Plant
by a slew of environmental groups, while the Conservation /aw Foundation and the town both filed multiple legal actions in attempts to kill the project.
“As we said in June,” C/F Senior Attorney Jerry Elmer said in a statement, “this is a huge victory for Rhode Island and for the health of our communities.”
Calling Clear River “a fossil fuel plant that will spew carbon pollution for decades,” Elmer said building the plant would have been “simply reckless.”
“After years of lies and misinformation, Invenergy’s efforts to pave over a forest to build this dirty plant have been dealt a substantial loss,” Elmer said. “This is proof that communities can stand up to big gas and win.”
Elmer said that even if Invenergy decides to appeal the decision, it would face an uphill battle because the power plant siting laws give applicants little wiggle room to upend an EFSB decision.
Still, the EFSB’s 33-page ruling seemed to anticipate at least the possibility of an appeal. While the three-member boarded ultimately decided that the reason the permit was denied is that there was insufficient market demand for the power that Clear River promised to generate, the EFSB proclaimed itself blameless for dragging out the review for over four years.
“The proceedings in this docket took a long time,” the decision says, going on to list several ways in which Invenergy itself had caused delays. “The Board does not intend to suggest that Invenergy did anything wrong in causing the delays. owever, the Board does want to make clear that Invenergy cannot place blame for the delays, or the consequences they wrought, on the board.”
8ltimately, the EFSB wrote, the board agreed with Invenergy “and the opposing parties that need and the unacceptable harm to the environment were the controlling issues for the decision.”
The board’s oral decision was issued on June 20, on a motion by EFSB Chairperson Meg Curran that declared Invenergy “failed to prove that the proposed Facility was necessary to meet the needs of the State and/or region.” Board member Janet Coit, director of the state epartment of Environmental Management, briefly summarized the high points of the evidentiary record related to need.
“The Board found that the Applicant had failed to prove that the proposed Facility was needed, and therefore we denied the license,” the decision says.
Invenergy filed the application for the license on 2ct. 29, 2015, according to the EFSB. A consortium of opposition groups soon banded together as formal intervenors to protest the plant, including the Progressive emocrats of Rhode Island, Fossil Free Rhode Island, 2ccupy Providence, the Burrillville /and Trust and Fighting Against Natural Gas FANG .
Invenergy argued the plant would result in a lengthy list of benefits to town and the region, including new property taxes, cheaper power and hundreds of jobs, both temporary and permanent. When the application was filed, EFSB said, Invenergy asserted that the benefits represented a value of 100 million for the state during Clear River’s projected first year of operation.