Crews break ground on massive Grand Isle solar project

GRAND ISLE - Construction equipment hammers away at the former corn and hay fields off Allen Road in Grand Isle.

Crews in bright yellow shirts and hard hats drive steel beams into the earth, dig trenches and lay miles of PVC pipe that eventually will hold and protect electric wires.

The beams are sprouting up in neat rows like wheat, standing tall against the sun one recent afternoon and representing an increasingly common "crop" of sorts: solar panels.

Workers are transforming these two fields into one of Vermont's largest solar projects. When completed by the end of the year, the Dreamwalker Solar Farm will be the biggest one that provides electricity exclusively within the state, the developer says — largely right here in Grand Isle, through a power-purchase agreement with Vermont Electric Cooperative.

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"There's healthy demand in that part of the state," said Andrea Cohen, manager of government affairs for the co-op. "It's less efficient to transport energy places. You lose energy in the process."

The project, at about 6.2 megawatts of direct current, will be able to power at least 1,000 homes, said developer Gregg Beldock, owner and CEO of Shelburne-based Bullrock Corp.

Renewable energy has been the fastest growing employment sector in Vermont the past five years, Beldock said. But projects — solar and wind especially — also have prompted controversy, largely surrounding the impact of developments on ridgelines and in fields, and the altering in appearance of Vermont's mountains and countryside.

The Grand Isle development, those involved say, represents a serendipitous coming-together of people, businesses and needs. Vermont Electric was seeking to develop renewable-energy projects in the Lake Champlain Islands. Property owners Jocelyn Dubuque and her husband, Pete Johnson, wanted help with the financial burdens of being "accidental farmers" who also work full-time jobs — but they were hesitant to create a subdivision on their land. And Bullrock is building solar projects across the state and responded to the co-op's request for proposals.

"To me this is the most important piece," Beldock said: "This project allows the farm to stay in Jocelyn Dubuque's family and stay as a working farm for years to come."

Dubuque, who works for the city of Burlington, and Johnson, a financial planner, began raising chickens and giving away the eggs after purchasing in 2014 Dreamwalker Farm, which had been in Dubuque's family for more than a century. Then they started selling the eggs. And acquiring more chickens. And selling more eggs.

They also raise pigs and horses.

"But farming's tough," Johnson said as he leaned on an excavator last week and visited about the solar project with Bullrock Corp.'s shop supervisor, John Wright. "Farmers break even, or they go in debt, and they go under."

"To be able to grow our farm," Johnson added, "we had to look at alternatives."

Leasing the land for solar development allows the couple to "keep it in ag and support green energy," Johnson said.

Some neighbors raised concerns during the project's two-year permit-application process regarding the scale of the development and the effect on the area from construction. A few who spoke publicly about their worries could not be reached for comment, but their remarks during a hearing last year are contained in a transcript of the proceeding.

"I purposely bought this house five years ago for what was around it," Lynda Morgan told the Public Utilities Commission, which at the time of the February 2016 hearing was known as the Public Service Board.

"I bought the house for the tranquility. I bought the house because there was space there. I could see the lake," she added. "I love where I live. I wouldn't have bought that house with a solar farm."

Morgan took issue with noise, especially from construction, and noted she suffers from chronic migraines. She and others asked the state to scale back the proposed hours of construction, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.

"The hours of operation is just appalling," she said. "There goes my tranquil home."

In the end, though, the solar farm's state approval — a Certificate of Public Good issued in late May — allows construction during the hours the developers wanted.

"Seems like an awfully late day on the weekday when I'm out on the picnic table having a barbecue or something (at) 5 or 6 o'clock, and we still have equipment running in the back yard," neighbor John Buermann said, according to the hearing transcript.

Riley Allen, deputy commissioner of Vermont's Public Service Department, said the state must take into account the relatively short construction season when making decisions.

"Long days and weekends should be expected given weather restrictions," Allen said, adding that such allowances help keep costs down and ensure affordable power to ratepayers.

Johnson, the property owner, said that by and large, neighbors have been fine despite those initial concerns.

Construction crews broke ground about three weeks ago. After clearing the fields of everything from trees and brush to rocks, workers began marking the grid of some 3,700 poles that will support about 18,000 individual solar panels. Then the crews began punching holes for the beams. In some cases, they'll have to drill through ledge.

The work, which at its peak will employ as many as 60 people, according to the developer, is set back from Allen Road behind an old, white farmhouse. A rough construction road carved into the landscape is visible to passers-by, but little of the project itself is.

That's part of the site's appeal, the developer and landowner agreed.

"You can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't hear it," Johnson said of the solar farm once work is complete. The construction is "a little noisy," he conceded, "but it's going to be over soon."

What then? The "accidental farmers" say they'll probably add sheep to graze in the fields among the solar panels.

Contact Adam Silverman at 802-660-1854 or asilverman@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wej12.