Superfund site in Billerica is transformed into solar array

Mass Innovations, From the Beacon, October 2014

A once-contaminated landfill in Billerica has been reborn as a solar energy array that is projected over the next 25 years to save the town more than $6 million.

The former landfill is the first Superfund site in the nation to become a solar energy producer, according to Chicago-based Urban Green Technologies, the developer of the project.

To make the project happen, the town and Urban Green Technologies had to navigate a complex regulatory course, due to the property’s history as a dumping ground for many decades even before it became the Shaffer landfill. By the time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated the landfill a Superfund site in 1984, many enterprises had contributed to the degradation.

These entities, known as “potentially responsible parties,” or PRPs, included the town itself, according to Billerica Town Manager John Curran.

“At some point, the PRPs went ahead and cleaned up the property,” Curran said. “But the town never participated in the cleanup. Because of that, the PRPs basically had a legal action against the town, so that we would not be released from that liability.”

The town, meanwhile, was owed roughly $1 million in back taxes on the land, which hadn’t seen commercial activity for at least three decades.

“The likelihood of recovering that [revenue] was slim to none, because of everything that went along with these properties,” Curran said.

For the deal to be viable, Urban Green Technologies needed a clear title to the property.

“They wanted to know what they were going to get for the liability that the town had,” Curran said. “So we worked with them to come up with a new number that they could live with and would help them finance that deal. … If they had to pay the million-plus in its entirety, they wouldn’t have been able to make that deal work.”

The town, he said, will benefit from the 6-megawatt solar field in several ways.

A “net-metering” agreement with Urban Green Technologies is projected to save Billerica an average of $2.65 million over 25 years. The arrangement, according to Curran, will lead to a 10 percent reduction in town energy bills up to a maximum of eight megawatts.

“Because of the nature of the deal, the way the net-metering credits were done was reflective of all these other things going on, [which means that such an agreement] may not have been viewed as competitive for other cities and towns,” Curran said. “Whereas for us, we were wiping out a liability, and getting some revenue back on
the books.”

And with the former Superfund site now in productive use, additional property-related revenue, in the form of payments-in-lieu-of-taxes from Urban Green Technologies, is expected to generate almost $3 million over the 25-year period.

Close to $500,000 is expected to flow to the town from collecting back taxes from owners of properties at the former Superfund site, now that it has been rehabilitated.

To make the deal viable for Urban Green Technologies, the town waived another $694,000 in interest on back taxes on the property. With the agreement in place with Urban Green Technologies, however, the revenue will ultimately be recovered, Curran said.

“It was a complicated deal, and it required everyone to work together to make it happen,” Curran said. “So often these kind of things can die on the vine.”

Urban Green Technologies’ interest in the property dates to 2010. Palmer Cameron, the company’s executive vice president, said the biggest challenge was obtaining state and federal permits.

“There have been many moving parts,” Cameron said. “In order to get one permit, you have to get another one. You have to manage all the pieces of the puzzle.”

Among the technical challenges was ensuring that the solar panel’s anchoring devices did not penetrate the capped landfill’s crust.

For more information, contact John Curran at (978) 671-0942.