Willimantic, Now & Then
The site for the plant is less that a mile from downtown Willimantic, which is where the winds will carry the emissions from the 90-120 foot stacks.
Windham First Selectman Jean DeSmet has opposed the proposal from the very beginning. Under her leadership, the Windham Board of Selectmen voted to oppose the plant.
The Board of Selectmen in Columbia voted against the proposal on April 15.
The Lebanon Selectmen were receptive to the proposal because of the tax revenue it would generate for the town. CL&P says it will pay over $18 million in tax revenue to Lebanon in the first five and a half years. Residents, however, have been skeptical about the anticipated revenues.
Two days after the hearing in Lebanon, the House Democrats sent a press release in which area State Representatives were quoted in opposition to the proposal. Representative
As Joyce Okonuk, Lebanon First Selectman, pointed out, local governments and residents have no authority in deciding where these plants are located. The proposal is exempt by state law from all local regulations, including zoning and wetlands rules.
Local government, the Board of Selectmen in this case, has the responsibility to inform the community, Okunuk said. Many residents have said the Lebanon Selectmen were wrong to keep them in the dark about the proposal for so long.
Power Plant is Nightmare for Country Neighborhood
It remains to be seen whether a plan that would inflict four jet engines generating electricity, burning as much as 60 tanker trucks worth of diesel fuel a day will be approved for Card Street in Lebanon. What seems clear, in any event, is the shortage of leadership in our state and nation.
The Connecticut Light and Power Company has applied for permits to build and operate a 200 megawatt generating station on the 100-acre parcel of land it owns on Card Street, less that 2,000 feet from the Windham line.
By Mark Svetz
Residents voted overwhelmingly to oppose the plant, with 283 against it, 29 in favor and 22 saying they needed more information.
The Connecticut Siting Council approval of the location is one step. The next step, if the council should approve the Card Street plant, is to apply for an emissions permit from the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. It is this permit that, if approved, will allow the plant to operate for 2,000 hours each year.
McCracken assured residents at the Lebanon Hearing that in 2007, peak power plants operated between 10 and 178 hours during the year. The application will be for 2,000 hours, McCracken said, because it might be needed in an emergency.
Peaking capacity consists of what is called “quick start” generating plants. These plants can be fired up to their capacity in a few minutes when there is more demand than the regular generating plants can supply. Typically, this happens in the summer when customers are using air conditioning and the draw is greatest.
Okonuk told residents at the April 14 hearing that CL&P had first approached the town in September or October 2007. In December, the Lebanon Board of Selectmen met with CL&P. Residents of the area did not learn of the proposal until last month when CL&P sent notices to people on Card Street of a March 8 meeting to unveil the proposal.
Mark Svetz and Sarah Winter own Clothworks, a shop on Church Street in Downtown Willimantic, where they make and sell clothing and bags. They light their shop with CFL bulbs and shut off the machines when not in use.
WILLIMANTIC –May, 2008
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“The Lebanon site is also ill-conceived because Card Street cannot readily accommodate the huge tanker trucks that’ll have to navigate the neighborhood – simply put, the plan spells disaster for Lebanon residents and ratepayers statewide,” Prague said.
The Connecticut Siting Council is part of the Department of Public Utilities Control and is appointed by the Governor and Legislature. It will make the final decision on all power plant proposals. This is a nine-member panel, originally formed in 1972, under growing concern about the environmental impact of generating stations and transmission lines. It has since been given responsibility for hazardous waste sites and telecommunications facilities.
The release said the office of Consumer Counsel for the State of Connecticut has urged the Siting Council and Department of Public Utilities Control to reject the Card Street Proposal.
The plan for the plant on Card Street will go through the approval process. Many hope that saner heads will prevail and it will be rejected. The problem will not go away, however. The state is still calling for 600 megawatts of generating power to be built in the state. These dirty plants will be built somewhere.
As a people, we in Connecticut and the US are beginning to get the picture that we must use less energy in every area of our lives. Instead of trying to frighten us with predictions of brownouts or rolling blackouts, the state might give us a chance to show our best selves.
If a small fraction of the money we’re spending on these plants were spent on an education and leadership initiative to develop cleaner energy and reduce our use, we might never have to build these dinosaurs.
The irony of it is that no one seems to think the additional generating power is needed here in Eastern Connecticut. Rather, the Card Street Station would be wired into the New England electrical grid, to be used in Boston, Providence, Stamford or Greenwich.
Many residents and clean energy advocates have called for the state to seek smaller, renewable generating plants closer to the customers who will use the power.
The Card Street plant is expected to cost $200 to $250 million.
“The proposed power plant for Lebanon is the very definition of public policy going backwards, with its contemptible plan to burn obsolete fossil fuels and spew unhealthy emissions for local residents to inhale, with no consideration given to alternative, green, sustainable power generation,” State Senator Edith Prague said in a press release from the House Democrats.
Many residents were angered by the proposal. First, that the state would ask companies to build new power plants of the dirtiest and most polluting kind. Emissions from burning Diesel fuel, even the ultra low sulfur fuel this plant would burn, cause the greenhouse gasses most of the world is trying to reduce right now.
The second thing that shocked residents was the way they were kept in the dark about these plans until the last minute. After the plans had been in the works for over six months, area residents found out about them less than two months before the decision will be made whether to go ahead with this plan.
The third shocking aspect of this proposal is that local residents and their elected representatives have very little to say about it.
A group of area residents formed a group called Citizens for Responsible Energy. This group has worked hard to educate people in the area about what is planned.
The siting council will hold hearings in its offices at 10 Franklin Square in New Britain. The hearings will begin on Tuesday, April 29, and, if necessary, will run through Thursday, May 1. The Council will decide whether to go forward with the Card Street plan after that.
At this point, many residents became concerned about the plan. Noise from the jet engines, greenhouse gasses from the exhaust, and the volume of huge tanker trucks delivering fuel to the facility were the major concerns.
Connecticut Siting Council Members
(Energy and Telecommunications)
(front row from left to right: Gerald J. Heffernan, Vice Chairman Colin C. Tait, Chairman
Daniel F. Caruso , Philip T. Ashton;
back row from left to right: Brian Emerick, Edward S. Wilensky, Daniel P. Lynch, Jr.,
James J. Murphy, Jr., Dr. Barbara C. Bell)
CL&P Director Doug McCracken outlined the proposal for residents in Lebanon on April 14. He said it will take 62 tanker trucks to fill it the fuel tank. To quiet the objections to this fact, McCracken said the tank would not have to be filled all in one day. It turns out, however, 62 tanker trucks is a one-day supply of fuel.
CL&P has said from the beginning that it is preparing an application for a permit to operate a peak power station. This means, according to McCracken, they expect the plant to be in operation for only about 100 hours a year. The permits they are seeking, however, would allow the plant for run for up to 2,000 hours a year. Just to put this in a context, that is approximately 40 hours a week.
Walter Pawelkiewicz (D-Windham), Senator Edith Prague (D-Columbia) and Representative Kevin Ryan (D-Lebanon) were quoted in the release along with Dawn Niles, of the Windham Board of Selectmen, who works for the House Democrats.
Joyce Okonuk
Lebanon First Selectman
The CL&P plan is one of 11 proposals from power companies doing business in New England. They were called for by the State Legislature, which determined that Connecticut needed approximately 600 megawatts of additional generating capacity – they call it “peaking capacity” – to fulfill its obligations under the regional plan for delivering electricity throughout New England.
Jean deSmet
Windham First Selectman
