RE: “Biomass plant seeks to strike a balance environmentally, economically, socially” [Letters, April 24]:
I would like to address each point that Dan Ingold raises about the North Springfield Sustainable Energy Project (NSSEP).
• Mr. Ingold states that the industrial park is not in a residential neighborhood. The project is in a residential neighborhood! The industrial park, which was zoned for light industry, is located smack in the middle of North Springfield, a community of more than 300 homes, with two ball fields used by local schools and organizations, three churches, a post office, and at least two child-care centers and a nursing home.
This is indeed a residential neighborhood, as the maps in the Springfield Town Plan show. Don't take our word - drive through this close-knit community for yourself.
And if you do not want to take our word for it, ask yourself: Who are the beneficiaries of the 100 “residential wood stoves” that are being promised by this project to the “residents” of North Springfield whom Mr. Ingold wrote about in his letter?
The petition by NSSEP states very clearly that the power plant that it plans to build is a major source of pollution. Do not take my word, but search it out yourself. Visit the Southern Windsor Regional Planning Commission website, look for the North Springfield Sustainable Energy Project, drill down to the testimony portion, and read the air quality testimony (page 6-10).
• Was it not members of the project going door to door asking residents located near the plant if NSSEP could give them a stove? Yes, it was. The residents did not pursue the Energy Project's stoves; Ingold pursued them and offered the stove to them.
Just how many people accepted that offer? Without doubt, the replacement of wood stoves can in no way compare to the pollution that this giant incinerator which burns over 16 cords of wood per hour, in the form of chips, will produce. The comparison Mr. Ingold offers in his letter is laughable and insulting to the reader's intelligence.
• Despite that fact that NSSEP is a cogeneration project, it is only 27-percent efficient - and again, that percentage is from NSSEP's own Certificate of Public Good petition. Again, see Southern Windsor Regional Planning Commission website for complete specs on the project.
• It is also well known that Southern Vermont does not need the electricity and that the project does not have a buyer for the electricity.
• The heat loop will be providing heat at low cost, Mr. Ingold claims but does not define. He also fails to mention that residents will have to hook into the system on their own at an estimated cost of $3,000 to $5,000.
Again, the infrastructure will need to be completed by a third party because NSSEP said they would only extend the pipes to the edge of their own property.
In fact, the “carrot” of a district heat loop and heat to the local area residents was also offered by the builder of the Joseph C. McNeil Generating Station, a biomass plant in Burlington, back in 1984.
But in fact, the heat loop was never installed because it did not make economic sense and it couldn't provide competitively priced heat. Don't take my word for this, read the report published in 2000; it quotes John Irving, then the superintendent at McNeil: “Linking the plant's steam output to a district heating system has been studied, but has not yet been implemented because of low alternative energy costs causing marginal economic benefits. Generally speaking, it is best to site a biomass plant as close as possible to the center of its fuel supply, and far from residential neighborhoods.”
I would say the district heat loop with free or low cost heat for the residents of North Springfield once again defies credulity and is an indication of the lengths to which Mr. Ingold will go to “sell” residents of Springfield this pig in a poke.
Under questioning by the Agency of Natural Resources, Mr. Ingold said the NSSEP would conduct about 200 wood harvests per year and take 300,000 green tons of wood a year from Vermont forests.
When asked by the ANR if he could identify another project that harvests 300,000 wood tons a year, Ingold replied he could not (so there is no history or validation of anything).
The ANR testified that the NSSEP forest plan is unsustainable and took exception to Mr. Ingold's comments that NSSEP would be able to harvest a given site a second time 15 to 20 years hence.
Scientific literature says otherwise. Re-harvesting temperate, hardwood forests in a compressed time scale will diminish the forest, the species diversity, and the quality of the soils and wildlife, according to Ernst-Detlef Schulze et al. in a 2012 editorial in the academic journal Global Change Biology-Bioenergy.
• Does Springfield want to compromise health, traffic, our forests, roads, and overall quality of life for 400 temporary construction jobs and 38 permanent jobs? Is that worth the costs of our agricultural economy and local organic farms, including pasture land and livestock, local inns, and other Vermont-branded businesses?
• The American Lung Association has nothing good to say about the particulate matter that will be created by this large-scale biomass incinerator. Read also the list of chemicals this plant will emit. There is nothing good in their petition. Again, go to Southern Windsor Regional Planning Commission website and view the testimony of the NSSEP's own experts.
• Also, who will be paying for the building and repair of roads in Springfield, Chester, Wethersfield, Bellows Falls, and other communities? These wood-chip trucks laden with 30 tons of chips will be traveling across our roads and through our towns. There are many unanswered questions that NSSEP cannot answer or it will not answer. The company can't even explain clearly how they plan to get the trucks through County Road to the plant, then out of the residential area.
• Many of us have indeed offered alternative plans to strike a balance. One such plan was to install solar on the acreage, on the roof, and even on a parking garage. Also suggested was the newest technology - a solar prism - that would make the developer an early adopter.
These alternatives were scorned by NSSEP as not being cost effective, since Adam Winstanley, the developer who owns the land, made it very clear at a public meeting that he needs to use the land as cost effectively as possible.
In other words, using the property to generate solar power would not provide adequate return on his investment. Solar is far more expensive to install; therefore, burning our precious forest will yield him the most profit.
Yes, profit indeed is what this is about.
There has been no thought given to the residents of this community and how this will affect their health and safety.