Plainfield, Vermont Biomass Continues to Rile Neighbors

- by Eric Blais­dell, March 27, 2015, Ver­mont Pub­lic Radio

Things got so heat­ed at Plainfield’s Select Board meet­ing Mon­day night in a dis­cus­sion about God­dard College’s planned bio­mass-fueled heat plant, that one elect­ed offi­cial told board mem­bers they’d be in “deep water” if they dis­re­gard­ed some res­i­dents’ wish­es to have anoth­er meet­ing on it.

The school is apply­ing for a 40-year Rur­al Devel­op­ment loan from the USDA that would cov­er 90 per­cent of the costs for the plant. As part of that process, it needs a let­ter of sup­port from the town.

God­dard emailed the Select Board on Thurs­day look­ing for that sup­port. Chair­man Bram Tow­bin, speak­ing for him­self, replied that the school has “mis­han­dled the com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions aspect of this project” by not telling res­i­dents what was going on since the project began. Tow­bin invit­ed some­one from God­dard to attend the board’s meet­ing Mon­day to plead its case.

Res­i­dents who live near the plant’s site have been fight­ing it every step of the way. On Town Meet­ing Day in March 2013, vot­ers reject­ed a non­bind­ing arti­cle ask­ing the col­lege to halt con­struc­tion until it could be proven the nanopar­ti­cles emit­ted would be harm­less. The debate got nasty, with neigh­bors accus­ing each oth­er of being “liars,” “losers” and “jerks.”

Res­i­dent Karen Bouf­fard had appealed to the Ver­mont Supreme Court the state Envi­ron­men­tal Court’s rul­ing in favor of the plant. The Supreme Court reject­ed the appeal in Novem­ber, cit­ing a lack of evi­dence for her claims that the plant would dam­age the aes­thet­ics of the area.

Some of those at Monday’s meet­ing were already cranky because about 20 peo­ple were try­ing to cram them­selves into the small room in the town’s munic­i­pal build­ing that the board uses for its meet­ings. Tow­bin took the blame for that, say­ing that he should have warned the meet­ing for the Town Hall.

Res­i­dents also weren’t hap­py that God­dard didn’t send some­one from the school. Instead, it sent Tim Mak­er, the CEO and pres­i­dent of Mont­pe­lier-based Com­mu­ni­ty Bio­mass Sys­tems Inc. The com­pa­ny has been act­ing as project man­ag­er for the plant since 2011.

 “The pres­i­dent [of God­dard, Bob Ken­ny] asked me to rep­re­sent the project in the terms of this doc­u­ment, which is about a loan appli­ca­tion,” Mak­er said. “As far as any infor­ma­tion that went to the col­lege and went to me, this meet­ing was sim­ply about the sig­na­ture of this document.”

The board looked poised to pro­vide just that, with two of the three mem­bers, David Strong and Bet­sy Ziegler, voic­ing their sup­port of the project. Tow­bin and some res­i­dents, how­ev­er, weren’t ready to give their support.

Tow­bin acknowl­edged that the town’s Devel­op­ment Review Board had approved the plant, the state has signed off on it, the col­lege has been suc­cess­ful in lit­i­ga­tion and the town plan talks about sup­port­ing renew­able resources.

“In that lens, I think there is an argu­ment to be made that the town should sup­port the project,” Tow­bin said. “My con­cern is on a dif­fer­ent lev­el. It’s a lit­tle eso­teric, but very impor­tant. It’s on the issue of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and over­all neigh­bor­li­ness. From the town’s point of view, there has been a prob­lem in terms of com­mu­ni­cat­ing with var­i­ous par­ties with­in the town that has cre­at­ed a great deal of animosity.”

Bouf­fard gave the board a peti­tion with 78 sig­na­tures that she said were from Plain­field res­i­dents who do not sup­port the plant. She said she col­lect­ed the sig­na­tures in three days.

 “What­ev­er per­cent­age of the vot­ers in the town, I think that’s sig­nif­i­cant,” she said. As of Town Meet­ing Day, Plain­field had 893 reg­is­tered voters.

George Cush­ing, the town’s con­sta­ble and col­lec­tor of delin­quent tax­es, said the issue appeared to be a hot top­ic and that maybe anoth­er meet­ing would be pru­dent if the doc­u­ment didn’t need to be signed right away. Mak­er said the USDA has not been clear about the deadline.

Bob Atchin­son, the town’s ener­gy coor­di­na­tor, didn’t think anoth­er meet­ing was necessary.

“Isn’t it up to the Select Board whether or not to sign this? If the Select Board feels that in their wis­dom you don’t have enough infor­ma­tion to sign it, then that’s your pre­rog­a­tive,” Atchin­son said.

Tow­bin said he’s look­ing to the com­mu­ni­ty for guid­ance and would hold anoth­er meet­ing if res­i­dents want it.

Strong said he was will­ing to have anoth­er meet­ing but was ready to sign the document.

“I think the oppo­nents are the neigh­bors who are most affect­ed by (the plant),” Strong said. “But I don’t think they rep­re­sent the com­mu­ni­ty as a whole, and I don’t know whether a sec­ond meet­ing would gen­er­ate any addi­tion­al information.”

Strong said he got the sense from Towbin’s com­ments that no amount of infor­ma­tion is going to change his mind on this issue. He said Tow­bin has done a good job of crit­i­ciz­ing the col­lege about its lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but that’s not what sign­ing the doc­u­ment is about.

“At this point, you’ve got to decide whether this is a mer­i­to­ri­ous project, it’s good for the town,” Strong said. “That’s real­ly what we’re being asked.”

Tow­bin said he was sim­ply explain­ing the his­to­ry of the sit­u­a­tion and that God­dard is ask­ing the town for a favor.

Strong reit­er­at­ed that the deci­sion was up to the Select Board, not the res­i­dents. That didn’t sit well with Cushing.

“You are elect­ed offi­cials,” he said. “This group of peo­ple would not be here if they did not have a ques­tion of sup­port. And because you are elect­ed offi­cials, you real­ly are man­dat­ed to fol­low the peo­ple because we elect you. And I don’t think that hav­ing anoth­er meet­ing is out of line. I don’t think you three peo­ple should be mak­ing this deci­sion, boom, like that. I think you’re going to be in deep water, way over your head if you do.”

The board decid­ed to table the dis­cus­sion until its next meet­ing April 6 at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall.

Saman­tha Kol­ber, Goddard’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, said Tues­day that Mak­er would be at that meet­ing. The pres­i­dent will make an effort to be there, she said, but if Ken­ny can’t make it, some­one from the school’s staff will attend.