West Penn Township supervisors tabled a vote on the final version of a land development plan for a large solar project in the township.

Plans for the Ridge Road Solar project call for approximately 33,000 solar panels on 79 acres near the intersection of Ridge Road and Ash Circle.

“The biggest hang-up is the decommissioning plan,” supervisors’ Chairman Tony Prudenti said.

Developers from Bollinger Solar said the project would consist of seven interconnected solar array fields surrounded by an 8-foot high fence. It would include an access road with a driveway from Ash Circle, along with stormwater basins and several swales.

The township’s planning commission had recommended that the board grant conditional approval of the final plan for the project, contingent upon comments from Schuylkill County planners and the Department of Environmental Protection.

Prudenti, during Monday’s supervisors’ meeting, said he was concerned about what would happen to the panels once the solar project reached the end of its life — or if the company operating it would cease operations or go bankrupt.

“It’s all about liability,” Prudenti said.

He questioned who would be responsible for removing the large project from the land, or dealing with possible groundwater problems or contamination from heavy metals.

Bollinger Solar representatives said that the company would take responsibility, and noted that the value of the panels would cover the costs of decommissioning.

But with no bonding, no letter of credit, or terms of decommissioning spelled out, Prudenti said he feared that the township would be left with cleanup.

“There is going to be a day when this has to be taken down — I’ll be dead — but I don’t want the township to be responsible for it,” Prudenti said.

Township solicitor Paul Datte noted that several agreements must be approved before the project moves forward.

“One is the land development agreement, one is the stormwater management agreement, and one is the decommissioning agreement,” he said.

The land development agreement has been generated, Datte said, and the stormwater management agreement will be sent to the developer as early as today.

The decommissioning agreement, he explained, will take additional time because it is “not something that I can just pull off the shelf.”

Prudenti added that had the final version come to a vote, he would have voted against it.

He suspected that Supervisor Glenn Hummel may have voted in favor.

And with Supervisor Jim Akins absent from the meeting, it would have been a tie.

Supervisors told Bollinger officials that they plan to act on granting conditional approval at their Aug. 4 meeting once all agreements were in place.