June 7, 2019

Dear Governor Mills:

We trust you are now aware that the Town of Camden recently submitted an offer to the Department of Administrative and Financial Services (DAFS) for the Union Chemical Superfund site to install a regional 3.5-megawatt solar farm.  In exchange for this property the Town offered the State renewable energy credits and the opportunity to install electric car charging stations.  DAFS instead accepted a full price offer from an abutter, with no explanation of what was planned for the use of the site. 

Despite these setbacks, the Town of Camden would like to express our continued desire to work collaboratively with the State and prevent another opportunity to meet both the State and the Town of Camden’s ambitious clean energy goals from being wasted due to a lack of innovative thinking within State Government departments.

As the first municipality in the State of Maine to join the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, Camden is committed to drastically reducing our emissions by generating energy through renewable sources, particularly solar. 

The former Union Chemical site presented a unique and exciting opportunity for Camden to help Maine, and many of our neighboring communities in the Midcoast, achieve our shared goals of substantial reduction of our emissions through the expansion of solar power generation by locating a solar farm on this site.

As one of Maine’s few Superfund sites, the negative environmental impacts of the Union Chemical Company, Inc. are inarguable.   The considerable limitations on this site, which include but are not limited to; prohibitions on ground water extraction, prohibitions soil disturbance and requiring existing and future monitoring wells be accommodated, render the site virtually unusable. 

The Town’s plan to locate a regional solar farm of up to 3.5 megawatts on this property had the potential to transform a site that has had tragic environmental consequences for the State of Maine into a site that actively contributes to addressing climate change, the most urgent environmental issue of our time.  

The Town of Camden conducted extensive site searches both within the town and of our neighboring communities.  Camden’s geography, lack of available marginal land at a reasonable price, and need for a lot that can accommodate a solar farm with the potential to generate at least 1.5 megawatts greatly constrained our options and virtually eliminated all potential sites within Camden.

The Town was incredibly careful in selecting sites for a project because we believe in ensuring that land is utilized for its best and highest use. For this reason, we focused specifically on sites that are underused, difficult to cultivate, have low economic value, have low conservation or recreational value and limited potential for development. 

This led the Town to investigate the potential of the Union Chemical site, which we believe presents a great prospect for a large-scale regional solar project.

The Town will work with our neighboring communities to develop a project that is an example for Maine of how local and state government can work collaboratively to increase solar power generation and substantially reduce emissions, without compromising arable land.  Camden received overwhelming community support, and support from our neighboring communities, for expanding regional municipal investment in solar generation. 

The Town also received encouragement and technical support from the Maine DEP and officials in the US EPA Region 1 who are all familiar with this site and believed the project Camden proposed presented the most viable and beneficial potential reuse of this site.  

However, this project ended before it was able to begin due to the process DAFS implemented in the disposal of this land. 

Ultimately, the offer accepted by DAFS only considered the monetary value of the sale of this property.  The fact that this is the only criteria that seems to be seriously considered for the sale of State-owned land is regressive and genuinely distressing. 

Municipalities frequently dispose of property acquired through foreclosed tax liens, and the cash price of the offer is almost never the deciding factor in who the property is sold to.  A much more progressive approach to disposing of surplus land is to base decisions on the highest and best use and whether the proposed use fits into a broader policy/goal.

Most municipalities in Midcoast Maine utilize tax-lien acquired properties to help meet our goals, such as increasing affordable housing stock.  Exclusively looking at the cash value of real estate the State is disposing of is an antiquated way of doing business for a government and demonstrates a disconnect in your administration between your stated goals and the actions of your departments.  

Representatives from DAFS have been in contact with officials from Camden about their process for selling this land.  One justification for their decision was the long-term site monitoring costs and court order authorizing the State to sell this land which required cash from the sale to be placed in the State’s uncontrolled sites fund.  

While we certainly appreciate the significant costs associated with the long-term care of these sites it’s disingenuous to pretend that $60,000 is going to cover any significant portion of these costs, particularly for a Superfund site.  

The Town of Camden was also never told the only criteria for the sale of the site would be the cash offered and was also never presented with the opportunity to make a counter offer on the site. 

Had we 1 – been told the cash value of the site was the only criteria that would be considered, and 2 – had we been presented with the opportunity to make a counter offer, this process would likely have ended differently.

DAFS has also publicly stated that Town of Camden’s offer did not show a clear benefit for the Town of Hope.  This is almost comical because DAFS does not even know what the buyer’s plans are for this site, who they’ve signed the purchase and sales agreement with, and certainly have no idea as to what the benefit will be for the Town of Hope. 

Camden and Hope are close partners and share several important services including a multi-town owned transfer station and Emergency Medical Services.  When Camden began contemplating purchasing the Union Chemical site from the State of Maine the first call that was made was to the Hope Town Manager to determine opportunities for collaboration and confirm the installation of a solar farm was compatible with Hope’s zoning ordinance. 

The final justification that DAFS made for not seriously considering the Town’s offer, was the contingency that the sale be approved through Town Meeting, and that this was too onerous a condition. 

This is beyond discouraging in that it demonstrates a complete lack of willingness on behalf of the State to work collaboratively with the 364 out of the 405 municipalities in Maine who have a Town Meeting form of local government.  This is simply not acceptable.

Municipalities are going to play a large role in your Administration’s ability to successfully implement many of your policies and goals, green energy among them. Therefore, creating more collaborative relationships between your departments and municipalities will be essential for your success.

We understand that doing an innovative project like this is hard work and requires effort on behalf of staff and leadership in DAFS. 

In any governmental process government officials can make a choice to be rigid and inflexible or innovative and creative. This is a prime example of the State Government making the choice to be completely rigid and inflexible. It also sends the message that $60,000 is far more valuable to your administration than supporting a project that will supply enough green energy to offset the consumption of over 2,500 homes.  

We understand that the innovative nature of this proposal likely caught staff at DAFS off-guard and put them in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position where they had to think about broader, long-term goals beyond quickly disposing of a property.  Now that we’ve all had this experience we are hopeful that staff in DAFS and other State Government Departments are better to prepared to work collaboratively with municipalities who have a genuine interest in partnering with State Government to address our shared challenges. 

Camden and our partnering municipalities have not given up on our regional solar farm project.  We will not give up on the Union Chemical Superfund site until the sale has closed.  We have also identified another site in the Midcoast, which is currently owned by the State, and may have strong potential as a regional solar farm.  With support from you and your staff we’re confident that this important and innovative project can move forward.

Sincerely,
Camden Select Board:
Robert Falciani
Alison McKellar
Taylor Benzie
Jenna Lookner
Marc Ratner