Springfield, MA City Council Votes to Appeal Biomass Permit Ruling

- by Ryan Trow­bridge, Sep­tem­ber 10, 2014, WGGB

Wednes­day night, the Spring­field City Coun­cil took up the con­tentious issue of a planned bio­mass incin­er­a­tor in the city.

Oppo­nents claim the plant would only add more pol­lu­tion to an already pol­lut­ed city, but the state just ruled Spring­field does not have the author­i­ty to stop its development.

It’s an issue sev­er­al years in the mak­ing and Wednes­day, the City Coun­cil met to vote on what it should do next in the bat­tle to keep the plant from being built.

Palmer Renew­able Ener­gy is look­ing to build a $150 mil­lion bio­mass wood burn­ing plant in Spring­field. The bio­mass plant, near Page Boule­vard and Cad­well Dri­ve, Would pro­duce 35 megawatts of electricity.

Oppo­nents, how­ev­er, say it’s dirty ener­gy and would fur­ther pol­lute the Spring­field area.

So in 2012, the City Coun­cil and Zon­ing Board of Appeals repealed the build­ing per­mit and in response, Palmer Renew­able Ener­gy sued in the Mass­a­chu­setts Land Court.

That court decid­ed in August to imme­di­ate­ly rein­state the devel­op­ers build­ing per­mit – rul­ing the Zon­ing Board over­stepped its authority.

Tonight, one of the main con­cerns of the coun­cil was that they are in no posi­tion to pay for legal coun­sel if they do appeal and ulti­mate­ly, they vot­ed 11–1 to appeal – some­thing that made most of the cit­i­zens here very happy.

“It’s a step in the right direc­tion. I’m real­ly glad the coun­cil came through for us tonight. The next mes­sage is call the may­or,” says Michae­lann Bewsee from Arise for Social Justice.

This bio­mass burn­ing plant has drawn crit­i­cism from sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty groups, includ­ing Arise for Social Jus­tice, which describes itself as a low income rights and anti-oppres­sion orga­ni­za­tion in Spring­field. Sev­er­al con­cerned mem­bers from the group showed up at tonight’s coun­cil meet­ing and were very vocal in their opposition.

Cur­rent­ly, the City Coun­cil does not have approval from the may­or to pay for the appeal.