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Renewable Energy Task Force
City of Salem, MA
Minutes
Of the Meeting of Thursday, March 15, 2012
At 120 Washington Street, 3rd Floor
Attendance: Paul Marquis (city Energy and Sustainability Manager), John Hayes, Adam Segal, Jeff Brandt, Rick Nye, Jeff Barz-Snell (vice chair).
Guests: Ryan Chaytors, First Wind, Boston; Becky Smith, Clean Water Action, Boston
Absent: Cindy Keegan, Jenna Ide,
- Meeting called to order at 7:10 PM. John Hayes volunteered to take the minutes in Cindy’s absence.
- No minutes of our February meeting are available yet, due to Cindy’s absence.
- Update – by Adam Segal regarding the Education & Outreach Subcommittee meeting that was attended by Adam, Jenna, Paul, and Jeff B-S. The subcommittee is attempting to meet every two weeks. They are developing an “Education Outreach Kit” for RETF members that will be kept at Paul Marquis’ office. The next meeting of the Salem Common Neighborhood Association will be Wed., March 28 and Adam Segal will do a quick presentation about the activities of the RETF (they reportedly have a full agenda). The goal of these presentations is to explain what the RETF is, its mission, its membership, what the RETF has worked on in the past and is currently working on, and to have a list of past accomplishments as a handout. The subcommittee is
going to develop an RETF flyer. Adam volunteered to create poster/flyers from some of the materials available at our RETF website and home page.
- Related to having information available to RETF members, Paul loaned his last copy of the Winter Island Wind Turbine Feasibility Study to someone and they have not returned it; hence he respectfully asks if any RETF member that has a copy of this study to let Paul have it for the office.
- Mass. CEC acoustic study grant update: After Paul gets the signature page from the Mayor and the budget and scope from Howard Quinn, he will complete the grant application. He learned that the CEC can turn around the application in about a week. Arrangements are being made with Howard Quinn. The CEC website has published guidelines for acoustic studies – as a type of protocol. Paul stated that the protocol was ‘informed’ by DEP guidelines as to acoustic (sound) requirements.
- Guest Ryan Chaytors: First Wind has 6 operating projects in the New England area, but not Massachusetts; most of their wind turbine projects are in Maine. Ryan stated that Maine has a straight 42 db standard and is not based on # db in relation to ambient measurements. Rick Nye asked if Dominion and/or SESD had done ambient noise monitoring? Paul stated that he thought that SESD ambient data would be more helpful since SESD is not shutting down. Paul will look into this.
- Winter Island outreach and announcements: RETF is waiting for the acoustic work to be completed and to resolve the Article 97 issue. John Hayes reminded the RETF that Salem State’s celebration of Earth Days Week 2012 would run from April 9-13 with a full week of speakers, Earth Day student poster competition, films, panel discussions, and Earth Day Awards Program on the evening of Wed., April 11 in Slater Lecture Hall of Meier Hall. The theme for this year is: Sustaining Our Oceans: Key to Earth’s Future. All events are open to the public. One of our two special Friend of the Earth awardees is Capt. Charles Moore, discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the N. Pacific.
- Green Business Challenge: will kickoff on April 1; the city is about to begin a canvassing campaign—then they have a month to complete the survey. Paul has some info cards for us to pass out to businesses in the city. There is a GBC Committee, of which Paul is a member and chair. This used to be a competition, but will now be a rating system.
- Living Green Fair will be Saturday, May 19. Ben Bouchard used to coordinate this event for the Chamber of Commerce. As Ben has left the CofC, his replacement is Scott ______ and Paul will invite him and/or Rinus _____ to our April RETF meeting. We need to think about a possible theme, and speakers and/or films to show. Paul suggested a theme of “Sustainable Food”.
- Clean Salem, Green Salem will take place on the Salem Common on Sat., May 5. The RETF could ‘man’ a table with wind resource info, home weatherization info and updates, and possibly an IR camera for demonstration purposes. We discussed whether in the future, this event should join the Living Green Fair event that is co-sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and the RETF. [added to minutes by JHayes: May 5 is now also a day of climate action by the 350.org climate change activist group which is led by Bill McKibben. A student group at Salem State University is trying to organize a supporting 350.org event on the Salem Common on May 5.]
- Mass. CEC – Solarize Mass. Program: There is an application deadline of March 21, 2012. Paul suggested that we collaborate with Swampscott’s Planning Department (contact person is Peter Kane). The results of a pilot project of the Solarize Mass program (done in 4 communities) was to show a good increase in the number of residences that installed solar photovoltaic systems. Paul will check with the Mayor and Swampscott to see if the two communities want to be co-applicants. John also suggested that the Salem State summer intern could assist with this effort by the city.
- Guest Ryan Chaytors was invited to speak, to inform us about First Wind, a developer, builder, and operator of wind turbine projects in Maine, New York, Vermont and in the western US. They are a mid-sized company. In their wind projects, they own the turbine and provide a cost savings for energy purchases to the city/town. The smallest turbine that they operate are 1.5 or 1.6 MW single turbines. To date, all of their wind projects are on private land, with no ocean-based wind projects. Ryan has been with First Wind for five years, and has managed two projects in Maine. Paul asked for their typical timeline—and Ryan said, on average, their projects take 4 years.
- Meeting adjourned at 8:55 PM.
Minutes respectfully submitted by John Hayes.
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