Invenergy has backup plan for plant water
Narragansett Indian Tribe agrees to provide a Plan B for facility
BURILLVILLE – With its plans to obtain turbine-cooling water from Johnston facing a legal challenge, the developers of the proposed Clear River Energy Center have informed state regulators that the Narragansett Indian Tribe has agreed to provide backup supplies for the facility. Chicago-based Invenergy Thermal Development disclosed the agreement with the Narragansetts in a supplemental filing with state regulators several days ago.
The company said Benn Water & Heavy Transport, a Hopkinton-based pool-filling company, is also a backup supplier of water for the plant. The company had previously
identified Benn Water as the primary delivery company, but the new paperwork says Benn Water could potentially supply all the facility’s needs from an unidentified municipality with a water treatment plant capable of churning out 26 million gallons of water per day.
If Clear River draws from the Narragansetts, the water would come from wells in the Lower Wood Aquifer – part of what is known as the Pawcatuck Basin, which stretches across the southern part of the state and nearby Connecticut.
“The tribe has sovereign control over approximately 1,942 acres known as the tribe’s “Tribal Lands,” Invenergy told the Energy Facility Siting Board. “CREC has sampled the water chemistry and believes that it will meet the water quality requirements of the Facility and that the tribal well water system capacity has the ability to also fully meet the water requirements of the facility.”
The water from the Narragansetts would be delivered to the proposed plant by Benn Water, Invenergy said.
At Invenergy’s request, the EFSB allowed various details of the company’s supplementary water supply plan to be redacted from the latest filing, including the identity of the municipality from which Benn would draw water. The company argued that certain information about sources and prices is not covered by the Access to Open Records Act.
“Both agreements are private agreements entered into by business entities for a commercial purpose,” Invenergy’s legal papers say. “Disclosing this information, especially the business relationships and supply source locations of Benn Water, would be anticompetitive and could disadvantage the commercial interests of Benn Water. Other companies could also use the information contained in these agreements to the detriment of Invenergy, Benn Water and the tribe in future business transactions.”
The availability of water has been a perennial source of controversy for the plant, which is hotly contested in Burrillville – and across a wide swath of the state.
The company proposes building a $700 million, 900megawatt co-generation plant on a rural tract of land off Wallum Lake Road in the town’s Pascoag section. The primary feeder fuel for the plant would be natural gas, though Invenergy says it could fall back on diesel oil under limited conditions.
The existing plan for the CREC plant is a modification of the original, which would have required an estimated 1 million gallons of water a day to operate.
After failing to secure agreements to purchase water from the Pascoag Utility District and the Harrisville Fire District, the company altered the design of the plant, adopting a more costly cooling system that relies more heavily on recycled water and markedly reduces the plant’s needs to about 15,000 gallons a day. Instead of building a pipeline to bring water to the plant, as called for in the original plan, all of its needs can be satisfied with two to three deliveries a day by tanker trucks.
A key component of the opposition to Invenergy’s first choice – the Pascoag Utility District – was driven by concerns over drawing water from wells that have been closed as a source for drinking-quality supplies since they were polluted by a gasoline additive over a decade ago. Invenergy later approached the city of Woonsocket with an $18 million offer to purchase supplies from its water department for 20 years.
The Town Council and other local officials made a plea to the Woonsocket City Council to reject the deal. The city council voted to stand with Burrillville against Invenergy in early January, but on the very same night, the Johnston Town Council approved an identical deal at the urging of Mayor Joseph Polisena.
That deal, too, remains uncertain.
Johnston gets all of its water from the Scituate Reservoir, which is controlled by the Providence Water Supply Board. The town says it has unrestricted leeway to resell any quantity of water it obtains from those sources to any commercial entity – even a power plant across the Johnston line.
But the town of Burrillville and the Conservation Law Foundation disagree. Citing a little-known state law on the books for more than a century, they filed suit in Superior Court against Invenergy and the town of Johnston in March, arguing that Johnston’s plan to resell Scituate Reservoir water is unlawful.
While a decision is pending, Invenergy’s disclosure of new backup agreements with the Narragansetts and Benn Water may render the case moot. Invergy’s lawyers say Johnston is still its first choice and have indicated they don’t consider the lawsuit a serious threat.
Invenergy’s disclosures come as the EFSB enters the final countdown to a decision on the company’s application for a permit to build CREC. The EFSB will preside over the last public hearing on local turf next Tuesday in the auditorium of Burrillville High School. The panel has also set aside 14 dates through mid-December for preliminary motions and evidentiary hearings on the plant, which is opposed not just by this town, but 32 of the state’s 39 communities in all.
Under the Energy Facility Siting Act, the EFSB must render a decision on Invenergy’s request no later than 60 days after the conclusion of the hearing.