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Mayor to request impact study for biomass plant

Date: 11/16/2010

Nov. 17, 2010

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

The Springfield City Council postponed a vote to request an environmental impact study on the Palmer Renewable Energy (PRE) biomass facility on Page Boulevard last week, but Chicopee Mayor Michael Bissonnette told Reminder Publications he will be requesting the state conduct one.

Bissonnette said that changing the fuel source from construction and demolition waste to green wood chips (GWC) was "a step in the right direction."

Because winds would carry pollutants from the facility to Chicopee, Bissonnette said it is important to get all of the scientific information possible on the impact the plant would make on the region.

Bissonnette's remarks followed a formal letter of comment from the Sarno Adminsitration to state officials on the facility's plans to change its fuel source from construction and demolition waste to wood chips. In that letter, the city questions some of the statements made by PRE on its highly controversial proposal. Residents throughout the Pioneer Valley have been opposed to the construction of the plant because of concerns the additional emissions from it would make the air quality here even worse.

The letter was released to the Springfield City Council on Nov. 8 as it was considering taking a vote on a resolution to request an environmental impact study on the proposed facility. The City Council delayed action until members could read the eight-page letter.

Among the city's comments is the observation that PRE has not acknowledged that its "facility will be located within an Environmental Justice Community and health impaired community with asthmas and respiratory illness rated significantly greater than other areas of the state ... No mitigation is proposed to offset the adverse impacts of this facility on these populations."

John Judge, the city's chief development officer, sent the comment letter to Secretary Ian Bowles of the state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs on Nov. 8, a day before the deadline for comments.

The letter contains a response prepared by Vanasse Hange Brustlin Inc. on behalf of the city. It does not have a conclusion or statement, but a series of questions, requests and challenges to the PRE application.

The city's comments include the following:

PRE wrote in the application it would have four day's worth of GWC in an off-site staging area. The city wants to know the location of the staging area.

The city has asked that PRE have the Department of Environmental Protection certify that all GWC deliveries are certified as "sourced from certified sustainable supplies." This would prevent the increased harvesting of wood from forests and require the fuel to be waste wood from "utility companies and small and large tree services and land cleaning firms."

The city wants the stack testing results showing the level and kind of emissions submitted to city officials pending facility operations.

The city noted the requirement of the Global Warming Solutions Act to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent by the year 2020, and wrote, "even if the facility were to be considered carbon neutral [which the city disputed], it does not represent a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emission; therefore we recommend mitigation measures to offset greenhouse gas emissions."

The city also expressed concerns over the impact of the traffic of trucks delivering wood chips to the plant. The plant's driveway operations should be reviewed by the city's Department of Public Works during the design phase. The city also expressed concern over the location of the entryway.

"The applicant should re-commit to monitoring the primary traffic route three to six months following the opening and commit to reviewing the operations of the Caldwell Drive/Page Boulevard intersection in the same time period to determine if signal timing adjustments are required," the city wrote.

The city requested PRE meet with both city officials and neighborhood groups to determine restrictions on delivery times.

The city also requested a post-construction noise monitoring program be reinstated so potential steps to reduce the noise created by the plant could be taken.



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