Environmental and Good Governance Articles Dominate Carver Town Meeting Warrant

Clear-Cutting, Strip-Mining, Threats to Aquifer by Industrial Greenwashers Targeted; Citizens Push for Term Limits, Cite Conflicts of Interest

CARVER – The Carver Town Meeting will consider a number of articles addressing environmental and good governance controversies that have recently roiled the Town at its Annual Town Meeting on Tuesday, April 12th, 2022.

The measures (Articles 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 38, and 40) come in response to popular concern with the massive increase in clear-cutting and sand mining in town, often through the plethora of new solar “farms” [sic] and industrial lithium battery storage facilities that are either already built, in the process of construction, or are being planned in Carver’s neighborhoods, forests, and wetlands.

This destructive clear-cutting and sand mining – personally enriching the entities and individuals so engaged, such as the A.D. Makepeace Company, the largest private landowners in Eastern Massachusetts – is the result of a number of (sometimes shocking) interrelated factors.

Perverse Incentives Drive Deforestation, Strip-Mining of Sand

One major factor is legal – that is, the well-intentioned, though in this case ultimately environmentally destructive, ostensibly renewable energy preferences that exist in current Massachusetts law.

Most people tend to support renewable energy, and are surprised to hear that laws designed to encourage greater sustainability are paradoxically encouraging deforestation of globally rare Atlantic coastal pine barrens, strip-mining of sand and gravel, and pollution of the Plymouth-Carver Sole Source Aquifer, in Carver, Wareham, Plymouth, and beyond¹ – and producing immense wealth for powerful, local extractive commercial interests.

In fact, because the solar “farms” [sic] are typically created by clear-cutting and strip-mining a globally rare forest ecosystem, the pine barrens, that serve as a gigantic carbon sink, the energy produced is not carbon neutral; indeed, the opposite is the case. It is the climate equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

A sane and sensible solar policy would encourage siting solar on roofs, parking lots, and already-disturbed land that is not being used for agricultural purposes. There are millions of square feet of roofs – many of them radiating thermal energy into urban heat islands – in New England. Surely all of these would be better sites for these projects than globally rare forests that are massive carbon sinks ( plants breathe carbon dioxide and subsequently store it; when trees are cut down, carbon is released).

According to Carver Concerned Citizens, a civil society group made up of everyday citizens, as of today, 4,000 acres of forests have been cleared for solar “farms” [sic] in Massachusetts, despite the wide availability of both rooftops and power lines for solar panels. Up to 150,000 acres of forest could face solar energy development in the Commonwealth.

(Photos of clear-cutting and strip mining for “clean” [sic] energy in southeastern Massachusetts; credits — first photo, Carver Concerned Citizens; other photos via Save the Pine Barrens)

Sand, which underlies most of Carver – the Town is situated on a glacial outwash plain – is extremely valuable at this moment; sand is a major component in concrete, used in China’s multi-decade building boom, and fracking in North America (which requires sand to shoot into the ground to hydraulically fracture it and release hydrocarbons) has also increased global demand. Thus, there is a strong monetary incentive to strip-mine the sand, often illegally.

Yet, because the relevant enforcement authorities refuse to do their job (see below), this practice goes largely unpunished, if not de facto encouraged.

(photo credit — Save the Pine Barrens. This strip mining here in southeastern Massachusetts is justified as an “agricultural” use).

Essentially, the preference given by current statute to any kind of destructive development, so long as it can claim a fig leaf of “renewable” justification, is nearly all encompassing. It is so great that courts have been reluctant to intervene, according to informed legal observers who followed recent oral arguments at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Tracer Lane II Realty, LLC v. City of Waltham, on March 7th.

Energy Colonialism

Carver, critics argue, is in the same predicament as many other communities – often rural, agricultural, or indigenous – which confront what some scholars have called “energy colonialism.” Large metropolitan areas, needing huge amounts of energy, often outsource, so to speak, that environmental destruction to places on their periphery. Moreover, this energy will not even go to Carver, but will be sent to the regional grid.

In an analogous situation, last Fall Maine voters resoundingly rejected the proposed Central Maine Power Corridor, a massive transmission line that would bring hydroelectricity from Quebec (permanently flooding the lands of the native Cree people) to Massachusetts, so that the Bay State could meet its own renewable energy requirements. This would have permanently destroyed much of the wild Kennebec Gorge region of northwestern Maine, one of the only true canyons in New England – and Maine would not even get to use this energy; it would all go to us here in the Bay Commonwealth (overwhelmingly metropolitan Boston, according to energy use).

Mainers defeated the Central Maine Power Corridor at the ballot box, 59% to 41%.

Indeed, colonialism is something local Wampanoag people, the first inhabitants of southeastern Massachusetts, on whose unceded territory the clear-cutting and strip-mining and industrial development is occurring, have faced before, and continue to face. It is notable that it is the Wampanoag who have been among the foremost voices resisting this predatory development and desecration of their lands, in Carver and beyond.

Yet respect for the first inhabitants of these lands – or any of its inhabitants – seems far from the minds of clear-cutting and strip-mining interests.

Temporary Moratoria on New Solar, Battery Developments Considered; Mining Interests Seek Earth Removal Exemption

For this reason, Carver citizens are attempting to establish municipal bylaws on these matters at Town Meeting, the legislative branch of the New England Town; Carver has an Open Town Meeting, meaning every registered voter of Carver is a member and a municipal legislator.

Article 38 will establish a temporary moratorium on new industrial battery storage facilities.

Article 40 will establish a temporary on large-scale ground-mounted solar installations. The articles were brought forward by Carver Concerned Citizens, a local, non-profit, civil society organization.

If passed, the moratoria would last 11-and-a-half months.

 “Carver is being targeted by developers for these big projects. We must protect our drinking water wells, unique rural character and quality of life,” said Carver Concerned Citizens spokesperson Mary Dormer, in a March 21st press release.

“Enough is enough and that’s why we put the articles on the warrant. Voters should come to the Town Meeting on April 12 to vote yes on these articles to protect our water.”

(Members of Carver Concerned Citizens demonstrate; photo credit, Carver Concerned Citizens)

Meanwhile, Article 18 would provide a major exemption for sand mining under the guise of the creation of new subdivisions. It was brought forward by the Carver Earth Removal Committee, itself dominated by mining and trucking interests (the sand is trucked away from the strip-mine site).

In an April 6th statement, Save the Pine Barrens, a non-profit group founded by long-time environmental attorney and activist Meg Sheehan, called the proposed exemption “a loophole big enough to drive a tri-axle truck through[.]”

Taking On “the Revolving Door” (Sometimes Not Even Revolving)

Another major factor is the issue of good governance. The very interests, entities, and individuals – in this case, clear-cutters and strip-miners – that are supposed to be regulated by various Town bodies, are themselves often serving as those self-same regulators. The conflict of interest is as obvious as it is blatant.

 This has been termed “the revolving door” in the political science literature. Wikipedia has a fairly good article on the subject (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)); this definition seems relevant to the situation in Carver:

“In politics, a revolving door is a situation in which personnel moves between roles as legislators and regulators, on one hand, and members of the industries affected by the legislation and regulation, on the other, analogous to the movement of people in a physical revolving door.”

Except, because individuals actively engaged in commercial earth removal also sit on the Carver Earth Removal Committee and the Carver Conservation Committee, the door is not even revolving, so much as left wide open. The foxes have moved on from guarding the henhouse to running a fried chicken restaurant therein.

In addition, reputable observers have noted consistent violations of Open Meeting Laws in the operation of the relevant Carver Boards. Some, according to one source, do not even keep records of how they came to their decisions. One town official told a Carver inhabitant, a member of Carver Concerned Citizens, that he was “a moron” for opposing dangerous industrial battery projects in his neighborhood. Indeed, this same citizen was privately contacted as well by the Battery developers, wondering how they could change his mind.

This cozy relationship between business interests and local government is not a new development in the history of Carver – indeed, as I will show in an upcoming article, Carver was dominated in the 1930s by a commercial, land-holding oligarchy that brutally and successfully broke widespread strikes among cranberry pickers attempting to unionize. This oligarchy did not go away in the 1930s; in fact, some might argue it attempts to exert significant control to this day.

Articles 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37 all establish term limits, of two terms, or six years for a number of Carver Town bodies: the Earth Removal Committee, the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Select Board, the Finance Committee, the Planning Board, and the Redevelopment Authority, respectively. The idea behind these is to prevent the current ruling class in Carver from ruling in perpetuity.

Cranberry Point: Chemical Fire Risk, Risibly Dishonest Advertisements

One of the more egregious and flagrant examples of disrespect for the People of Carver, and of southeastern Massachusetts more generally, comes from the proposed 150 Megawatt Cranberry Point Lithium Battery industrial storage facility, sited immediately proximate to cranberry bogs (i.e., the aquifer) and a residential neighborhood off of Main Street.

The Cranberry Point battery storage facility  is a joint project of politically-connected landowners from the Weston family, and Plus Power, an energy company based in Houston and San Francisco.

The major concern expressed by many residents is that of an uncontrollable chemical fire resulting from the proposed 116 trailer-sized (30 feet x 8 feet by 5 feet) ion battery storage units. A lithium battery fire that ignited last summer in Texas required 32,000 gallons of water to put out, as the batteries kept reigniting. Moreover, the chemical reaction of the water with the lithium has the potential to create hydrochloric acid, which would then have nowhere to go but the aquifer.

Local firefighters expressed severe concern about the potential for forest fires, which swept through the region in the 20th century.

The project’s paid advertisements try to elide and conceal these facts, and sell its own money-making scheme to the inhabitants of Carver and southeastern Massachusetts. However, they appear to be backfiring.

These paid advertisements on social media have attracted scorn, derision, and cross examination (including from your intrepid reporter).

The negative reaction can in part be attributed to the advertisers for Cranberry Point’s essential and disrespectful dishonesty. These ads would have us believe that “Cranberry Point Energy Storage” has nothing to do with cranberry bogs, which is quite obviously false.

I did grow up down the street from a cranberry bog; I can tell what one looks like. Most people around here can. Given that, it is astounding that the very photograph the public relations firm included in their propaganda release shows cranberry bogs in the photo itself! 

(Screenshots of Cranberry Points advertisement. Apparently the their PR firm is unaware that in the course of claiming the project has little to do with cranberries, they are showing a cranberry bog in their own photograph. Photo credits, Benjamin Cronin, Ph.D)

Moreover, their very name includes the word “cranberry” – is this just a rhetorical flourish? Or is it, as seems more likely, that the name came before the Battery Interest realized that there would be massive public opposition to these dangerous projects, and it was too late legally and practically to change it?

In any event, it is hard to credibly claim one’s massive lithium battery storage project has nothing to do with cranberry bogs, when the photos you use to try to convince people show cranberry bogs, and the name itself includes the word “cranberry.”

Likewise, the claim from the PR professionals that the project is not in pine barrens is so risible, so laughable, that it is hard to express, since essentially the entirety of the Town of Carver is in the Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion.

Perhaps the Public Relations firm that the Battery Lobby retained to design their propaganda are not from around here, and cannot tell a cranberry bog from an oyster bed.

Either that, or they have such minimal respect for local intelligence and life experience that they are comfortable lying to our faces.

Persistent Questions, Orwellian Response, and Contempt for Democracy

Both I and others immediately began to ask sharp, though polite, questions, including: what percentage of Plus Power’s Board of Directors and corporate officers live in Southeastern Massachusetts? How can we credibly take your word when your advertisements are full of prima facie falsehoods? One .gif simply said “nobody likes you.”

As of my last check, that message remained, though my and other oppositional questions had been deleted and sent down George Orwell’s “memory hole” by Battery Point’s PR apparatchiks. The insistence of Cranberry Point’s agents on using the term “thermal event” – by which they mean “unquenchable chemical fire” – further illustrated the evergreen relevance of George Orwell, particularly his observation that “in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”

The ultimate expression Plus Power’s contempt for the People of Carver and for democracy, served with a frisson of ignorance about how our local governments work, though, came in a Feb. 15th, 2022, letter to the Carver Select Board, seeking to have Article 38, the battery moratorium, excluded from the April 12th Annual Town Meeting.

Allyson Sand, who describes herself as a “Marketing Lead” for Plus Power, requested the Select Board remove Article 38 from the warrant.

The only problem, of course, for Ms. Sand and her paymasters, is that the Select Board has no authority to do that. Under the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, the People of Carver, through the Town Meeting, and not her corporate patrons, do in fact still rule, and the democracy ship has not yet sailed, despite her best efforts.

Town Meeting at Carver Middle/High School, Tuesday 4/12, 7 p.m.

Carver Town Meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12th, at the Carver Middle/High School Auditorium, on South Meadow Road.

1. At nearly 200 square miles, and providing drinking water for seven Towns – Bourne, Wareham, Plymouth, Carver, Kingston, Plympton, and Middleboro, the Plymouth-Carver Sole Source Aquifer is the largest aquifer in Southeastern Massachusetts. One current solar “farm” [sic] has driven chemically treated poles, coated with a solution containing arsenic, 40 to 50 feet into the peat soils of Carver cranberry bogs, thus bringing those chemicals into contact with the aquifer.

A sole source aquifer is extremely vulnerable to contamination, especially one in porous glacial till, such as in southern Plymouth County.