Testimony from a handful of opponents to Six Flag Great Adventure's proposal is expected to take place Wednesday. Watch video
JACKSON - Testimony from a handful of people is apparently all that is left in the grueling process that has been Six Flags Great Adventure's application to construct a 66-acre solar farm.
The township's planning board heard a few more hours of testimony Monday night regarding the theme park's controversial plan to construct a solar generation facility - consisting of solar panels, inverters, transformers and a substation - on approximately 66 acres of current woodlands between Reed Road, Perrineville Road and Six Flags Boulevard.
The process has taken several months and involved dozens of hours of testimony, as area residents and environmental groups have waged opposition to the project.
While the opponents have repeatedly said that they support of Six Flags Great Adventure incorporating it into its operations, they said they feel that it would be better suited for existing parking areas, buildings or other disturbed areas.
"Six Flags shouldn't destroy an environmentally sensitive forest for this project. This proposal will go against the purpose of putting up solar array in the first place," Jeff Tittel, the director of New Jersey Sierra Club, said in a release Monday. "This may be a good idea, but a bad location. Instead of being commended for going solar and relying almost completely on renewable energy, the public is in outrage against destroying an environmentally sensitive forest."
Six Flags president John Fitzgerald previously said that putting the panels in the theme park's parking lot would be too close to the public and would put visitors at risk of injury or the equipment in danger of being damaged.
The lengthy application process has been contentious at times, mostly between the public and the planning board, as members of the public have repeatedly been threatened with being removed from meetings for calling out or otherwise disrupting meetings.
Councilman Ken Bressi, the township council's designee to the planning board, voiced his frustrations again during Monday night's meeting, referring to the amount of testimony and cross examination from the project's opponents as "ridiculous" after previously accusing them at a previous meeting of filibustering.
According to Michele Donato, an attorney representing the coalition of environmental groups opposing the project, the only testimony that remains from the opposition is a rebuttal from one expert witness and testimony from a handful of representatives from the environmental groups.
That testimony, summations and a possible vote, are scheduled to take place at a special meeting on Wednesday night starting at 7:30 p.m.
Rob Spahr may be reached at rspahr@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheRobSpahr. Find NJ.com on Facebook.