Left In Lowell

Power Plants Everywhere

by Lynne at 11:49 am.

Two items on the Council’s agenda tomorrow night spiked my interest. One, which the Sun writes about, is the acceptance of a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement from L’Energia, the rebuilt Tanner St power plant. The same big firm (coupled with “DG Cleanpower” - a misnomer if I ever heard one) is also trying to build a 6-stack, 348-megawatt gas/diesel power plant in north Billerica.

What is payment-in-lieu-of-taxes? Well, it’s simple. The plant agrees not to get taxed, in favor of just giving us an agreed-upon payment for some number of years that may or may not be less than what they would pay if the property was assessed the old fashioned way your house and mine are. I wish I could freeze my property tax payments for something like 20 years without worrying about the worth of the dollar for a couple decades, inflation, or an increase in value for whatever reason. But it seems like industrial/commercial properties get to do this. Feh.

At the heart of developing these (yes, dirty, fossil-fuel-based) power plants, by the way, is a former City Councilor, so you wonder just how much this guy relies on his old-style connections to get things done around here. I have met Joe Fitzpatrick, and I can tell you that he’s lied to my face during a Q&A session about L’Energia on Tanner. So I don’t trust him one iota, and would love to see the Tanner plant stopped as well as the Billerica plant. But I certainly do not want to get screwed out of due tax money from it either.

Does the payment-in-liu-of-taxes take into account the cost to the city in terms of pollution, increased health risks, and everything else that comes with sticking a power plant in the middle of a city? L’Energia should have remained off line and redeveloped to something appropriate, not put back into use as a polluting power plant. Doesn’t South Lowell get dumped on enough?

Update: I also meant to comment on the other power-plant-related subject of tomorrow night, that of a C. Elliot request to have the Environmental/Neighborhood Subcommittee meet in regards to the very real, very scary traffic issues that could arise out of the proposed Billerica power plant. Kudos to Elliot for starting this conversation. You see, Lowell gets no “payment-in-liu-of-taxes” from the proposed Billerica plant, but we’ll have the mess to clean up if a tanker hits a house, or can’t brake coming down an icy Woburn St ramp and spills its aqueous ammonia right near that dense neighborhood.

I think the city should discuss creating an ordinance making it illegal for tanker trucks carrying fuel or ammonia (or other materials deemed too dangerous) to use the Woburn St exit (or, if we don’t have jurisdiction, get the legislature to do it, or put the ordinance on Woburn St itself), citing the serious safety concerns. That in and of itself negates one of the more attractive features of the Billerica site - its proximity to route 495 - and makes them find another route for their hazmat tankers. Maybe, say, getting off route 3 at Exit 28, Treble Cove Road, and make it entirely Billerica’s problem, seeing as they would get all the cash (er, “payments-in-liu-of-taxes”) from having the plant.

Of course, that doesn’t work, because our first responders have to help if Billerica gets overwhelmed by an accident of those proportions. So who pays for that, and the training besides?

[Filed under City Council, Environment, Energy, Billerica Power Plant] [link]

11 Responses to “Power Plants Everywhere”

Paige Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Lynne-
Joe Fitzpatrick, formerly of ANP, now has a history of not fulfilling promises. See this story from the plant in Blackstone, MA. Fitzpatrick is being sued for not paying on the PILOT. What is his incentive to honor any agreement with Lowell or Billerica?

With a recently retired Federal Judge playing the role of a mediator, a dispute between power giant American National Power (”ANP”) and the Town of Blackstone (”Blackstone”) in Massachusetts is taking a break from the Courthouse. The pending litigation concerns an estimated $10 million in tax revenue that Blackstone officials maintain the company must pay the town through 2019 concerning one of the company’s co-generation plants. The mediation is an attempt to resolve two legal actions the company has filed in protest of its bills, which actions are pending before the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board in Boston and the Middlesex County Superior Court in Framingham, MA.

Link
Paige Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Good update Lynne.

They can’t bring tankers under the T bridge at the Commuter Rail Station- then left onto Billerica Ave/Woburn Street. So they’d really have to take Concord Road, drive right through the center of town, around the common, meander down Pollard, all the way up to North Billerica Road, and take a left onto Mt. Pleasant. Then they’d be using ALL Billerica Roads.
Shawn Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Woburn street is a public road. Unless you can show that it is not rated for those trucks.. which would also include food, fuel, delivery and other trucks of the same or similar size, you are just setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

I think you also left out the fact that assessing a power plant annually is an extremely expensive venture. It isn’t like a drive-by assessment that most homes get. That assessment is a multiple month event. The idea of doing the payment was to ease things up for the city as well.. saving those annual costs.

This makes a guaranteed $10 million dollar payment stream, plus fees, permitting, business taxes, and jobs for people in the city.

Oh, but they’re a “corporation,” thus by definition must be evil incarnate. Somebody must know somebody, so there must be behind close doors games being played.. cuz we can’t trust anybody either… unless they’re a big L democrat of course.

Why do you live in a city or town that has industrial zones if you don’t want them used? Do you have any idea what the residential tax rate would be without industry?

You’ve got extreme regulation to control the plant’s output, regulation to control work conditions, regulations to control air quality, snow removal, light pollution, noise pollution, site design, fencing, signage, chemical storage, employee health & welfare, etc, etc… now what more do you want?

If you want no industry or commercial base in the city, you chose the wrong place to live. Go find a commune in Vermont or Wisconsin.

Otherwise, continue to provide a fourth branch value to the conversation, but stop being so nimby about every project that tries to come to the city… and respect that others may have differing opionions (that are not always about “helping out” the “GOB”s).
bobo Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Why the sudden concern with first responder costs and training? That’s one excuse I haven’t heard in these parts before. If you actually knew anything about you local emergency services, state haz-mat response and that every cent of a haz-mat incident is billable to the responsible party, it would shoot a pretty big hole in that component of your argument.
Josh Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
What Shawn said.

haha
loving lowell Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Both the police and fire chief in Billerica have said numerous times that their men and women are already trained for any possible incident that could happen at the plant. I am sure that goes for Lowell as well. What people seem to forget are all of the other businesses in both Billerica and Lowell that store chemicals, fuel, etc. This is not a new phenomenon.
Paige Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I don’t think anyone questions the ability of our first responders to handle an emergency. However, there is a question about adequate equipment, especially in light of the surrounding towns facing fire station closures.
bobo Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
FYI The LFD has the highest percentage of certified haz-mat technicians of any fire department in Massachusetts. I remember Mayor Martin commending the fire chief for this not very long ago.

People only seem to care about our first responders when its convenient for them (or when they die), no one cares about staffing or training issues the rest of the time.

Stick to the core arguments that work against this plant

1. Sustainability: long term there is none for fossil fuels and this thing will become a dead weight on the property, plus the environmental impact of the CO2.

2. The water usage: this is a big problem as area growth continues beyond capacity.

3. The PILT does not include all the externalities this/these plants may cause down the road.

Please, stop using the first responders for your purposes unless you are going to stand up for their safety, staffing and training needs the rest of the time!
Lynne Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
bobo, pipe down. I have and I will continue to advocate for all aspects that are important in our budget, including first responder items. Give me a break. It’s not like it’s been totally ignored on this blog in the past.
kpem Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
The offramps are too short and the Mass Highway Accident data confirms this. South Lowell is not industrially zoned Billerica is. If Billerica wants tankers of dangerous chemicals trucked in they can use truck routes through Billerica down High St. As far as back door business goes, there is lots of it in this case. City officials just blow this off because they say “Joe Fitzpatrick is a good guy and he will take care of everything and did you know he is from Lowell?” (Which he is not he moved out into a nice area with no power plant) I actually never would have guessed that this is how Lowell politics works.
bobo Says:
May 21st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Lynne are you calling for censorship on your own blog? (snark)

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

I never said public safety issues were completely ignored in these parts, only selectively used and cited. I’m pretty confident most people on this blog (or pretty much anywhere) have no clue what they actually have for staffing and equipment in use for police, fire and EMS in their own community at any given moment, never mind the actual industry standards for those jobs.

Billerica Fire hosted their own Haz-Mat technician course not long ago. Paid for out of pocket I believe by the firefighters themselves, not the town. As for Chelmsford, the station they are closing permanently isn’t the one closest to the power plant, so I guess that makes it OK. Those people don’t deserve the same level of protection as the rest of town. I don’t know what area police patrols will be cut back from the laid off officers.

I’ll reserve my judgement for budget time. I expect LiL to be advocating for filling all open police positions, two officer patrol cars, dedicated ambulances and keeping every area fire station open and fully staffed?

I’ll eagerly be awaiting that post.

Until then you and Paige need to educate yourselves better on your area first responder capabilities or in some cases lack thereof. Haz-Mat response is actually one of the few things most area public safety personnel have training, capability and equipment for since 9-11. There just aren’t enough people to use it actually on duty.

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May 19, 2008

Power Plants Everywhere

11 Responses to “Power Plants Everywhere”

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