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March 7, 2008
Billerica Watchers Group encourages others to join its fight against power plant
I am writing this to all who have genuine concern for the future of the Merrimack Valley. If you're not concerned about your health or your home value, you don't need to read any further.
After standing in a doorway at a recent Billerica selectmen's meeting while hearing and watching the DG Clean Power Limited Liability Corp. speak, I thought, imagine if the Billerica Watchers had the financial bandwidth to challenge, in a court, the Board of Selectmen's decision not to allow any rebuttal. While many of Billerica's concerned citizens stood in the aisles and hall, with many of them being elderly and some with disabilities, non-residents sat sleeping or half asleep in their rightful seats. DG Clean Power LLC proceeded to attempt to discredit their valid concerns, as well as contradicting their own previous statements. If allowed to respond, BWG would have been able to address the accusations and misinformation which was put forth for the unaware public to digest. The constitutional rights of the average American citizens, who generally do not have an abundance of wealth, have been clearly violated.
Here are example of some of the mistruths:
One: Under sworn testimony the proponents stated this power plant was not a "reliability plant." Monday, it was called a "reliability plant."
Two: Full-page ads in the newspapers claimed this plant would not require water from the Concord River nor harm it. Monday stated on record DG meant no "direct withdrawal or
discharge to the river," water will still be coming from the river and displaced.
Three: Stated was, the five-year flow of the river data was hidden in the submission filed with the state. The five years of data submission was not provided to BWG, so who did they provide this to? Yet another part of this fable, or perhaps this is yet another research effort that DG Clean Power LLC will force BWG to create yet another motion to obtain the information.
Four: Stated was the project has been 16 acres for over a year and a half now. The original filing was for 13.8 acres.
Five: Selectman Marc Lombardo held up a DG propaganda flier that stated, "We will not see it, hear it or smell it," yet the supervising engineer finally admitted that it will be seen and it will be heard. Noise was claimed to be mitigated, but DG failed to mention its would need a waiver from the DEP for noise levels. A false impression was left that if any violation of standards was to occur the plant would be shut down. It would take months to do; read the laws!
The best performance was on air quality. The claim that the BWG experts were being overly conservative with their air modeling and taking layers of pollutants and toxins into consideration is a no-brainer. The BWG would like to state: This is "our valley" and the "conservative toxins" referred to are in "our air" for every man, woman, and child to breathe. Why shouldn't we take all these toxins into consideration? We speak of reality, not of financial influence or laws based on "BACT" Best Affordable Control Technology. Why wouldn't the citizens of "our valley" want to ensure that every worst-case scenario on air, safety, the environment, and the health of ourselves and future generations to come, be analyzed?
All statements can be validated on record, because truth is plainer than fiction. Speak up; we all have the right to a voice. Become informed and join in with the BWG, to prevent this manipulation of facts and suppression of our freedom of speech. Together as one indivisible group of concerned citizens, we can save "our valley" from fiction supported by finances.
ED CAMPLESE
Posted by Admin at March 7, 2008 3:06 PM
Comments
In addition to the misleading statements documented by the proponents testimony, it is interesting to examine the income which will be generated by the facility when it goes on line. Using ISO-NE data for the previous week, for 1MWhour, the facility would earn about $90 dollars. Running during "peak" hours, about 9 hours per day, 348 MW would generate about $281,880 and after 5 days that would be about $1,409,000 dollars and after 50 weeks that would be about $70.5 million dollars. You think an ad in the local media for a couple grand means anything to this outfit. Like everything else in life, follow the money....
Posted by: don Gadbois at March 8, 2008 10:23 PM
thanks for the letter ed. this will ill affect those within a 5-mile radius. living in south lowell, i am less than 3 miles from the proposed site. i think surrounding communities should not only voice their disapproval, but local lawmakers (i.e. those in lowell) should get involved on behalf of our interests.
Posted by: dan at March 10, 2008 3:55 PM
