Burrillville wants to talk water with city officials
Sit-down requested with mayor, city council over potential Invenergy deal
BURRILLVILLE — Burrillville Town Council President John F. Pacheco III is requesting a special joint meeting between his board and Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and the Woonsocket City Council before any decision is made by Woonsocket officials to provide a water source for Invenergy’s proposed natural gas-fired power plant in Pascoag.
Pacheco fired off a letter to Baldelli-Hunt last Friday urging city officials to consider convening a joint meeting with Burrillville officials as soon as possible.
“Burrillville will be happy to meet in a setting and location of your choice,” Pacheco wrote. “Upon request, we will make our legal and professional team available. Our team has been evaluating this project over this past year. We are happy to share information if its assists Woonsocket to make an informed decision.”
All eyes are now focused on Woonsocket after Invenergy revealed publicly on Dec. 12 that it is attempting to purchase water from the city to cool the turbines at the proposed $700 million Clear River Energy Center, which would be built off Wallum Lake Road. Invenergy said it intends to draw water from the city’s proposed $70 million water treatment facility off
Jillson Avenue in Woonsocket and ferry it to the energy plant via 14 miles of new pipeline, with a push from a new pump station in the city.
Details of the agreement are still being ironed out, but members of the City Council say they expect to be ready to air the terms and conditions during a public hearing on Friday, Jan. 6. The council is on track to vote on a possible agreement the following Monday.
A conservative estimate of how much revenue the city could take in from selling water to Invenergy Thermal Development would be about $300,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the Burrillville Land Trust and Rhode Island Association of Conservation Commissions are holding two “Learn the Facts” sessions at the Woonsocket Harris Public Library. The first session is Dec. 28 at 6:30 p.m. while the second session is Dec. 29 at 1 p.m.
The EFSB voted in October to suspend the application for Invenergy’s proposed $700 million natural gas-fired power plant in Pascoag for 90 days and to order Invenergy to report back in 60 days with a status update on its efforts to secure a water source for the plant.
Meanwhile, 20 towns have now officially opposed the power plant, including Burrillville, Glocester, North Smithfield, Cumberland, Lincoln, Pawtucket, East Providence, Johnston, Cranston, Coventry, Hopkinton, Middletown, Richmond, Scituate, Charlestown, South Kingstown, Exeter, Tiverton, Westerly, and Thompson, Connecticut.
The Burrillville Town Council has voted to oppose the plant and, along with a group of town residents, has been asking other communities to join in that opposition.
“We are encouraged that our fellow municipalities are joining us in opposing this facility,” Pacheco said. “The cumulative impact of over 15 communities standing together in opposition sends a powerful message – one that we hope cannot be ignored. The Town of Burrillville is united in its opposition, and we are fortunate to have an engaged and committed group of residents who have given time and energy to take our plea for help to other communities.”
The council says it still stands behind its decision to approve a long-term property tax agreement, property value guarantee agreement and decommissioning agreement with Invenergy. As part of that agreement, Invenergy will pay $1,175,000 to the town by Jan. 10, 2017 – and an additional $1, 750,000 by Jan. 15 2019 – all of which can be used to fund lawyers and expert witnesses to aggressively pursue efforts to kill the proposed plant.
The proposed pact could see the town receive $92 to $180 million in payments over 20 years. The deal with the town also includes language that guarantees property owners with compensation should the project negatively impact their property values, and an agreement for Invenergy to decommission the plant after it expires.
As for the property value guarantee agreement, there are 117 properties identified within the “zone of impact” that are eligible. Eligible residents who sign the agreement will receive a $1,500 payment or $5,000 if they opt out of the agreement. There is no obligation to enter into either the PVGA or the Opt Out agreement and residents are free to negotiate a different agreement with Invenergy or to do nothing, he said.
The decommissioning agreement provides for the removal or reuse of the plant with Invenergy paying all of the decommissioning costs.
Even though the Town Council has adopted a resolution officially opposing the power plant, the panel has said that it wants to make sure a tax agreement is in place that protects residents, provides guaranteed tax relief and mandates Invenergy’s obligations.
On Monday night, about 30 members of the Pascoag power plant opponent group and their supporters did show up at the City Council’s meeting and addressed the panel in the hopes of convincing its members to turn down Inenergy’s bid for a water supply.
“We are very concerned about Woonsocket selling water to Invenergy because the plant would be very devastating to our town,” Lynn Clark, one of the Pascoag residents who lives about a mile from the proposed plant site, said after addressing the council.
Clark told the Woonsocket Council that members of her group had just heard the City Council in Cranston approve a resolution opposing the siting of the proposed 900megawatt gas- and oil-fired power plant in Rhode Island and asked it to follow suit with a similar measure. Burrillville, Glocester, North Smithfield, Cumberland, Lincoln, Hopkington, Richmond, Charlestown, South Kingstown, Middletown, Tiverton and Scituate have already approved such a measure, she noted.
“I think it is very unfair that everything has to be negotiated behind closed doors. They have only heard from Invenergy and they have not met with our Town Council,” Clark said of Woonsocket’s decision to hold closed-door talks with Invenergy on its plans to build a 14-mile pipeline carrying Woonsocket drinking water to cool the plant in Burrillville.
The council heard multiple speakers warn that the proposal to sell approximately a million gallons of water a day to Invenergy could rob the city of water needed for its own growth and future economic development, a view Clark also shared.
“They should use that water to build new businesses in their own city and rebuild their economy in the process,” she said.
The group of opponents also included Peter Nightingale, a professor of physics at URI, who submitted a paper listing reasons why the water resource agreement with Invenergy should not be approved, and two members of the Sisters of Mercy in Cumberland, Sister Nancy Audette of Cumberland and Sister Marie Pendergast of Pawtucket.
Sister Audette said she went to the meeting to voice opposition because of her concern for the protection of the local water supply “which we believe is a sacred gift and is one that is very dear to our hearts.”
The future of young people, the next generation, depends on having “clean water and clean air,” she said.
Sister Pendergast, ecology director for the Sisters of Mercy Northeast, said her order is very concerned about “taking care of the earth and the universal right of water.”
Invenergy’s plans to cut down trees on 100 acres of land in Burrillville and draft drinking water supplies to cool its $800 million fracked-gas-fired power plant “is not anything that we could stand for,” Sister Pendergast said.
Keable, who had proposed legislation opposing the power plant plan in the past session of the General Assembly, said he went to Woonsocket in the hopes that the City Council would join Burrillville in opposing development of the new power plant.
“I came to ask the City Council to do Burrillville a favor and to be a good neighbor and help us fight this evil,” he said.
The Opponents heard City Council President Daniel Gendron say that Monday was not the night to voice their opposition and pointed to the council’s planned Jan. 6 public hearing on the proposed Water Supply Agreement with Invenergy for that purpose. The council has also scheduled a meeting on Jan. 9 when it is expected to take up passage of the proposed agreement under a tentative schedule worked out during its talks with Invenergy.