlife because “it looks pretty”

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abcde__edcba t1_izgqhix wrote

I live in a town not to far from this place, but far enough not to have any skin in this game though.

We have a tree replacement fund, very well funded actually. Everytime a tree is taken down from public/protected land, say because it's grown too much and gotten too close to a cell tower, or working on utlities kills a public tree nearby because it damages too much of the roots, the city can use these funds to plant 4 new trees to replace it. Problem is, the town does not have any land where it can plant new trees anywhere because they're already filled up with trees.

People in town loved the idea of the fund and gladly passed the bylaws to get it setup up and passed the bylaws to enforce the rules, etc, etc, etc. But no one asked if it was possible to acutally plant any trees anywhere.

Well, what about in sidewalks? It's one of those towns with barely any sidewalks, and utilities run either under or above the few places where you can find those sidewalks.

Net result every time such a tree is taken down? Negative.

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hvdc123 t1_izhrqoj wrote

It seems like all of your posts with links aren't visible. They had some great information so it is a shame they're gone. I can see then when I look at activity from your username but not in the thread.

Anyway, it seems like the company bought up a property as a contingency plan for access. They apparently were in negotiations with the City of Cambridge to use an existing path off Trapelo but they fell apart. Lots of detail in the Appeals Court case. Tough situation, the construction will be incredibly disruptive and the company took it to court when other alternatives for access were possible.

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abcde__edcba t1_izkhvpz wrote

Yes, the links were direct links to the PDF docs themselves, they blocked those.

But you can still get to them via Lexington's website. If you go to https://lexingtonma.viewpointcloud.com/records/67918 then click on the "Files" tab, you'll see a list of documents you can download. Two of the ones I had linked to earlier are "Project Narrative" (and other links seem to open this same pdf), "Drainage Analysis and Stormwater Management Plan" has maps and 177410LT006-Certified.pdf which has very detailed drawings, maps and legends.

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