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hazardous waste. Section D pertains to non-hazardous waste, including household garbage, non- recyclable household appliances, residue from incinerated automobile tires, refuse such as metal
scrap, construction and demolition debris, and sludge from industrial and municipal waste water facilities and drinking water treatment plants.
The EPA’s implementing regulations for hazardous and non-hazardous waste management are found in 40 C.F.R. § 264. Section N applies specifically to landfills, and
explains requirements for how a landfill must be lined, capped, and cared for after closure. RCRA enables the EPA to delegate its regulatory authority over waste activities to state agencies
where appropriate. State standards must be at least as strong as federal standards for this to take place. RIDEM has been approved to carry out the RCRA program for Rhode Island.
The Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments HSWA of 1984 strengthened RCRA by extending the scope of the law to cover generators, transporters, and disposers of small quantities
of hazardous wastes and by banning all land-based disposal of hazardous waste except when EPA deems that it is not injurious to public health. The HSWA gave EPA the specific authority
“to establish national regulations for all municipal solid waste landfills to ensure the protection of human health and
the environment 40 C.F.R. § 258a.” The relevance of the RCRA and HSWA to the siting of solar energy facilities on landfills
stems from the fact that the primary purpose of a landfill is to isolate wastes from the surrounding environment. If a particular landfill fails to comply with RCRA or any other federal
or state solid waste regulation, that landfill must go through the proper procedures to be brought into compliance in order to make any secondary use, such as solar energy, financially and legally
secure. RIDEM’s Landfill Closure Program LCP; discussed in Section 4.2 consolidates requirements from RCRA, Superfund, and other applicable regulations; thus, landfills obtaining
a closure certificate through the LCP are also assumed to be compliant with RCRA.
4.1.2 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or Superfund
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability, or Superfund, Act of 1980 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601 et seq. obligates owners of sites contaminated with
hazardous waste to perform andor pay for a proper clean-up of these sites. Citizens, State agencies, and EPA Regional offices may recommend any contaminated site for remediation
under CERCLA. EPA then conducts a Preliminary AssessmentSite Inspection PASI. If the site meets the requisite criteria, EPA places it on the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Information System CERCLIS, a computerized inventory of hazardous substance release sites. The most heavily contaminated sites are eligible for
“Superfund” status, which is granted when they are placed on the National Priority List NPL. Sites with NPL status are prioritized for cleanup. Once a site is placed on the NPL, EPA attempts
to compel parties liable for the contamination to remove contaminants and remediate the site.
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Liable parties include, in the following order: 1 the current owner of a site; 2 the owner at the time that hazardous waste was disposed of on the site; 3 the generator of the contamination
i.e., the persons who arranged for the wastes to be disposed; and 4 the persons who transported the waste to the site or selected the site for disposal. If EPA is not able to force any
of these parties to pay for the cleanup, it may perform the cleanup itself, using a trust fund set aside specifically for clean-up of hazardous waste sites.
Secondary uses, such as solar energy development, are generally not pursued on unremediated Superfund sites, due to the lack of secure legal status surrounding these sites.
Moreover, RIDEM’s Landfill Closure Program LCP would not grant a closure certificate to an unremediated Superfund site. However, Superfund sites that have been fully remediated and
certified through the LCP may present suitable conditions for solar energy development. EPA approval of this secondary use is necessary prior to development of such sites.
Ch. 2 Table 2. Rhode Island Landfills on the EPA’s National Priorities List Source: EPA 2012.
Rhode Island NPL Location
Central Landfill Johnston
Centerdale Manor Restoration Project North Providence
Davis Liquid Waste Smithfield
Davis Gsr Landfill Glocester and Smithfield
Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center
North Kingstown Landfill And Resource Recovery, Inc.
LRr North Smithfield
Newport Naval EducationTraining Center Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, and
Jamestown PetersonPuritan, Inc.
Cumberland and Lincoln Picillo Farm
Coventry Rose Hill Regional Landfill
South Kingstown Stamina Mills, Inc.
North Smithfield West Kingston Town DumpURI Disposal
Area South Kingstown
Western Sand Gravel Nasonville
4.2 Rhode Island Landfill Regulations Over 100 landfills have been identified in Rhode Island RIDEM 2001. Most are
municipal and private landfills, some of which were never licensed for solid waste disposal RIDEM 2001. All landfills in Rhode Island are subject to RIDEM’s Rules and Regulations for
Hazardous Waste Management and Rules and Regulations for Composting Facilities and Solid
Waste Management Facilities. The latter set of regulations includes extensive descriptions of requirements for landfill engineering and operation, including stipulations on grading, erosion
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control, vegetation, and other aspects that might be relevant for the siting of solar energy arrays on capped landfills.
RIDEM’s Office of Waste Management manages solid wastes through two programs: the Waste Management Facilities Program and the Site Remediation Program. The Waste
Management Facilities Program regulates disposal and processing of solid, hazardous, and medical waste and oversees the closure of inactive landfills. The Site Remediation Program
regulates investigation and remediation of releases of hazardous waste and hazardous materials into the environment.
To proceed with development of a solar installation on a capped landfill, a developer must first assure that the landfill has been officially “closed.” Not all landfills in Rhode Island
have completed a full closure process, and some of those without a landfill closure certificate were abandoned long before an official closure process was instituted. RIDEM’s Landfill
Closure Program LCP is a part of the Waste Management Facilities Program that serves to “streamline the investigation, remediation and closure of these inactive landfills RIDEM
2001.” The LCP is designed as a more cost-effective and less time-consuming substitute to the traditional Superfund process, and helps landfill owners comply with the Superfund process by
guiding them through an alternative process overseen by RIDEM RIDEM 2001. The LCP applies only to landfills that ceased operation prior to April 1992. The program is based
primarily on voluntary participation by municipalities, except where severe contamination compels RIDEM to intervene.
Assuring that a landfill has a closure certificate is a prerequisite for development of solar infrastructure on the landfill. To obtain formal closure at an inactive landfill, an owner must
complete a closure process under the oversight of RIDEM’s LCP program. The LCP program is a hybrid that relies on the regulatory authority of both the Site Remediation and Solid Waste
Regulations. Compliance entails hiring a consultant to develop a Site Investigation Work Plan SIWP, performing any necessary remediation actions as described in the Solid Waste
Regulations, and undergoing annual inspections and post-closure monitoring performed by a qualified engineer to determine whether the site has been properly remediated RIDEM 2001.
This process generally takes about three years, but it can be completed in as little as two or as many as five Benevides, personal communication.
After assuring that a desired site possesses a landfill closure certificate, a developer must obtain approval to build on the site. RIDEM retains regulatory jurisdiction over a solid waste
landfill through a “perpetual conservation easement,” as prescribed in RIDEM’s Solid Waste Regulations. The perpetual conservation easement prohibits any disturbance or construction on a
landfill without prior written consent from RIDEM. RIDEM may issue permission to a landfill owner to install solar energy infrastructure on top of a landfill as long as the development does
not pose harm to the landfill cap or the surrounding environment. As a condition for approval,
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RIDEM may make certain stipulations regarding the technical design of the project, including considerations pertinent to the side slopes and capping system of a landfill Benevides, personal
communication. 4.3 Site Control
Site control is the process by which a project owner secures the legal rights to build on and use the land on which a project takes place. Site control is not only a guard against future
legal problems, but is often a prerequisite for obtaining grants and permits Greguras and Lewandowski 2011. Prior to beginning development, a project owner must acquire both a legal
interest in the land and adequate access to the site. Both of these must be obtained from the landfill owner. Landfills may be municipally owned, privately owned, or state-owned. There are
multiple legal formats that serve to secure site control. Different formats may be preferred at different stages of a project and may also be influenced by the ownership status of the land and
the needs of the developer. Available legal formats for site control include option agreements, long-term lease contracts, and development easements.
During the initial feasibility assessment stage of a project, project owners may choose to pursue an option agreement with land owners. An option agreement gives the project owner the
exclusive right to negotiate a potential purchase or a long-term lease of the site in the future, at an agreed-upon price and subject to agreed-upon terms. An option agreement places the property
off-limits for other developers to bid on during the time that the developer is evaluating the decision to build. At the end of the option period, the developer must decide whether to negotiate
further site control of the property or give up all interest in the land Farmers’ Legal Action Group 2007.
Lease agreements and development easements provide secure, long-term site control. In a lease agreement, use of a landfill property is granted to a project owner for a specified time and
purpose in exchange for payments to the landfill owner. Lease agreements identify a market-rate level of compensation, specific rights reserved to the lessee, expectations of lessorlessee
cooperation and responsibility, and insurance, indemnification, and decommissioning provisions Farmers’ Legal Action Group 2007. The terms of the lease agreement can be tailored to meet
the contracting parties’ needs. A project developer may wish to secure a right to access the property, a right to build a solar installation and associated infrastructure, and an assurance that
future development will not impact the productivity of the solar project. A landfill owner may wish to include assurances of proper site security, stipulations that a potential developer will seek
permission for certain activities, and a promise to comply with federal and state regulations. A development easement is “an interest in land owned by another person, consisting of
the right to use or control the land, or an area above or below it, for a specific limited purpose Black’s Law Dictionary 2001: 405.” An easement “does not give the holder the right to
possess, take from, improve, or sell that land Black’s Law Dictionary 2001: 226.”
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4.4 Solar Access Laws Although sunlight cannot be appropriated, it can be unintentionally blocked from
reaching a solar panel intended to capture it. This can occur when vegetation, screening, buildings, or other constructions are erected or allowed to grow in such a way as to block the
sun’s rays from reaching a solar installation. Solar access laws, which may be enacted at the state and local levels, enable energy developers to insure against blockage of the solar resource that
they rely on to generate power. The most common type of solar access arrangement is a solar easement.
When owners of property adjacent to a solar energy project or upon which the project is located agree to a solar easement, they volunteer to avoid building structures or planting tall trees
that would obstruct the sun’s rays from reaching solar installations. Rhode Island’s Solar Easements law R.I. Gen. Laws 34-40 enables property owners and solar project owners to
come into agreement to protect the “solar skyspace, defined as the “space between a solar energy system and the sun which must remain unobstructed such that on any given clear day of
the year, not more than ten percent 10 of the collectible insolation shall be blocked R.I. Gen. Laws 34-40-
1.” Such agreements hold valid if ownership of either property is transferred, and may include provisions for compensation in the event that either party violates the solar access
provisions of the easement. 4.5 Federal and State Solar Energy Incentives
Several state and federal policies aim to foster renewable energy projects, including solar energy, through monetary or other incentives. Recognizing that the relative novelty of most
forms of renewable energy can at times act as an impediment to economic success, such incentives aim to offset the economic burden associated with installing new and unfamiliar
energy technologies. Over the years, a variety of federal incentives have been instituted to foster development
of renewable energy. These are sometimes of short duration and are always subject to change, due to Congressional reauthorization processes. Solar energy is eligible for incentives under a
number of federal policies promoting renewable energy. These include the Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program, the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit, the Public
Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, and Clean Renewable Energy Bonds. Descriptions of these incentives are presented in the Wind Energy Chapter of this report.
In addition, the state of Rhode Island has established a variety of incentives to spur the development of renewable energy in the state. The most significant is the Renewable Energy
Standard, which guarantees a market for renewable energy by requiring electrical distribution companies to purchase a certain amount of it per year. Other incentives foster distributed
generation, net metering, interconnection, and tax incentives. These incentives apply to multiple
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