A court decision means permits for a wood-burning power plant in Springfield, Massachusetts are still good — even over a decade after being issued. The city council is appealing, continuing a fight that's concerned residents of one of the most asthmatic communities in the country.
It’s been 17 years since the city of Springfield first issued a special permit to Palmer Renewable Energy, which had been looking to build a wood-burning biomass plant off Page Boulevard in East Springfield.
In the wake of the recession, a new round of permits were issued in 2011, intended for a project that would cost an estimated $150 million and generate 35 megawatts as it burns up to 1,200 tons of wood a day.
A number of community members and activists fiercely opposed the proposal, looking to stop a wood-burning operation from going up in an area with one of the highest rates of asthma in the country.
“They were talking about the jobs and how it was going to create 50+jobs and I was like, ‘The most jobs that are going to be created were going to be at the respiratory department of Baystate Medical Center,” said Ward 3 Councilor Melvin Edwards, speaking with WAMC last week while recounting his early opposition to the project. “I know we're desperate to create jobs, but … it didn't balance out.”
Edwards was among a new class of councilors that voted to revoke the developer’s permitting in 2011, setting off a chain of events that saw the project's permitting iced, reinstated or at least involved in some kind of litigation at any given time.
Now, the permits are back, thanks to a Massachusetts Appeals Court decision in May. The court reversed findings by the state’s Land Court, which had affirmed the Springfield Zoning Board of Appeals’ 2021 decision to revoke project permits.
It’s a maze to navigate some of the court actions, but because of factors like the state’s 2010 Permit Extension Act - meant to foster developments stalled by the recession - the court found Palmer’s permits are still good.
Council President Mike Fenton tells WAMC that, if it’s not overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, it would “create an absurd result.”
“It would allow for a building permit issued 14 years ago, that was supposed to expire by its terms within six months - 180 days under Mass. law - … it would allow it to continue … and basically turn a six month permit into a 16-year permit, which is clearly inconsistent with the statutorial intent of the zoning act and with the building code, which only allows for building permits to be in existence first for six months,” he said in a phone interview.
At a special May 27 meeting, councilors unanimously approved filing an appeal, carried out pro bono by the Conservation Law Foundation. The foundation has represented the council over the past few years as the permit war waged on.
Touching on the high asthma rates in Springfield and the Pioneer Valley, Ward 7 Councilor Tim Allen tells WAMC while there are types of power plants with worse environmental impacts, a wood-burning biomass would present a host of issues, even beyond what’s burning.
“Just to get the wood there, you've got all this exhaust and traffic and brouhaha you have to kind of go through to get it to the plant where it's going to get burned,” Allen told reporters after the meeting. “Somebody said to me this weekend… [a] biomass isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world - it's just the worst thing in the world if it's around people, where people live. You put this in Maine, deep in the woods … where some biomass plants apparently exist - I don't know- but that's not so bad. But we have 200,000 people.”
WAMC has requested comment from Palmer Renewable via its attorney.
Fenton tells WAMC that, as of Wednesday, the council and its legal representation are waiting to hear what comes next.
