With the commencement of construction of the solar project at Mercer County College, I feel a sense of sadness and also some anxiety about what the future of this project will bring to our community. Looking over the huge expanse of land that will be involved and imagining this land filled with row after row of solar panel arrays is an unsettling mental image. The land has always been filled with vegetation. The land has been farmed and has changed in appearance from season to season. When the solar farm is completed, the fields will cease to appear as a part of nature. When the solar farm is complete, beautiful fields will be replaced by acres of solar panels surrounded by an industrial chain link fence.
It is with a deep sadness that I think about how irrevocably changed the character of this community will be with the completion of the solar farm at Mercer County College.
A week ago I took a walk around the project. I looked at the beginning of the project from the perspective of the homes that most closely border the project on South Post Road. I took in the vantage point from the softball fields in Mercer County Park. The views are a little startling when I stop to think about what the terrain has looked like for as long as I can remember.
But the most devastating sight at this point in the construction is what I saw as I walked up to the actual campus from the baseball and soccer fields of the college. The tall trees that line the road that circles the college have been mercilessly cut down. As I came up the road to the parking area, I could see piles of trees of all sizes. It looked as though a tornado had come through. A tractor was racing around, collecting the felled trees and placing them in piles. The essential beauty of the east side of the campus has been destroyed. The visual impact is hideous. While I understand the concept of a green project, it is very hard for me to reconcile the wholesale destruction of living trees and vegetation being sacrificed and the land being covered over with acres of glass panels.
More recently I took a similar walk around the future solar field. I looked at the perspective from the marked fence line behind the neighbors’ homes closest to the project on South Post Road. I was surprised to see numerous bodies of rodents that were apparently run over when the equipment mowed down the vegetation. We have seen a huge increase in the deer coming into our properties. I suppose that the rodents will try to find safer places, too.
The view on the college side is progressing very quickly. A giant “chipper” machine is processing the felled trees. The pile of tree chips is the size of a building and growing rapidly.
Looking from the south side of the campus toward Old Trenton Road, the vista is bleak. One of the most charming aspects of the campus was the many and varied trees that fronted the school. The trees on the West Windsor side of the campus fronting Old Trenton Road are all but gone. We can now know exactly where Hamilton Township ends and West Windsor Township begins.
As a resident of West Windsor who resides on the periphery of the solar project at MCCC, I feel that my Township mayor failed to safeguard our community. The symbols on the shield that hangs behind the mayor’s chair in the council chamber reflect a commitment to farming and green space. Mayor Hsueh has failed his duty to his community. Every proponent of solar energy has adamantly stated the importance of placing these projects over parking lots, on top of roofs and in areas unfit for other use.
MCCC is squandering the diminishing commodity of green space and farmable land in New Jersey. By his inaction, Mayor Hsueh has tacitly approved the destruction of this farmland and green space. What kind of welcome to West Windsor will this project give sitting at the gateway to the Township on Old Trenton Road? Thanks, MCCC. Thanks, Mayor Hsueh!
Patricia Vizzoni
