Massachusetts resident Richard David Greene stood against construction of a 29.5 megawatt biomass facility in nearby Pownal, Vermont during a Nov. 19 protest at the busy Field Park rotary in Williamstown, Mass. Photo by Susan Bush
Editor’s note: This story is by Susan Bush, a freelance reporter who lives in Pownal.
As developers pursue Public Service Board approval of a proposed biomass facility, activists are intensifying their efforts to scuttle the project.
Beaver Wood LLC plans to construct a 29.9-megawatt wood-burning power generation facility and a wood pellet factory in Pownal, located about 10 miles from Williamstown, Mass.
Opponents of the plant held two protests and an anti-biomass presentation at a Williamstown church over the weekend.
On Friday, Vermont Public Service Board members were asked to consider allowing Beaver Wood to begin construction of the facility in Green Mountain Energy Park, before Dec. 31.
The developers may be eligible for $50 million to $80 million in federal grants if they can begin building foundations for the facility before the end of the year. On Dec. 14, Beaver Wood representatives are expected to ask PSB members to approve an early construction petition. A complete schedule of PSB hearings for the proposal is expected to be posted on the PSB’s www.PSB.Vermont.Gov Web site on Nov. 22.
“Squeaky clean” power?
Averill Cook, a Williamstown resident and president of Biomass Commodities Corporation, gave a speech in support of the industry at the North Adams-based Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts last week. In an interview, Cook said many claims made by biomass opponents are “inaccurate.”
“To begin with, the electrical utility is the most regulated industry in the world,” Cook said. “[Biomass facilities] have the most highly sophisticated cleanup equipment in the world.”
Cook compared the Beaver Wood proposal with “squeaky clean” biomass power generation plants in Sweden and Denmark. In his opinion, Vermont officials have done a “superb job” of devising biomass regulations.
“We need to elevate our [energy production] game,” Cook said. “New England has a power shortage. I believe these power plants will be built. Wind and solar have been unsuccessful at creating the amount of power needed and I’d rather have [a biomass facility] built around here, where we will have some say.”
Cook cited infestations of the mountain pine beetle, a species of bark beetle, and the Asian long-horned beetle as catalysts for forest destruction.
“One of the biggest concerns I have, is, if you look at the mountain pine beetle kill from Arizona to British Columbia, it’s a tinderbox,” he said. “Up here, we have the Asian long-horned beetle and they kill maples trees. If history repeats itself, as with Dutch elm disease, we’ll need places for dead trees. Here, we have always needed a home for low-quality wood.”
Cook also stressed the importance of manufacturing for the region. “The [biomass] jobs are good jobs and offers new career paths,” he said. “We need occupations that people who do not want to be educators or museum curators can work in.”
Activists cite pollution problems at Maine plant
An anti-biomass presentation at the First Congregational Church in Williamstown on Saturday drew about 110 people. Chris Matera of the Massachusetts Forest Watch group, Rachel Smolker of the BioFuel Watch group, and Hilary Lister, a resident of Athens, Maine, who lived near a proposed biomass facility site, spoke at the forum.
Lister described problems attributed to several Maine biomass facilities during the late 1990s and following years including 2000-03, after the plants altered their operating permits and began burning construction debris. Lister said that among the issues was a failure to notify farmers that the ash used on their fields was a product of debris including varnished wood, painted wood, and PVC materials.
Additionally, internal combustion within a pile of construction debris at one biomass site owned by a Canadian-based Boralex firm ignited a 10-acre to 15-acre fire, she said that burned for six weeks. Schools were forced to keep students indoors because of the poor air quality generated by the fires and the town’s small volunteer fire department was unable to extinguish the blaze, she said. Lister cautioned against boasts that state-of-the-art “scrubbers” reduce any particulates to harmless amounts.
“The better the filters, the smaller the particulates and smaller particulates are more able to go deeper into the lungs,” she said.
Lister said Thomas Emero and William Bousquet were principals of Alternative Energy, which operated several Maine-based biomass facilities including one in Ashland. She said that AE challenged a property tax assessment that led to a lengthy and expensive court battle for the small Maine community. Although the town prevailed, the lawsuit was costly, Lister said.
Information acquired by the Bennington-Berkshire coalition indicates the town spent $180k in legal fees to acquire $1.6 million in property taxes.
Thomas Emero, the managing director of operations and development for the proposed Pownal facility as well as a similar site proposed for Fair Haven, said the company had valid reasons to request a tax abatement for the taxable value of the Maine facility, including support from the federal Internal Revenue Service.
“In the end, the hearing officer found for the community,” he said.
At a Livermore Falls facility, Maine state officials fined Alternative Energy $600,000, Lister said. The Bennington-Berkshire coalition has posted a similar claim on its http://benningtonberkshirecc.org Web site and both Lister and the BBCC publicly claimed that the state forced a sale of the facility. Maine officials said in an interview that there was no state-forced sale of the Livermore Falls facility.
Maine Department of Environmental Protection Air Quality Bureau Supervisor Kurt Tidd said that the state agency has no authority to require a private firm to sell its property.
“It was not a forced sale,” Tidd said. “There was a consent agreement, but no forced sale. I’ve never seen anything where [DEP] forces a sale.” Boralex ultimately bought the facility.
The opposition coalition has posted a long list of charges against Emero and Bousquet’s Maine biomass operations on its Web site.
Emero said he is disturbed by the way in which the information is being presented.
“These are being presented to look a hell of a lot worse than it is,” he said. Emero described how issues such as brief equipment malfunctions, although corrected rapidly, can skew emission averages for several days.
Tidd said that the state uses different averaging times and formulas to measure emissions. He said it is possible to skew data in order to make it appear more sinister than it is.
“One way we measure is with a 30-day rolling average and it can look like someone is in violation for 30 days when it may actually have been one or two violations,” Tidd said.
Emero said the Pownal facility will not burn construction debris. State law, a lease agreement, and the sensitivity of the equipment the facility plans to use prohibit burning anything but “clean, unadulterated wood,” he said.
Activists have also questioned whether Beaver Wood would hire local workers. When asked directly whether the planned facilities would hire residents within a 30-to-50-mile radius, Emero answered in the affirmative.
Emero also said he did not have plans to sell the plant.
At the forum last weekend, Chris Matera of Massachusetts Forest Watch questioned the impact of the plant on regional forests. Matera said Massachusetts has allowed for the “clear-cutting” of public woodlands.
“We can’t count on forestry laws to protect the forest,” he said. “When you hear there are laws in place to protect the forest, that foresters will protect the forest, it’s not true.”
Smolker said the BioFuel Watch group opposes the use of all biofuels under any circumstances.
Denmark and Sweden have begun cultivating “tree farms” that are not forests but “corn fields with trees growing in them instead of corn,” she said. International “big oil” companies view biofuels as a suitable switch for their focus, she said.
“Big oil sees this as a way out of their oil dilemma,” she said and added that the agriculture industry also sees biofuels as an acceptable and profitable endeavor. “There are a lot of powers at play here,” she said.
Opponents of the Beaver Wood plan originally stood as two separate citizens groups – one in Pownal and another in Williamstown, Mass. The two groups recently merged to become the Bennington-Berkshire Concerned Citizens group. Of the trio of weekend events, two were hosted in Williamstown.
A dozen activists were stationed at the busy intersection of Routes 2 and 7 in Williamstown on Friday. Local resident Nick Wright said he was braving a biting breeze and near freezing temperatures because he is concerned about plans for the biomass plant.
“I want this train to slow down,” Wright said. “We want to look at this carefully.”
Laura Bentz, also of Williamstown, attended Friday’s protest and said she believes the developers are in a rush to begin work so that they can qualify for federal grant revenues. Bentz objected to federal subsidies for biomass facilities and cited a laundry list of medical boards and associations that have publicly spoken against the plants because of health hazards believed associated with them.
“We should be using that money for solar and wind power,” she said.
In a second protest on Saturday, about 18 protesters lining the eastern edge of Vermont’s Route 7 across from a driveway leading to the proposed biomass facility. Pownal resident Doreen Forney said she wants to see the process slowed.
“At least be thorough with your investigation of this company,” she said.
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