New hearings slated for power plant
BURRILLVILLE – When hundreds of residents packed the high school auditorium 10 days ago to voice concerns about the proposed Clear River Energy Center, the session was billed as the last public hearing on the proposed 900-megawatt cogeneration plant on home turf.
It’s not so – not anymore, anyway.
State regulators now say there will be one more local hearing, and it’s coming – surprise – at the request of Invenergy Thermal Development, the Illinois company that’s seeking a permit to build the $700 million, gas-powered cogeneration plant in Pascoag.
After some eleventh-hour amendments to Invenergy’s plans for bringing turbinecooling water to the proposed plant, the company is seeking to provide yet another feedback session to local residents in compliance with the statutory requirements of the permitting process, regulated by the Energy Facility Siting Board. Richard Beretta, a lawyer for Invenergy, notified the EFSB late yesterday that the company wants the panel to set up yet another public hearing in town.
“As a result of modifications to its application since the initial public hearing on March 31, 2016, Invenergy requests the opportunity to present for public comment the contents of its application… inclusive of the Water Supply Plan filed on Jan. 11, 2017 and the supplement filed on Sept. 28, 2017,” Beretta wrote.
Todd Bianco, spokesman for the PUC, said Invenergy is seeking the session sometime during the first week of
December, but the schedule hasn’t been firmed up yet. Bianco said a date could be announced as early as today, however.
Invenergy is apparently concerned about meeting is statutory requirements to fully air the details of its water supply plan – parts of which remain under legal threat and political attack.
In the supplement to the plan referenced in Beretta’s letter, Invenergy announced that it had secured the Narragansett Indian Tribe and Benn Water and Heavy Transport, a pool-filling company in Hopkinton, as backup sources for water. The deal with the Narragansetts subsequently fell into question after members of the tribe claimed the deal is unlawful, saying it had been made improperly by the chief without the consent of the tribe. The issue remains unresolved.
After learning of Invenergy’s deal with the Narragansetts, the town of Charlestown also sought intervenor status on Invenergy’s petition for a permit from the EFSB. On Tuesday, during a lightning round of decisions on procedural motions, the EFSB granted Charlestown’s petition, which means the town is also entitled to a public hearing on the permit.
That hearing, too, has not yet been scheduled, but Bianco said the earliest it can be held under the statutory guidelines of the EFSB would be 30 days after the board granted the town’s motion. It will probably be held within a few days of the hearing in Burrillville, but it’s not yet clear which would be held first.
Charlestown is concerned because the town and the Narragansetts both draw drinking water from an underground aquifer known as the Pawcatuck basin.
Meanwhile, Invenergy’s first choice for water is still the town of Johnston, which plans to resell the company water the town draws from the Providence Water Supply Board. Johnston inked that deal – $18 million for 20 years’ worth of water – in January, after the city of Woonsocket turned down the same offer.
That deal, however, is under attack by the town of Burrillville and the Conservation Law Foundation. They have filed suit in Superior Court to prevent Invenergy and Johnston from acting on it, citing a 1910 state law that supposedly limits the use of Providence water for “ordinary municipal uses.” The plaintiffs contend that the resale of water for a fossil fuel-burning cogeneration plant is not an ordinary municipal use, but Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein ruled some two weeks ago that he wants to hear arguments on the issue – a preliminary victory, at least, for Invenergy.
Most of the time, Invenergy says CREC will require about 15,000 gallons of water a day that can be delivered in two to three tanker trucks. The plant would fire on natural gas most of the time, but it could default to diesel fuel, in which case it would require substantially more water.
While it’s still unclear how the chips will fall for Invenergy’s water supply plan, one plain result of the EFSB’s decision to allow Charlestown intervenor status is that it pushes back the whole schedule for the board’s final evidentiary hearings by some six weeks. Those hearings were supposed to start by the end of the month, but now they cannot begin until after the hearings in Charlestown and Burrillville.
Laywer Jerry Elmer of the Conservation Law Foundation says the delay works to the favor of opponents of the plant. The longer it takes for the permitting process to conclude, the less likely it will be for Invenergy to make the case the plant is needed to satisfy the region’s future energy needs – something the company must persuade the EFSB is true in order to win a permit to build the plant.
“The decision to postpone the commencement of the final hearing by at least 6 weeks will, overall, help opponents of Invenergy,” he said. “This is because all the recent information coming out of the ISO wholesale markets tends to show why Invenergy is not needed.”
Elmer is referring to ISONE, which stands for the Independent System Operator-New England. That’s a neutral, non-profit organization that calculates the region’s energy needs for the future and helps determine whether additional suppliers are warranted in the marketplace.