MAIDEN --Apple Inc. is preparing to build a solar farm near its data center in Maiden. While this environmentally green measure may be exciting for those in the tech world, it’s anything but thrilling for the residents in the town.
For the past several days, residents in Maiden and many people driving on US 321 have seen a thick cloud of smoke surrounding Startown Road.
That smoke is Apple clearing more than 100 acres of land across from its data center, which opened earlier this year at 5977 Startown Road. It was reported earlier this year that the data facility will be a cloud-computing center for Apple.
Across the street, at 6028 Startown Road, Apple has filed a soil erosion permit with Catawba County for about 170 acres of land. Apple applied for the permit on Aug. 9, and the county reviewed and approved it on Aug. 10.
In the application, Apple described the work as “Solar panel farm A” for the 170.99 acres of land.
On Oct. 10, the town of Maiden, the engineering company McGill and Associates and Holder Construction met with representatives of Apple, according to the erosion control permit. Maiden Town Manager Todd Herms said the town met that day to discuss storm water control. Herms said Apple has not filed anything with Maiden about the solar panel farm.
“But we didn’t get a zoning permit from them until a month before they started building,” Herms said, in reference to the data center.
Further information about the solar panel farm was unavailable.
A woman at McGill Associates refused to transfer a call to the engineer in charge of the project and hung up when she was asked for her name.
A phone call to Apple went unreturned Tuesday, as did phone calls to Holder Construction and Rutherford Electric, which has a transfer station next to the property where Apple is burning trees. Employees at the construction site said they could not comment.
Residents who live on Millie Lane, which sits next to Apple’s property, said they were told about the burning the day it was to begin.
“The told us they would have a fire, and only do it when the wind’s blowing away,” said Zelda Vosburgh. “They do it 24 hours a day. The house inside smells like smoke. I don’t know if it’s hurting us, breathing it 24 hours a day. Between the smell and the smoke, it’s bad.”
Vosburgh has pets, and said normally her dogs like to sit outside on her porch. Since Apple started clearing the land, she said her pets haven’t wanted to go outside. She said it’s also flushed the wildlife out of their habitat.
“It’s pushed everything out of the woods into the area here,” I had a snake on my steps,” she said. “I’ve seen rabbits and squirrels everywhere.”
On the back side of Apple’s property, on Wilson Ridge Road, the noise is more prevalent. The residential road sits higher than Millie Lane. With only a thin strip of trees that separates the large construction equipment, the rumbling and beeping of the machines is amplified across the hill. Apple will also have little privacy on its property, particularly in fall and winter when there are few leaves on the trees.
Yet despite the noise, LaDonna Hodge said that the smoke carries up the hill to her home, as well, and that is what bothers her the most.
“On Sunday my husband stepped out for one minute, and he had to take a shower,” Hodge said.
She said she is pro-corporation and economic development for the region, but said it is hard to tolerate it when it is spewing thick smoke that makes it difficult to breath in your own backyard.
“There were very fine ashes floating up here this morning,” Hodge said.
Companies are allowed to burn wood when they clear land, as long as the fire is not blowing toward the road or occupied housing when the fire begins, said Tom Mather, public information officer for the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources Division of Air Quality.
The employees also cannot add new material after 6 p.m., or start a fire earlier than 8 a.m. Mather said that it wouldn’t make sense for a company to douse a fire, though, if they plan to restart it the next morning, because it likely wouldn’t rekindle.
Vosburgh said the fire is something area residents have been living with for three years. Apple burned property on Startown Road when they began construction for the data center. It’s continuing now, she said.
“They’re not thinking of anyone here,” Vosburgh said.
