Dear Senator Whitehouse: You Can Walk Back Your Support of Power Plant “Process”
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Dear Senator Whitehouse,
Reading your poll numbers lately, a lot of us wonder, "Why, with your outspoken views on protecting the environment, do you continue to support 'the process' for approving the Clear River Energy Center?"
As Capitol Hill's "Senator Environment," wouldn't it be embarrassing if the Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the plant next January, and by Election Day, splashed all over the media, we saw the cranes in the air towering over the pines of the Pulaski-George Washington State Forest, and the other five state forests contiguous with it, plus the Buck Hill Boy Scout and Feinstein Cub Scout reservations to boot? Lands that have taken the taxpayer two generations and millions of dollars to acquire for the proctection of wildlife and their own outdoor recreation?
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWouldn't I'd be lovin' that if I were a Republican?
Ok, we understand the point you always make first whenever we buttonhole you and ask why you won't speak against the project: "It's a State issue and I don't want to meddle." Alright, we buy that. But on the second point you make, that the "the process” the EFSB follows is a fair and thorough one... Not at all. You might as well go poke a yellow jacket's nest as continue to defend that absurdity. Fortunately, though, you now have some running room to recant that, thanks to a downfield block the Governor threw for you three weeks ago right here in GoLocal.
Excoriated by the power plant opposition for her gushing initial support for the plant, and having the smarts, at last, to read the political tea leaves, Gina issued an extraordinary mea culpa. She apologized to power plant opponents for appearing to have put her “thumb on the scale” of the EFSB process. Moreover, she implied very clearly that she would be cozy and comfortable with the EFSB's final decision should it indeed be thumbs down for the plant. Only deference to the Laborer's Union, no doubt, prevented her from using the word "delighted!"
So Senator, take the snap and run. Without dissing the power plant itself, you too can walk back your support for "the process." Because from any angle you look at it, it's a rotten one.
The Energy Facility Siting Board process is not at all fair to the environment. It is a process set up almost to guarantee the approval of power plants wherever they be sited. Local authority is totally over-ridden. "Advisory" opinions only are asked of local authorities such as planning boards and zoning boards, and the EFSB is explicitly empowered to ignore them. Likewise, the opinions asked of various state agencies are advisory too. And nowhere is this usurpation of local and state authority more prejudicial to the environment than in the EFSB's power to ignore the opinion of the Department of Environmental Management.
Yes, Senator, in the vital question of an energy project’s impact on the ecology of the surrounding landscape, you would think that "the process" would mandate a formal Environmental Impact Statement process for power plant siting. But it doesn't. The EFSB's power in the matter is arbitrary. It can order an EIS or not. Regarding the Clear River Energy Center, it has not. The only evidence that will be admitted in defense of those 25 square miles of protected forest bordering the Invenergy site will be the mere "opinion" of our woefully understaffed, underfunded DEM. Some friends you have at the EFSB, Senator!
This isn't a tempest in a teapot, Senator, it is a calumny! Because once upon a time, in the case of the first power plant the EFSB vetted, the Board did order a formal Environmental Impact Statement. And not only was this case in Burrillville, but a part of this EIS examined and passed judgment upon the very site where Invenergy proposes to build its 1,000 megwatt plant today.
In 1987, the Energy Facility Siting Board was brand new when the Ocean State Power Co. applied to build a 560 mw power plant on a site in northeast Burrillville, six miles distant from today’s Invenergy proposal. Whatever the spur---youthful idealism, I suppose---the Board ordered an EIS to be conducted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with the assistance of the EPA and the US Fish & Wildlife Service. The process was fair and thorough, and the outcome was a siting decision satisfactory to nearly everyone, including all the major environmental organizations most of the citizens of Burrillville.
But most relevant, Senator, to Invenergy's case today, is that the FERC EIS mandated the study of viable alternatives to OSP's "preferred" site, should that preferred site be rejected. And one of those alternatives, Senator, was the very same Algonquin pipeline company land where Invenergy wants to build now.
Yes!
Known as the “Buck Hill Road” site, it was studied and rejected as an alternative finalist exactly on account of its proximity to those 25 square miles of state and privately protected forests. The plain English last word was written by DEM biologist, Chris Raithel, "On the basis of what I know of these sites I have listed, this seems by far the most inappropriate location for a power plant."
So there you have it, Senator, should you choose to tuck in: That most delectable of political dishes, exquisitely prepared crow.
The vaunted "process" is not the least bit fair or thorough, and a lot of voters who own those public lands are mad as hell about it, and not inclined to give quarter unless you are prepared to dine.
Bill Eccleston is a resident of North Providence, a native of Burrillville, Co-chair of that town's first Comprehensive Plan in 1988, intimately acquainted with the power plant site and its surrounding forest, active against the power plant from the git-go.
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