The garbage from generations of Marionites was piled high for many years at the town dump off Benson Brook Road. No longer an active landfill, the mound now sits dormant like a geologic anomaly in otherwise pancake-flat surroundings. A thick protective membrane, along with layers of soil and tufted grass, obscure the heap of trash and prevent leakage from the site. Nothing can be built there for fear of piercing the membrane. The hill is a useless wasteland…or is it?
This could be a case of one person’s trash becoming another person’s treasure. Marion’s Energy Management Committee is looking at the mountain of garbage in a whole new light — sunlight, that is. The approximately 2.4-acre gently rounded crest would make a nearly ideal setting for a so-called “solar farm,” an array of photovoltaic solar panels. It’s out of sight, nothing casts shadows on it, access to the electric grid is nearby, a chain-link fence already encircles it, and leasing the site to a developer would bring new revenue to the town. Solar farms can be installed on concrete pads that sit atop the existing soil and membrane, with no harm to either. This is not an untested idea: over two dozen Massachusetts towns are giving their dead dumps a new lease on life by planting a solar garden where nothing else can grow.
Perhaps you’ve considered installing solar panels on your own roof, but the angle is wrong, or there’s too much shade, or you can’t afford the up-front costs, or you live in a rental. A community solar farm solves this problem by providing Marion residents with an option to purchase solar-generated electricity for their homes and businesses. Cooperative solar gardens are sprouting all over Massachusetts in response to our state’s progressive incentives to encourage renewable energy projects. One was recently developed in Brewster, where participation has been so popular that they are already planning another. Read all about it here: www.brewstercommunitysolargarden.com. The shareholders in this project not only are reducing their electric bill, but they can also take pride in knowing the electricity comes directly from the sun rather than fossil fuels.
The next step toward a Marion solar farm is approval of warrant article No. 37 at Marion’s Town Meeting, which will authorize our Selectmen to lease the landfill for this purpose. Please come to Town Meeting on Monday, May 21 and help Marion turn trash to treasure and prevent our landfill from going to waste.