ROCHESTER — The Planning Board will start the process of collecting a maintenance bond from IGS Solar after the company failed to meet maintenance agreements. But the decision prompted discussion on how the board should deal with applicants who are not in compliance.

On Sept. 24, Town Planner Steven Starrett said that the landscaping which the company planted on Snipatuit Road to screen panels was dead, a fence was not properly fixed, the access road to the panels was grown over, and there was debris along the access road.

Starrett explained that the interior road had been built as a fire break, to stop fires from spreading to the panels. However, when it is overgrown the road is more of a fire hazard than a fire break.

Starrett and the board members recalled that in the two years that the town planner has been there the company has not touched the road.

“They want a surface that acts as a fire break, but they did not properly prepare it,” the board’s Chair Arnold Johnson said. He pointed to the Mattapoisett Road solar project as an example of a good fire break.

However, how to properly prepare or maintain a fire break merited a bit of discussion.

Johnson explained that in groundwater protection area companies are limited in which chemicals they can use to prevent overgrowth

But Planning Board member Ben Bailey worried that “If we don’t allow chemical mowing because of an EPA article… that has been disproven — Roundup is not harmful to anything, we’re not really encouraging the construction and maintenance of fire breaks.” 

Johnson pointed out that there are other chemical alternatives that companies could use.

However, Bailey still worried that “The Town of Rochester loses” when breaks are not well-maintained “because we’re interested in having a fire break there.”

Bailey also disagreed with trying to depend too much on bonds or threats to motivate non-complying companies. “A bond is a fixed amount of money. You will spend that and be right back where you are,” Bailey said. 

Johnson said that the town could then use landscape or decommissioning bonds.

“That’s the road you’re going down,” Bailey said.

Starrett noted after the meeting that most companied comply with their permits, and this is the first case he has seen in two years where a company has not. 

New Planning Board Administrator Tanya Ventura asked if the Planning Board could collect a fee from IGS and have the town maintain the array. 

Johnson and Starrett explained that they don’t have the resources in the town to do that, and the array is on IGS’ property.