Renewable Energy Lessons from US & Canadian Projects

[00:00:00]give it about 10 more seconds before we get started okay well welcome to today's environment and energy leader webinar sponsored by mantro Environmental Group in partnership with um some of their Partners renewable energy projects Lessons Learned in the US and Canada I'm very excited for this event we are going to hear from experts um on their case studies and I we are ready to jump into this but before we really get started with the content for today we do want to go over a few housekeeping items with all attendees this event is being recorded So if you are not able to view it live with us now you will be able to watch it later on just as those who are on with us live you will be able to rewatch this event as well if you have questions for today's panelists please go ahead and put them in the Q&A widget at the bottom of your screen we will do our very best to get to all of the questions before the top of the hour that being said if we do not get a chance to answer your specific question before uh today's event is over we will be following up with you with a list of all of the questions submitted as well as answers so don't worry um if you are having any issues during today's event please feel free to send a direct message to me Jessica hunt through the chat button and I will do do my best to help you uh solve whatever problem that is you can also use the chat to let us know where you're joining from why you decided to jump on with us today um and it's a place for attendees to be able to communicate at this point I am going to turn the presentation over to Heather and I look forward to rejoining you for uh the panel later on all all right hi everyone um thank you so much for joining us today our our webinar today renewable energy projects Lessons Learned in the US and Canada um it we have an exciting webinar set up here for you today my uh background is I have about 24 years of experience in natural resource Consulting and project management and T about 10 of those years um I've been working on pretty much directly with renewable energy clients mainly in the Solar battery energy storage um and wind sectors um one thing we're going to try to do is tell a quick fun fact um every time uh we've got a new panelist um so a new a fun fact about me is that um I recently obtained a scuba diving certification to be an Open Water diver and I've been having a great time uh exploring some of our underwater environments across the uh lower 48 states so um let's see next slide please so a little bit about mantros mantros our mission is to help our clients solve environmental problems we're a publicly traded organization with over 3500 employees in 95 offices across the world we have a really diverse client base in the oil gas and renewable sector and we also work with federal agencies and Commercial manufacturers Etc um all over the world next slide we have a we work under a strategic kind of Integrated Solutions model um this model kind of focuses on improving water quality and air quality including greenhouse gas mitigation to help move our clients towards their Net Zero pledges in the Renewables sector specifically we engage our multi-disciplinary Consulting and Engineering Services to support our clients projects throughout the Green Field and the Brownfield development stage next slide please so we've got four folks on today's panel including myself and uh we'll mention uh we'll introduce ourselves at the beginning of of each case study that we present to you today our case studies are going to kind of flow very similarly across starting with an opportunity which kind of basically uh describe some of the project background General project background and then we're going to move into some challenges that we faced in each of these projects as a team and then we'll we'll finish up each case study um going through some solutions that we devised uh to take care of the Project's challenges but before we get into the case study I wanted to touch a little bit on on the why why renewable energy why is it important um next slide please so and and I'm sure many folks on the on today's panel are aware of many of these uh issues and and and of these reasons for renewable energy and the and the movement towards the clean energy economy but you know Renewables are ex inexhaustible energy there's a never ending supply of the of wind sun and water and it's free as our global population grows renewable energy can sustain our energy needs and reduce our consumption of fossil fuels which emit greenhouse gases um in the United States the recently passed uh 2022 inflation reduction act which just turned two years old about four days ago by the way um that act is the most significant climate legislation in history offering funding programs and incentives to accelerate the country's transition to a clean energy economy and the current permitting Reform Act uh Bill sitting right now in the Senate is another example of recent legislation that if passed will streamline the renewable energy permitting process in the lower um in the in the United States in Canada on the other side of the Border um Canada being a world leader in clean plower uh Canada's 2030 emissions reduction plan and smart Renewables and electrification Pathways program is investing 1 and A5 billion over the next eight years for renewable energy and electrical grid modernization projects so these regulatory drivers the fact that Renewables are inexhaustible um and ESG goals environmental social and governance goals that are being set up and becoming the core fabric of many businesses governments institutions all of these things have led to the inclusion of renewable energy use as opposed to traditional fossil fuel energy to help move move us all towards our Net Zero goals so it's just making more and more sense okay so before I get started into uh my case study um we're going to give the attendees a few seconds to answer a poll question at the beginning of each case study all right I see the poll question one is up so we're curious to know what stage of the renewable energy project process you are involved involved in so as you answer that we're going to go on to the first case study thanks Lauren all right okay so um I'm covering the North Carolina excuse me North Carolina Community solar portfolio excuse me I to drink of water real quick sorry about that getting over an illness Okay so the goal of the community scale solar portfolio in North Carolina was to really bring clean energy projects to more rural areas across the coastal Plaine of North Carolina um there were certain energy targets and goals set by various um local electric management cooperatives but the projects themselves oh and go ahead next slide um the projects themselves um spanned across five different counties in North Carolina um all within the kind of inter Coastal plane and pedmont areas um each project ranged between two megawatt um AC to 5 megawatt AC in size so you know uh distributed generation size smaller size and once built um these are all now operated and managed by local loal Electric Membership cooperatives next slide so some of the project challenges that we faced as a team um moving into this this portfolio is that each each project was uh except for the with one exception uh the project located in Wake County North Carolina um each project was uh located in a rural area um some of these areas um there was a lot of just general unfamiliarity with with solar projects um in some of these counties this was the first solar project for that County to come in um the dominant land use was agriculture in in all of these except for Wake mainly Wake County and um you know at at some of the hearings we were finding that a lot of uh neighbors and surrounding land owners had a kind of a general fear of change in land use so excuse me that coupled with lack of ordinances on on the Solar projects themselves um unclear setbacks on what what setback widths needed to be um Etc all of those things led to um a lot of challenges during the project design and layouts so we work together as a multi-disciplinary team to tackle some of these um next slide please so again we we put together a multi-disciplinary team um we had um surveyors scientists on this team civil engineers electrical um and carried these projects from early site due diligence all the way through notice to proceed and stamp sealed um drawings that were ready for the um engineering procurement and construction contractor um during the course of the site development we established bi-weekly working design meetings to work in real time on different site um constraints we were running into with setbacks or fatal flaws cultural issues anything Wetland streams um anything that came up um we dealt with it in real time during the design um when it came to special use and condition additional use permit time we attended in person or if if it was online um we attended the hearings in um in person with the client's attorney to address questions right there at the podium um alongside our client and our and the attorney so uh to date um all of these projects have been approved built and are online servicing those local communities and we are continuing to support a couple of the those projects during their operation phase so really exciting case study and with that I'm I'm wrapping up here so with that I am going to segue over to Delaney who will go into her case study in Canada take it away perfect thank you heather um yeah I'm here representing Canada I've been watching where everybody's from I see a few familiar faces um from here in Calgary for those who don't know me my name is player and I'm a principal wild wildlife biologist at Montrose uh I've been working as a biologist for the past 23 years and started working on renewable projects in 2008 uh around 2016 I started working on a lot more renewable projects focused on solar uh and I support permitting and construction of those projects as well as batteries wind and other Renewable Energy Technologies um I a little tidbit about me is that my passion is bat biology and I've handled many of the species of the bats that we have in Canada and the US um and sometimes I even go on trips to find new little bat friends uh I think we're going to have a poll question come up there it is uh so the question this time is what power Market do you work in perfect next slide please so for my briefcase study I'll talk about a large solar project in Canada uh so this is the Travers solar project it's a 465 megawatt AC solar project on 3300 acres of land near Vulcan Alberta Canada um as Heather's noted can has been moving towards increasing renewable energy production over the past few years and Alberta has been a key area for several reasons um we have great solar resource in the southern part of the province um and we also have a deregulated Market um for Travers itself it's very large um as mentioned I have the size there which is about equivalent to 1,600 Canadian football fields or 2,000 American football fields um for the folks from the US on the call um and it can power about 100,000 homes annually the environmental work for the project started in about 2017 the project was fully permitted and approved in 2019 and construction started in 2021 uh and the commercial operation date you can see there was late 2022 and it is currently in operations overall the project was well cited it was on cultivated lands it had low Wildlife use steering Baseline surveys and mitigations were provided throughout to further reduce the risk um the project was also ranked as a low risk from an environmental perspective by provincial Regulators which was good um and it was a great project to increase renewable energy production here in Alberta next slide please moving on to some of the challenges uh as I've said a couple times the project lands are very large so given this we had to consider how we would survey the full area what data was needed and how we would appropriately evaluate the risk um we also had to decide if there were additional mitigation measures needed based on what we found and the size of the project uh similar to what Heather said this was also one of the first industrial scale solar projects that folks in this area had been exposed to as well so we did have a lot of questions around the permitting process around how we were going to survey the areas uh what we were going to do about vegetation soil management weeds and fire risk so those things were all considered during the assessments uh given the size of the project as well we did consider that it was going to be multi-year construction so we had to consider how that would impact the environmental risks uh what would happen over winter on those lands under construction would there be an increased risk that we need to take into to factors such as erosion or water management concerns next slide please so for some of the solutions that we had is we created a multi-disciplinary project team that was involved through the entire process of the project so from the early days when we went out and did surveys and we were starting to understand what was there on the land through permitting uh through working uh on construction as well we had key contributions from vegetation Wetland soils and ESC Specialists so a fairly broad team uh of environmental folks that were at the table to make sure that we were considering all the different factors uh for this project and what environmental risks um it could pose uh one of the key actions that we took is we worked very closely with the APC contractor for 8 to 10 months prior to the start of construction so a lot of this would be talking through their design plans understanding what they were going to do uh for for grading and such so that we could make sure that aligned with the environmental commitments and provide any other feedback um or management that was needed we also worked really closely with The Regulators to ensure that they were engaged in the process they knew the project goals and they knew um what what documents we had in place and they had time to review them and contribute uh we also we continue to support through operations as as I mentioned the project is up and operating so that was a brief little bit of some of the the challenges and uh some of the solutions we had the table for Traverse and I will turn it over to Ethan now for his case study thank you Delany uh my name is Ethan Yoni um I'm the senior project manager here at mantras been here for about two and a half years um I've got almost 30 years of experience in uh environmental work um probably about 14 in the last last 14 years I've been working in renewable energy and probably have worked on somewhere between seven and 10 gws of uh projects anywhere from uh uh Wetland delineations to permitting and Regulatory Community engagement type work um here today we're going to talk about the Western us wind project that we have uh but first I think we have a pro a poll that we want to talk about and the the third poll is what are your biggest challenges to getting your projects online next slide please so I'm here to discuss uh this wind farm out west it is still uh being worked on at this point but we are um three years in so um we basically we it's going to be about 300 megawatts that's enough power probably around 100 150,000 homes it's uh 23,000 acres in size uh right now we're looking at about 55 turbines um and that's all depending upon the technology when it comes around uh right now we have uh there's two land owners that are ranchers uh some are with sheep uh and some are with uh cattle um it is as you can see on that map it's surrounded by federal in the green uh and gray and then stat land on the blue uh it's also uh former uranium mine site uh and there's a historic World War II bombing range nearby which is pretty interesting uh because you can still see the the bullseye uh in the ground that is now full of sage Sage Brush next slide please well I'm here to talk about Wildlife issues and specifically Aven Wildlife issues uh we have a large concentration of raptors if you look at that map we have uh Raptors surrounding the site we have uh several other issues in that area um small birds we have uh swift fox uh a handful of other things bats as well as everyone probably knows who's in the Wind industry uh we also have issues with access uh one of the land owners is pretty tight about us during lambing season when the Sheep are are taking care of their lambs uh so we actually have three years of construction preconstruction studies the first year we went out there uh was a couple miles west of here and we realized pretty quickly that um the resources were too too too deep in this area area in terms of some nests and whatnot so we moved it to the East and uh one of the issues that we have to work around is a 2- M buffers around Golden Eagle nests and so in this area that we found after two years of studies uh we have been able to find and thread the needle between these areas um we have to get an agreement with the state wildlife agency uh in order to get the the the permit the state the state permit at the end so um all in all we're trying to gather data to to look at what type of mitigation we can do to to to get these wind turbines within this area while at the same time uh trying to continue the same kind of Land Management practices that the ranchers want to continue uh next slide please so our solution uh was basically to come up with some management tools for for some databases that we created uh specifically survey 123 uh it's a arcgis e based product um which allows us to take all of our surveys um and to put the data in the surveys but also to include these flight path uh layers which is kind of revolutionary for some folks because we're able to create hotspots with that information as well as uh flyways with that information um we we included perching locations uh foraging success from golden eagles and yes Lambs uh are one of the biggest uh reasons for mortality is golden eagles uh any kind of interactions or incidentals that we've seen out there um we're able to put this into this database and we coordinated with the fish and wildlife service and the the local state agency on uh mitigation strategies so our early coordination with these folks I mean we started 3 years ago literally talking to them because some other nearby wind farms were having issues um and so we started with them walked them through been out to the site with them and have created some pretty uh some pretty interesting mitigation uh opportunities including identif flly which is a radar uh DARPA based uh software and imagery process that um will you you lay it out in the field and it will shut down a turbine or a couple turbines based upon where these Eagles are flying or these Raptors are flying um in Europe they're starting to paint some turbines uh turbine blades black um they've seen a 70% uh decrease in mortality on some of these sites so we're starting to look into that as well um as well as carcass removal uh going in and making sure if there is any type of mortality with um sheep or cows or cattle we get in there and get them out because that attracts uh Eagles um and also looking at uh grazing rotation with the sheep and being strategic about it and time wise about where where we want to put those sheep so with that I'd send you to Chris jadak uh with his case study in Maine thanks Ethan uh and hello everyone uh my name is Chris jadak and I am the practi leader uh for montros for uh brownfields and Community revitalization uh fun fact about me is I live in Seattle right now but I grew up north of the Border in the uh second uh biggest London in the world London Ontario um I got a degree in civil environmental engineering um and I've spent the last 23 years in the United States uh as an environmental consultant um my work travel in my personal travel have led me to 46 States throughout the country I'm just missing four to complete the uh the 50 um and as a national practice leader I get the fun job of um helping a wide variety of clients throughout the country uh eliminate funding gaps uh and develop strategies uh to fund a wide range of of programs and projects uh in the environmental space so today I'm going to talk to you about a project project for an existing client of ours in Maine and how they're leveraging uh some of the funding that was made available through the inflation reduction act to fund a really cool project um that involves renewable energy so next slide so last November uh EPA put out uh guidelines for an exciting new program called environmental and climate Justice Community change grants um they have $2 billion of funding available on a rolling basis until it's gone or um the last date to apply is November 21st of 2024 so this is ongoing um if you're preparing an application or um have been slow to start and think of one uh they uh last month issued a notice of award for about $350 million of the two billion uh dollars so there's still funding available uh although there's a high level of effort for putting these together so um you you got to start quickly um you can apply for up to2 million of Grants and um the grants have to involve a pollution reduction strategy and a climate action strategy so our client the uh Anson Madison Sanitary District uh is located in Central Maine and they have a pretty broad service area much of which qualifies as um distressed you know census tracks uh because of uh primarily lowincome uh rural popul ations and so they had designed a $45 million upgrade to their existing wastewater treatment plant facility and the goal is to treat pasas down to acceptable discharge levels for the um kbec River um and of course with most um you know significant funding projects uh they had a funding Gap to eliminate so we looked at whether this project was a fit for epa's new um program next slide uh so uh one of one of the challenges was uh in order to uh apply for this funding and fit this p uh wastewater treatment plant project into uh epa's priorities for their new program and we had to identify a a main pollution reduction strategy as well as a main uh client act climate action strategy and so the pollution reduction strategy was pretty clear you know um posos is a contaminant that is in Wastewater um streams um pretty much everywhere throughout America and the major goal of this project was to put new infrastructure into the treatment plant so that um there were acceptable discharge levels to the the receiving Waters which uh were the kenc river um that flows uh to main uh to the coastline U the Atlantic Ocean and so another um feature of this was is how to build in the climate action strategy and our our client actually um owns a uh landfill next to their wastewater treatment plant and um it's a closed landfill and um it's actually suitable for installing a solar array and a micro grid um you know another um theme of epa's new program is um energy resilient and um emissions reduction uh development on Brownfield so that that tied in nicely as well um the uh solar aray and uh micro grid component of the project uh is roughly $5 million um that they're asking for for that um with tax credits that gets reduced down to $3.6 million um other funding um you know challenges uh were um you know fitting you know uh the $20 million project um cap and uh it being part of a larger project um and EPA is not allowing folks to um ask for extension so you get three years to spend the $20 million and um you know doing that all and and having all the permitting and construction completed um is a challenge um it being a new program is a challenge so um you know you don't have templates you are working alongside that the regulators and their technical assistance providers that kind of Blaze the trail and um you know create compliant projects that can feasibly be completed um and then another element was um working in community- based organizations and getting the community meaningful involvement into the project and in this case it means working with tribal entities and other community stakeholders to uh become a part of you know understanding where posos is where it's coming from and how it can be mitigated next slide so uh these are some of the statistics for um the outputs of the solar array and micro grid um it's anticipated that up to 30% of our clients energy uses will be funded by it and if you do the math on you know a $5 million investment and an annual Savings of energy of $340,000 per year you know it's estimated that in 10 to 15 years they'll recoup the investment that's uh being made to uh create the solar array so um I would love to hear from you folks uh you know uh during the Q&A on um questions you might have um related to environmental and climate Justice Community change grants and um I'm also interested in um you know uh follow up if you if you want to to to hear about the lessons learned we've had this wasn't our only application through this new program uh We've helped about eight entities throughout the country and a wide range of projects so love to see if uh we can help you vet you know a potential application um next slide so to to recap you know um the bipartisan infrastructure law the inflation reduction act really is a you know am mounting to generational opportunities um for funding uh for uh renewable energy and other environmentally focused projects um the economic Advantage you know with renewable energy um you know more than justifies the cost and um you know some of these programs are requiring you know um collaborations between public and private entities and uh community- based organizations but um you know it there's a lot of solutions that um you know benefit from from um stakeholders being involved and uh um it's a good thing uh going forward so I think we're going to go from here into um questions from the panel yes thank you so much we did we have had quite a few questions come in as well as comments uh regarding different um parts of the case studies so I'm going to invite all panelists to join me on screen now now and we are going to get started with the second half of today's event and just a reminder if we don't get a chance to answer your specific question that you submitted during the event the panelists will have a copy of the questions and we'll be answering them and then montros is going to be kind enough to send out a full document with the questions as well as all of the answers post event and if you are watching this on demand and you have questions please feel free to submit them as well so let's get started this question is for Ethan um and Delany and Delany I'd love to hear from you first and then Ethan if you have information to follow up that would be great so after site control or a lease is obtained how long do your projects typically take from early site due diligence to the issue for construction and notice to proceed yeah that's a great question so I would say um I can give you the the rainbows and butterflies version First of what would happen is that usually I would say to get through all the environmental surveys and such to complete all of those and make it through permitting and to get a a permit it's usually somewhere between 18 months to two years um that's when things go well and and such and after that two-year period the the timing to get further on and to start construction obviously is dependent on how fast a developer moves the project forward how fast they get an EPC on board the um the size of the project and what sort of constraints they need to deal with um if you end up in a situation where um there's public opposition or other things um that approval process obviously can take longer as you move through a hearing or other um answering regulatory questions and such great Ethan has that been your experience as well uh well with solar sure uh yeah that's very good point yeah um solar you you know you can go in places in in you know in Texas or even Nebraska where there's really no conditional use permits required um or you can go to Michigan and have a Township issue right or a state issue that takes a while or you you just need parts or if you're going into wa you need the NEPA right um wind uh what we're finding now in most of our wind projects is that uh The Fish Wildlife service really want at least two years of surveys uh you can submit some of your permits before that second year is done because you have a pretty good idea and by the time they actually look at it they can um it'll probably be approved and your and all your studies will be done um but I would say for wind it's probably a lot longer anywhere from 24 months to seeing you know four years right so uh it just depends and and right now we're seeing some of our clients have issues with Transformers and and Equipment uh that's you know several years out was one of the questions follow-up questions I was going to ask is what are some of the biggest obstacles your clients are experiencing during this whole the permitting process uh you want me to answer that one or um we're doing Delan Ethan feel free yeah Ethan feel free to continue and then maybe if Delan you have a different um if you have some other obstacles that'd be great yeah yeah well a couple things right now we're dealing with uh a little bit harsher restrictions on on um eagles they went from half a mile buffer to two mile buffer here in the last in region six uh and the requirements for additional surveys uh wetlands are always just an issue because right now we can't get anything out of the core we're looking for jurisdictional determination um they they sent us a letter the other day it said it's going to be at least a year before they they see that so we're looking at uh you know if you can do self-certification something like that we're doing looking at that but um uh you know permitting you know the biggest issue with permitting I would say the number one thing I would tell everybody every one of our clients anyone who's listening please go out and make sure before you do this project that you have talked to Commissioners and some of the neighbors and make sure that they're on board or that they can be persuaded because in some of these newer rural areas we're seeing um some folks that are pretty malinformed uh misinformed you know we've had people call us you know Chinese space laser conductors uh in town meetings Town Hall meetings Community meetings so uh we've seen some strange things and uh it it's it's getting out there in front of that is key absolutely yeah and I would build on that as well and definitely agree and I think sometimes there is some still some pering that's required after you have your main approvals in place generally um associated with wetlands and that can take quite a while and can surprise uh developers uh especially if you're going to have impacts to to Wetlands that that's going to add onto the timeline before you can start construction I think Ethan quickly mentioned procurement as well um in the US which is a similar problem in Canada if not worse in certain cases um that can impact that development timeline um and then we have had uh just several changes across Canada from the from the provincial government's perspective um on how they're how they're treating the industry and what uh what their expectations are on how you how you permit a project so it can be yeah the expectations are always changing and it can be difficult to stay on top of them oh I can I can understand that and I promise Chris and Heather were going to get to you but I just know there are some other follow-up questions coming on to the conversation that we're having right now Ethan you mentioned you know going out into the community and and talking to different different stakeholders so what are the type of questions that you advise your clients to ask before beginning a project well the first thing I would do is get local counsel if you can because they have they have a good feel and temperature of what's going on locally um and find someone that can uh uh you know not necessarily sponsor your project but be a local contact because a lot of times if you're the developer sitting in Chicago and you have a project in uh middle of Montana um you know you're not going to be there every day so you you need somebody who is is local uh that's the first thing that I would would recommend or someone who who knows the the rules locally uh and and the people that that always helps out quite a bit all right well thank you for that we are going to move on Heather this question actually is going to be for you and it goes back to the first poll question not the intro but the first one according to the poll most respondents here about 38% stated they are involved in the early site due diligence and development phase of renewable energy projects what are some of the biggest challenges as consult that Consultants have dealt with during this phase um a lot of issues that I've run into on the you know most of my work is on the Eastern seab board um is the timing of the actual due diligence if the projects are up north or in New England area uh Northeast United States um for if you're doing a an initial assessment of a a green field or a Brownfield site really for that matter for Wetlands or streams you have to wait you have to wait until thaw or uh growing season onset of growing season which can be sometimes as late in the year as late April early may even so that's an issue on timing um other T like threatening endangered species issues if you've got um a request from Fish and Wildlife to survey for a bat or even you know some other small mammal um there might be uh seasonality issues with with that to to make sure you catch the the data that you need when they are present um same thing goes for plants flowering periods sometimes the flowering periods is just a couple of weeks and so kind of getting back to what Ethan says the earlier you can start you your community relations your public relations that due diligence the earlier you can start that the better if you can give yourself an entire year on a project you're better off take care of that stuff give yourself some time great advice there um Delaney we're going to go back to some other U mitigation measures questions that so in terms of mitigation measures and Trend what are some trends that you are currently are currently occurring in the development of renewable energy projects and I know this could change based on the year or based on uh different regulations or or what a community has as their part of their goals in terms of incorporating renewable energy yeah so I think from a mitigation measures perspective I would align with what Ethan and Heather have already said too that any mitigation that you can put in place early around wetlands are very important um adhering to the different setbacks that may be um required in the jurisdiction that you're working in as a mitigation those are generally very effective I think what uh can end up happening is in a lot of cases those setbacks they're in place for they're very beneficial that you adhere to those setbacks especially once you get to construction so for example if you have some wetlands and you decide that um like here in Alberto we have 100 meter setback on certain types of wetlands um you may decide that you want to be working within that setback and say reduce it to 30 m um and that gets approved what can end up happening during construction is that you can end up being in an area where we're going to have endangered or threatened uh amphibian species so that is going to slow down your construction there's going to be additional work that's needed to either relocate those amphibians or wait until they've moved out of the area and so just adhering to th those set packs end up benefiting you in the long term and getting them them right from the start I mentioned Wetlands I think the other ones that are very important currently and that kind of tie into some of the land order concerns as well is anything related to vegetation management so weed management getting vegetation established on site as early um and as successfully as possible and then soil management so managing that soil to minimize erosion as well as Max maximize the likelihood that you're going to have a good establishment of the the vegetation that's going to grow on on the site for the duration of the project those would be some of the more major ones right now no and all and all great advice and sure some of the things that you mentioned too are items that not everybody would think about during the process so it's good to have the vast information available to our attendees now Chris before I jump into questions directly um for you did you have any anything you wanted to add to any of the questions that our panels have t panelists have talked about at this point no I'm going to stay in my lane and uh field question related to uh funding uh so that sounds good yeah our our funding Guru on with us today so what are some of the biggest challenges and lessons then that you have learned when preparing an EPA environmental and climate Justice Community change Grant new program is the the big one um you know they they put out these guidelines I don't think anybody knew exactly when they were going to come out but they came out last November and we started talking to our client in Maine about a fit you know for their project in December and it honestly took us you know all the way to um June to submit the application and so you know anytime you're doing something new and there aren't templates or examples you know um it's a very collaborative process with folks from the regulatory agency EPA and then their network of technical assistance providers to kind of troubleshoot you know the logistics of the program um another challenge um is that um this is a new program and they're um very specific that there won't be extensions given to folks and so you essentially have $20 million but you only have three years from the date your Cooperative agreement starts to finish all the permitting um do all the construction and show all the outcomes for the project so um it's uh in the real world three years uh I think folks know is is a not a lot of time to get everything done uh and do it well and then the third one I'll say is you know our our clients uh um Sanitary District you know they manage Wastewater um for their um residents you know and in their jurisdiction over a large area of Maine and um they had this project um you know designed um but we had to fit in the uh community- based organization involvement and um partner with uh a collaborating partner um defend our health you know to bring in Community Voices into um the P situation in Maine um design a program where um we can we can um work with those stakeholders to actually um conduct sampling of you know sediments and Waters and stuff like that and and really bring in the community element um to an Engineering Process project essentially so um that's always a challenge but we uh Rose to the challenge and we uh got our application in and we uh pass the threshold criteria um you know for uh the logistics of the Grant and we're awaiting uh our score from a merit based standpoint so um knock onward we're hoping for good news here uh in the next little bit and um this is a going to be a one-of-a-kind uh facility you know um a regional solution to treating posos and uh could be a great example for other states and other sanitary districts throughout the country to um do something similar so um I'll stop there those were three wonderful no and and do you have a timeline of when you expect to hear you know um they said roughly um you know 45 to 90 days after you submit you know and so I know that they're um strongly U motivated to U award you know as much of this funding as possible you know um by the one-year anniversary date of the guidelines which is going to be November 21st you know um they do allow for um Awards going all the way up till September 2026 so they're allowing a lot of time to um work out the details and establish Cooperative agreements with these clients but um they've only done one round of announcement $350 million of the $2 billion totally available so we're hopeful that we're going to be part of a second wave of anoun announcements and that uh good news will come before Christmas well we uh we hope so as well and hopefully that you will be in touch to share that news with us whenever whenever it comes all right we are GNA jump into some other questions from the attendees today thank you for being on with us still we have about 11 minutes roughly about 10 minutes to answer as many questions as we can so Heather I'm going to start with you what is and this is a question actually that we have talked about and we have covered at later um what will happen to the panels after the end of life of this project will manufacturers take them down will they recycle them what happens yeah um all right so many projects most if not all that we've worked on um have been decommissioned so there are a number of recycling facilities popping up um across the country that will take the panels at the end of their useful life so it's usually about 20 25 years give or take you know the the the make model manufacturer um it remove the panels the posts the wiring everything um and take it to a recycling facility those facilities are um uh certified they're set up they recycle the materials and goes right back into either manufacturing or some other um material for some other use so uh decommissioning um is uh part of most special use and conditional use permits in order to be granted the permit to even build the project you have to have a signed and sealed decommissioning plan along with a decommissioning cost estimate that uh looks out uh 20 25 years and estimates the value of what that's going to be costing uh the developer um then at that point time so great question and really appreciate it too because there's a lot of kind of misinformation out there on the on the web and um and so on with um with panels and and turbin um what happens to them at the end of their useful life so thanks for the question no wonderful yes and and I know I agree with you there is a ton of misinformation and and hopefully that won't always be the case at least the amount of misinformation but one never knows so this question has to do with agriculture I'm curious about issues arising out of the use of Prior agricultural land for solar some jurisdictions expressly discourage it via permitting or otherwise others encourage it some local communities favor it you know people are all over the place when it comes to this so any what are the issues and how do you handle those Heather I'm gonna stay uh with you for that one and then Delany I'd like to hear a little bit of followup as well great this is a huge issue um we are seeing this come up across across the country um the use of prime farmland or prime agricultural land or or active or even phow agricultural land for solar battery energy storage um it's a it's a large issue but it's something that I want to convey to the listeners that we can work within and that is because in order to meet our states goals in greenhouse gas reduction Net Zero reductions these you know the governor's bills and executive orders we only need a fraction of 1% of that AG land to meet those goals we are not talking about you know a change in all land use of Eggland to to solar um I think it's a big misunderstanding um it's out there a lot of folks are they they come to the hearings and they're concerned that the whole entire County that they might be in is going to become a solar field then that's just that's just not the case um we're not seeing that um I've been in the space for for 10 years now been to dozens and dozens of hearings and across the landscape um you do see solar Fields pop up more but it's not the dominant land use type and I don't think that's the goal I think the goal is to meet our mission's goals and so I think it's on us as consultants and researchers and Educators to send the message that in my at least in my opinion solar is best on a Fields because solar in Forest Cuts trees down and we're almost kicking ourselves in the foot by cutting down trees to put up solar panels so I guess that's my two cents love to hear delane's Canadian perspective yeah and I would say the same thing Heather I think um yeah the there's a balance needed between the different land uses we're in the similar situation where the amount of land that's going to be used for Renewables is it's not um what I think people are are assuming it is and I think in addition to that I would go back to um some of the work that should be done by developers to ensure that we're picking the right lands for these projects and so that means lands that have as few Wetlands as possible that are on Lower quality agriculture Cal lands um where they can be or they're going to be collocated um with either things like sheep like Ethan was mentioning or they're going to be doing aggr voltaics or those sorts of things like there are other things coming um to the industry that I think also will improve it even more in that regard um so that yeah I think I think I agree with Heather that it is a it's a big issue um in certain ways it's been overblown and there are there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to pick the right sites to balance all the competing priorities that we have for any of our land thank you for that and I know we we have more questions coming in about Agland and don't worry uh the panelists will be able to follow up with you I do want to try to get to a couple of other topics because this is one actually I put down in my notes when I was listening as well as it came in from a couple of our L our listeners Ethan this question is for you and it goes back to when you talked about uh changing the color of the blades making them black so there are companies looking uh to study painting turbine blades and are they're curious to know how this worked for your projects and whether the paint added any additional weight or whether it conducted uh heat into the Nels uh great question uh great questions uh we're still trying to analyze a lot of these um because it is so new right there's a handful of projects that are working on it uh there's one out here in Wyoming that is in existence I think it's been up for about a year year and a half near Glenrock um we're we're keeping track of that so far they haven't had any issues uh one of the recommendations for the paint was to put an equal amount of white paint to offset the balance or to you know to create a balance of those three uh blades um it it it is literally such a New Concept that we are working with the fish and wild life service on it and because it would be uh mitigation that is relatively new it would be probably be reviewed it be studied uh and see if it's actually going to work right um not 100% about the heat um but my client uh is a pretty big client and they're still working on it and trying to figure out how to adapt to it because um you know you you saw that that that map that I had my project on our project there's just a lot of there's a lot of activity and so Avent activity and so they're trying to minimize the impact as best as possible without having to curtail anything the wind is crazy good up there but uh you know at what what cost right so um yeah so right now we're we're we're we're analyzing a lot of those we're still probably another year away from uh approval so like I said it's a 3 to four year for some of these and um uh you know I'll let you know when when it comes out wonderful and we are almost out of time I do want to give the panelists about uh 30 seconds to 45 seconds each to kind of give one or two key takeaways they would like our attendees to leave with today and again as a reminder this is going to be available on demand for you to watch after the event so Chris when am I start with you I am here to support folks so I am on a mission to help the EPA find a good use for this $2 billion of funding and um hopefully show great outcomes and uh make sure that it's not a one-time program so um yeah please uh reach out to me if you're uh trying to invent the wheel and Blaze the trail because we've got some experience to share and uh can help you so that's it for me wonderful Ethan why don't we hear from you then Delany and finish up with Heather yeah um I mentioned it already talk to the the local folks uh the Commissioners the the township uh get as much information from them before you you can do your CIA your initial studies but if you think it's going to work definitely try to get a feel especially these newer areas um right we're we're going through these new areas these new counties and finding all kinds of issues the second thing is uh a lot of uh land owners ranchers Farmers they're they they need this to survive on some of their properties that's what we're finding out west because property taxes are increasing in certain areas uh this is their only way to preserve their property into perpetuity for their kids so that's the other thing that we're seeing quite a bit I think I'm up next and so I would just reiterate um what Ethan said of talking to folks and I would add one slight Nuance to it of talking to land owners as well to get any information that they have on their lands make sure that they're as engaged in the process as possible and that folks can go out and and Survey the areas and the the concerns that they have and then um yeah I think that would be my major one I guess just to add um I wanted to kind of recap or reiterate what Chris gak had said about the $2 billion in EPA funding if you've got a Brownfield site and and remember the Brownfield definition is very wide it could be a mine it could be a landfill caps landfill there's lots of of uh latitude in the definition of a Brownfield and and it's got a potential if there's some interconnection or or structural um infrastructure near it that makes it suitable for maybe a battery energy storage site or a solar site or a wind site please reach out to us uh start with Chris kadak he's our expert um and and we can't reiterate that more um and other stuff with with just site design like I said earlier start early in your process try to add a year at the front get yourself real familiar with your project go out and see it go out stand there stare at it get to know it get to know those neighbors get a consultant on board that knows the lay of the land start early and stay stick with that due diligence to get your permits and everything keep it on time so I could keep going but great no great advice to leave our attendees with today um I want to thank those who were able to join us live and those who will be watching this on demand if you could there's a quick survey that's going to pop up on your screen when we end the event we would love any and all feedback feel free to submit additional questions in that survey as well we appreciate again you being on with us and we look forward to the next event with montress and their Partners so have a wonderful day everybody um enjoy hopefully have some nice weather where where you live so thanks again