N.H. plant's plan to burn debris fuels town fears
HOPKINTON, N.H. -- The smokestack juts out from the verdant landscape across from a covered bridge spanning the Contoocook River, a source of water for the city of Concord. On the maps kept by angry residents, it lies at the epicenter of a five-mile circle of child-filled locales: five schools, well-kept athletic fields, and the Elm Brook Park swimming area.
This tidy town of 5,600 is outraged that the Bio Energy plant, which generated electricity by burning wood for nearly two decades, now plans to trade in its clean wood chips for construction and demolition debris -- a much cheaper fuel, but one that could contain chips of old lead paint. Under a permit granted by the state Department of Environmental Services, the plant would be allowed to release more than 2.6 tons of lead into the air each year, making it New Hampshire's largest fixed source of lead emissions. Bio Energy officials say the actual emissions would be much lower.
"I just don't want to expose my kids to a toxic wasteland," said Julie Bassi, a mother of three and a school psychologist, whose physician husband is so worried about pollution from the plant that he wants to track Hopkinton children's blood lead levels. "That sounds a bit extreme, but it's just that sense of loss of control that tears at my emotional heartstrings."
Residents and environmentalists fear that economics could persuade the owners of other wood-burning plants around the country, including six more in New Hampshire, to follow suit. With the end of utility contracts that essentially subsidized the plants' operations -- and with bans on dumping construction debris in landfills proposed in states such as Massachusetts -- they are concerned that other green plants will become dirtier to survive.
"Fuel is the highest cost of the facility. It always has been," said Harry Smith, vice president of operations for Regenesis, Bio Energy's operating company. "The only way you can save money is by lowering your fuel costs."
Smith said the Bio Energy project will not generate the amount of pollution that residents fear; already the company has agreed to use half clean wood as fuel until it can upgrade pollution controls to limit lead emissions to 1.3 tons a year. He defended the project as a smart reuse of materials that will help to make an alternative energy source self-sufficient. "It takes very bulky material out of landfills that really doesn't belong there, and finds a much better use," Smith said.
But one environmental economist said the project exposes a longstanding conflict in environmental policy: Some well-intentioned efforts to spur investment in alternative energy sources have negative environmental consequences.
"Nowadays, 'renewable energy source' has a positive connotation," said Robert Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He argues that renewable energy sources are not always preferable. "The interesting aspect of this is that it reflects upon what economists always talk about -- tradeoffs, and not just environment vs. economics. This is environment vs. environment."
Construction waste presents an environmental conundrum for regulators. In New Hampshire, the preferred route has been to send it to landfills. In Massachusetts, the Department of Environmental Protection, which estimates the state generates about 500,000 tons of construction wood waste each year, is finalizing a regulation that would ban landfill disposal. The aim is for the materials to be reused or recycled; but after it is separated, much of the wood is expected to be burned for energy.
"The problem is, something needs to be done with these materials and there are no easy, cheap answers," said Brad Kuster, a Hopkinton resident and staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, which petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency to review the state permits for Bio Energy. "But we just don't think that it makes sense to take a hazardous substance, burn it, and disperse it."
Biomass facilities, which turn organic material such as wood and agricultural waste into energy, were built in the 1980s, spurred by a federal law aimed at lessening the nation's dependence on foreign oil and encouraging cleaner sources of energy. Many forged contracts with utilities guaranteeing generous payments for 20 years, based on high projected oil prices; but oil prices later fell, resulting in the utilities paying steep subsidies from their own ratepayers. Public Service of New Hampshire, the state's largest power provider, began buying out the expensive contracts in the 1990s; Bio Energy shuttered its operations several months after its contract was bought out in 2002.
Around the country, plants like Bio Energy have faced difficult decisions after the loss or expiration of those contracts, said Nathanael Greene, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Certainly, if someone is willing to pay you to take their waste, that looks a lot better from an economics perspective," he said.
Smith maintains Bio Energy will still have to buy construction debris, but that it costs far less than virgin wood -- about $5 a ton, compared with $15 a ton for clean wood chips or $18 a ton for pallets. Regenesis also runs a nearby wood processing facility that could supply the construction debris for Bio Energy to burn. That facility, Petro Fiber, would get paid for taking the construction debris from haulers, Smith said.
Even when the 12-megawatt Bio Energy plant was burning clean wood chips, between 1983 and 2002, it annually emitted about 600 pounds of lead and 8 pounds of mercury, apparently naturally occurring in trees or absorbed through the soil, according to the Department of Environmental Services. Bio Energy could release up to 31 pounds of mercury under its new permits.
Residents are concerned about the prospect of lead dust floating down on their town. Playing off the state slogan, they use posters to proclaim, "Lead Free or Die." High lead levels, which often result when children play in dirt contaminated with old paint chips, have been shown to decrease IQ levels and cause behavior and growth problems.
"Here we are in New Hampshire because we want to try to live healthfully and they're going to drop one of these plants where it is, quite literally, going to rain lead down on my house," said Scott Flood, a Hopkinton father of three and a vice president of Residents Environmental Action Committee for Health, one of two groups formed to oppose the plant.
State officials say the residents' fears are unfounded, adding that the federal air quality standard for lead is about eight times less stringent than New Hampshire's. They say that construction waste that ends up in a landfill also could pose an environmental threat if it leaks into groundwater.
"We have a case of, 'Don't burn it, don't bury it, and don't put it in my backyard,' " said Robert Scott, director of the Department of Environmental Services' air resources division.
After the state granted permits allowing the plant to burn construction debris last summer, the town of Hopkinton issued cease-and-desist orders last fall. Bio Energy sued the town, and a Superior Court judge agreed that the town had no authority to interfere. The town plans to appeal that decision, and the Superior Court has scheduled an Oct. 8 trial on remaining issues, including whether Bio Energy needs town approval to complete the conversion plans.
Massachusetts could host its first plant that burns construction debris if developers follow through with a plan to build on an undisclosed location in the southeastern section of the state. EcoPower LLC received an advisory opinion that it would qualify for renewable energy certificates as long as it satisfies Massachusetts' criteria by using advanced pollution-control technology and clean fuel, and by meeting state emissions standards. Massachusetts will require utilities to buy 4 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2009, creating a market for that energy. The renewable certificates sold by alternative energy plants can double the value of the electricity they produce and make green energy more economically feasible.
New Hampshire environmental officials think the availability of such certificates may be preventing other plants from rushing to use cheaper fuel; two other facilities are now upgrading to take advantage of renewable energy certificates in nearby states.
Stephanie Ebbert can be
reached at ebbert@globe.com 