8-1-2001 Providence Journal

State panel derails power plant

• North Smithfield and Burrillville officials express relief at the decision by the Energy Facilities Siting Board.

NORTH SMITHFIELD -- A three-member state board voted unanimously yesterday to pull the plug on a proposed power plant near the town's Slatersville section, citing the developer's refusal to provide information about a possible industrial park next to the facility.

Though the Energy Facilities Siting Board denied Indeck-North Smithfield LLC a permit to build the 350-megawatt, gas-fired plant, board Chairman Elia Germani said the $250-million project is not necessarily dead.

The denial, which came after 24 hearings over nine months, was "without prejudice," Germani said, meaning if the company can provide the requested information, it could reapply for a permit.

"In a sense, it has not been rejected," Germani said.

Indeck spokesman Amos Shepard said the board's concerns were unjustified doubts planted by the project's opponents. Indeck could appeal to the state Supreme Court, but Shepard wouldn't say whether that was being considered.

"All things are possible," he said.

While Indeck representatives were circumspect, officials in the towns of Burrillville and North Smithfield, who have fought the project tenaciously for more than two years, were jubilant.

"We had a poor man's dream team against a company with a lot of resources," said W. Mark Russo, one of North Smithfield's lawyers, at a news conference on the steps of Town Hall.

"I hope we just move on," said North Smithfield Town Council President Daniel C. Halloran.

In Burrillville, Town Manager Michael Wood said "We're very pleased. I think that it looks like there's a more-than-excellent chance the project has been terminated . . . We'll see what happens.

Indeck's defeat is the first time the siting board has rejected a power plant proposal, having recently approved similar plants in Johnston and Tiverton. But unlike the Indeck plan, those plants had support from their host towns.

Indeck's plant would have been built on a 25-acre site near the Burrillville town line, near the south shore of the Slatersville reservoirs. That location triggered objections from area residents -- and the North Smithfield Town Council -- that the plant would pollute the air as well as create an unsightly steam plume and irritating noise that would ruin the placid lakefront atmosphere of the neighborhood.

Town officials also said they feared that plant activities, within a half-mile of the old L&RR landfill, a federal Superfund site, might cause buried chemicals there to migrate into the groundwater that feeds town wells.

Burrillville officials echoed those environmental worries and added the objection that an access road from Route 7 in their town was designated as the main traffic route to the plant.

Illinois-based Indeck engineers said power from the plant would help reduce utility prices in Rhode Island, while opponents presented studies that showed the region has enough power plants.

Indeck witnesses and federal and state agencies said the plant was within federal and state environmental and safety regulations and that it would not affect buried materials at the old landfill.

But it was concerns over a possible industrial park next to the plant -- not the plant itself -- that triggered the board's vote.

When Indeck first applied for a permit in April 1999, the company touted an adjacent industrial park, to be built by Tuspani Water Co., as one of the benefits of the project.

Tuspani owns 88 acres south of the Slatersville reservoirs near the North Smithfield-Burrillville town line. Indeck planned to use 25 of those acres for the power plant.

Tuspani officials could not be reached for comment yesterday on any industrial park plans or the siting board's vote.

Germani said the siting board became increasingly concerned in recent weeks about the impact an industrial park might have on the area around the plant.

To determine whether those concerns were justified, the siting board asked Indeck for a copy of Indeck's purchase and sales agreement with Tuspani to see whether it referred to an industrial park.

Germani said the board also wanted Indeck to agree to do environmental impact studies on the effects of an industrial park, if one were to be developed.

Indeck refused both requests.

Indeck lawyer Roger C. Ross wrote that the company could not reveal the terms of its agreement with Tuspani because of confidentiality provisions.

Indeck's Shepard said other

companies would be reluctant to make deals with Indeck for fear of their private information being released.

Germani said such agreements usually allow disclosure if ordered by a "court of competent jurisdiction," which he said could be construed to mean the siting board. He also said the agreement could have been viewed "in camera," or only by the siting board members.

Ross also told the board Indeck couldn't study an industrial park that Tuspani might be considering.

The company didn't think it could "meaningfully engage in abstract and hypothetical analyses" over an industrial park plan that is not allowed by local zoning and that "has not even reached the conceptual state and which Indeck has no development, economic or any other interest," Ross said.

Patrick Dougherty, a lawyer who represented Burrillville in the proceedings, said he suspected Indeck just wanted to get out.

"There were some major problems in their application and the process that surrounded the final hearing," he said, "and I think they realized it and they thumbed their nose at the board and got out on a technicality."

"This is not the way we wanted to end this," Germani said. "We've had 24 days of hearings. We gave it our best shot."

-- With staff reports from Liz Anderson and Gabriela Guzman

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