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1 Orange County Commission for the Environment Meeting Summary June 13, 2016 Richard Whitted Meeting Facility, Hillsborough ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ PRESENT: Lynne Gronback (Acting Chair), May Becker, Peter Cada, Bill Kaiser, Bill Newby, Jeanette O’Connor, Rebecca Ray, Sheila Thomas-Ambat ABSENT: Thomas Eisenhart, Loren Hintz, Lydia Wegman, David Welch STAFF: Tom Davis, Brennan Bouma GUESTS: Bruce Sinclair, Tim Turner _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I. Call to Order – O’Connor (on behalf of Gronback) called the meeting to order at 7:30 pm. II. Ad ditions or Changes to Agenda – O’Connor suggested moving the discussion of the landfill solar array proposal ahead of the CFE Facebook item to accommodate guests from the Carrboro Environmental Advisory Board. Cada offered a motion; seconded by Ray. CFE members approved of rearranging the agenda accordingly. III. Minutes – O’Connor asked for comments on the May 9 meeting summary. Cada motioned approval as written; seconded by Newby. Motion approved unanimously. IV. Potential Solar Array at the Closed County Landfill – The CFE received information from the Town of Carrboro's Environmental Advisory Board (EAB) about that board’s interest in collaborating with Orange County and the Town of Chapel Hill on investigating the possibility of installing a solar array at the closed landfill. This project has not yet been endorsed by the Town of Carrboro. EAB members Bruce Sinclair and Tim Turner presented information from their preliminary investigations for CFE consideration and discussion. The EAB is looking into several ways of promoting solar power development in the area, and wanted to speak with the CFE specifically about larger ground-mounted solar arrays (20-40 acres, 4 - 5 MW capacity), ideally near 3-phase power substations. Sinclair said the EAB has received guidance from Strata Solar The Orange County landfill is one of few large parcels of land remaining for solar development that are close to the potential users of that energy. It is also bordered by large powerlines, and both of the parcels at the landfill that might work for solar development have good southern exposures, so solar might work well at that location. Sinclair and Turner said they have spoken with Orange County Solid Waste Director Gayle Wilson and Solid Waste Planner Blair Pollock about this idea and learned that there are two possible sites at the landfill. They also learned that Strata Solar considered the landfill previously but decided not to develop there. Some of the challenges associated with developing solar on a landfill are that you have to accommodate for future settling of the land surface and for the active landfill gas recovery system that is operating on both parcels.