Bridgewater Manager Explains Stance on Biomass
Laconia Citizen
By VICTORIA GUAY
BRIDGEWATER — Following Thursday’s protest by more than two dozen workers in the building and construction trades at the Bridgewater Power Company, over the biomass plant’s seeming opposition to a prospective biomass venture in Berlin, the manager of the Bridgewater facility responded Friday to set the record straight.
Michael O’Leary, manager of the Bridgewater Power Company, a wood-burning energy plant in operation since 1987, said he is not opposed to a biomass plant being built in Berlin; however, he, along with three of the state’s other biomass power producers, does want the Public Utilities Commission to reconsider the terms of a 20-year power purchase agreement it conditionally approved for the Laidlaw Berlin-BioPower project.
“Clearly we support jobs;clearly we are sympathetic with the situation in Berlin,” O’Leary said. “If the [Berlin] project can move forward and our plants can stay viable it’s a win-win situation.”
Yet Joe Casey, president of the New Hampshire Building and Construction Trades Council, said the actions the four biomass plants took could completely derail the project in Berlin, costing the area an estimated 400 construction jobs and 40 permanent jobs.
The Bridgewater Power Company, Pinetree Power in Tamworth, Whitefield Power and Light Company and Indeck Energy in Alexandria, recently filed motions to reconsider the power purchase agreement with the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission and the New Hampshire Supreme Court. As a result, the conditional agreement has been suspended.
That is why the Buildings and Trades Council, along with members of the United Steel Workers Union, local 75, from the Berlin area, staged the protest at the Bridgewater Power Company on Thursday, Casey said.
“Their [the other biomass companies] continued protest will further delay the project,” Casey said Thursday. “One of our biggest fears is that the investors will say they’ve had enough and walk away.”
O’Leary countered Casey’s remarks on Friday by saying that the current agreement between the state and Berlin-BioPower will create an unlevel playing field that could jeopardize the jobs currently supported by the existing biomass plants.
O’Leary said the Bridgewater plant and the plants in Alexandria, Tamworth and Whitefield have existed since the late 1980s and each plant directly employs approximately 20 people and indirectly 100 jobs each in their respective areas.
In all, O’Leary said, that’s 500 existing jobs.
Due to the depressed economy and the until-recently-low fossil fuel prices, the state’s biomass plants are struggling.
“We find ourselves in a position where the viability of our facilities are severely threatened,” O’Leary said, adding that the plants have been negotiating with the Public Utilities Commission and other state officials to find a short-term solution until the economy turns around.
Meanwhile, the Laidlaw Berlin-BioPower project went through the Public Utilities Commission approval process and ended up with a conditional, long-term agreement over 20 years that includes a fuel price pass-through clause that none of the state’s existing biomass plants has, O’Leary said.
A fuel price pass-through means that, if or when the Berlin biomass plant goes online, it can change its rates based on fuel prices.
“A lot of their risk is taken off the table and we don’t have that luxury,” O’Leary said.
That is why the Bridgewater Power Company and the other biomass operations want the Public Utilities Commission and the state Supreme Court to reconsider the Berlin-BioPower agreement.
O’Leary said the four biomass companies are not looking for a 20-year deal themselves; rather, they are looking for short-term, three- to five-year agreements with the state that would keep the plants viable while the economy has more time to turn around.
O’Leary said he feels the recent media campaign undertaken by the New Hampshire Building and Construction Trades Council and a Berlin-based steel company is counterproductive.
He said he would be willing “to have a dialogue with” either Casey or Steve Griffin, president of Isaacson Structural Steel, Inc., in Berlin.
Griffin recently took out full-page ads in some regional newspapers that said the four biomass companies should withdraw their objections and allow the project to move forward.
O’Leary reiterated that his company and the other biomass plants are not opposed to the project itself but, rather, with the way the deal has been structured.
He added that the biomass companies are just exercising their rights by seeking a rehearing of the matter.
“We’re not against creating jobs, but we want to maintain existing jobs,” O’Leary said.
http://www.citizen.com/news/newfound_region
They ( The Ipp's ) may not Stand Down, as Mr. Griffin called for them to. However, Their Future looks Bleak. The Northern Pass Project's future looks just as Bleak. Stalemate all around?
New Hampshire Union Leader 06/17/2011, Page A01
Northern Pass puts Lynch in middle
Leadership challenged:
Stewartstown selectman says governor failing to speak definitively on hydroelectric power project.
By PAULA TRACY
New Hampshire Union Leader
STEWARTSTOWN — Gov. John Lynch has not led, but has instead followed the political winds on the issue of Northern Pass, leaving the North Country to dangle in the breeze, Selectman Allen Coats said Thursday.
The proposal for the Northern Pass project includes building a 180-mile transmission line from the Canadian border to Deerfield to transmit as much as 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectric power to the New England market. As part of the original plans, some 40 miles of right of way would be carved out of Coos County, which North Country residents have o posed.
When the $1.1 billion project was announced in Franklin last October, Lynch touted the benefits of the project, pointing to its economic impact . . . .
dnd renewable power potential.
In November, selectmen wrote to Lynch with concerns about the proposed hydroelectric transmission line, especially with the plan to cut a right of way and install tall towers through the community.
To many in town, Coats said, the electric power was not worth what they perceived as the negative impact to tourism and property values.
Lynch answered the Stewartstown board’s letter in December, saying that he believed “it is important to protect the unique character and natural beauty of the region.”
Lynch pointed out that it was early in the regulatory process and outlined the steps that Northern Pass would have to take before the project could be approved or rejected.
He also outlined the process by which residents could express their concerns in the coming months. “I am confident that those entities will give all public input their full attention and consideration,” Lynch wrote.
“Although I have no direct role in regulatory procedures,” he wrote. “I am more than willing to listen to input from the communities and individuals who wish to share their views on the proposal. I welcome any ideas or concerns that you or your constituents wish to communicate to me.” Coats said the letter did not indicate that the governor was for or against the project.
In March, during town meetings, voters in towns along the Northern Pass route overwhelmingly voted to object to the project and the meetings that would be held in various towns to gather input on it. Despite the region’s firm opposition to the project, Coats said it still appeared that leaders, including Lynch, were not leading and were not taking a stand on the issue.
In April, the governor wrote a letter to the Department of Energy, saying that he had heard from thousands of residents who expressed concern about the project and urged the DOE to fully investigate those concerns before issuing a permit.
Lynch spokesman Colin Manning said the governor told Public Service of New Hampshire — whose parent company Northeast Utilities owns 75 percent of the project — that the Northern Pass would not have his support if it was not supported by the communities it passed through. “Clearly that has not happened,” he said.
Coats said he hoped the governor and other officials who have been “waffling” on the Northern Pass are now squirming a bit in face of the overwhelming opposition to the project.
“I hope they are put between a rock and a hard place now,” Coats said. “They didn’t seem to care that this is a greed issue. It’s a money issue. Heck, (U.S. Sen. Kelly) Ayotte may have been paid by them (utilities who contributed to her campaign) but she’s made it clear that she is not in their pocket on this one,” Coats said, noting Ayotte has stated that she does not support the project as proposed.
He said other officials including Gov. Lynch and state Sen. John Gallus, R-Berlin, have waited to see in which direction the political winds would blow.
Coats said as a selectman, it is pretty simple. With just about everyone in town in opposition to the proposal, “You do what the people in town want.”
Coats said Franklin, which would receive a $150 million converter station for the project, has more voters and support than North Country towns.
“We have only 1,000 people in this town,” he noted. Stewartstown is north of Colebrook and near the Canadian border.
“PSNH also has got all kinds of money,” which puts the small towns at a disadvantage in the David and Goliath match up, he said.
Still, Coats said of Lynch, “I don’t think he can write off the North Country.”
Manning said the governor’s stand has all along been that, while the project has value by providing up to 1,200 construction jobs, millions of dollars in local tax relief to the 31 communities through which it would pass, and renewable power to New England. Still, he has acknowledged all along that the project needs local support.
“There has been no change,” Manning said.
On Wednesday the DOE announced that the scoping — or comment — period has been reopened while Northern Pass officials work on new alternative routes for the project.
Also on Wednesday, Martin Murray, PSNH spokesman, said officials don’t have a location or schedule yet.
Posted by: warren, | June 18, 2011 at 01:55 AM
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/5552/out-with-the-old
I suppose this is now a Game of "Chicken". How long can the IPP's survive in their attempt to stop Competition. I find myself sympathizing with those protesting Union Members.
Out with the Old ( if needs must ), and In with the New. It's just a matter of Time before their Demise anyhew.
Posted by: warren, | June 18, 2011 at 01:06 PM
GAS IN BERLIN $3.77 Colebrook $3.60 someone PLEASE explaine????
Posted by: wood burner | June 22, 2011 at 07:15 PM
It's all those high paying industrial jobs/salaries, wait t'ill those 40 Berlin Station jobs happen, gas will be $4.00 and beer $10/rack.
Posted by: Rocky | June 22, 2011 at 07:38 PM
Good come back Rocky! Guess I should have not expected anything less!
Posted by: wood burner | June 22, 2011 at 07:53 PM
Just kidding of course......You're right wb, it doesn't make any sense unless the fuel is coming out of Canada. It's one of those things that we just can't get an answer to.
Posted by: Rocky | June 22, 2011 at 09:06 PM