By Keith Regan, Contributing Writer
Westborough – Voters at the March 15 Annual Town Meeting shot down a proposal to lease six acres of the Hocomonco Pond property for use as a solar power generation facility, as concerns about the project’s impact on other current and potential uses of the site prompted calls for more legwork to be done.
Town Manager Jim Malloy said the plan, which was first raised a year ago by the town’s Green Technology Advisory Group, would focus on six acres of the property, which is a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund cleanup site. Those six acres comprise areas that had been capped during the cleanup and the EPA has said the town must fence in the majority of that area if it wants to reuse the larger parcel.
Malloy was looking for Town Meeting approval to solicit bids from potential developers. The article was amended in the days leading up to the meeting to include a six-month “cooling off” period and other restrictions in order to help address the concerns about open space and recreational trails on the property.
“This may be a Superfund site, but the EPA calls it the prettiest Superfund site in the country,” said Don Burn, who helped draft open space and recreation plans that envision not only walking trails but eventually a bike path crossing the property. “We had a plan to reuse the property. We blew the process.”
Malloy told voters the proposal could raise as much as $78,000 annually in metering credits and taxes – about what the town spends to electrify street lights annually.