The Public Service Board has ruled against the proposed 37-megawatt wood-fired biomass power plant in North Springfield.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140211/THISJUSTIN/140219987
PSB rules against North Springfield wood chip plant February 11,2014 Rutland Herald By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer MONTPELIER – The Public Service Board has ruled against the proposed 37-megawatt wood-fired power plant in North Springfield. In a 156-page decision released Tuesday, the Board upheld an earlier decision by one of its hearing officers, who had said the project would “interfere” with the orderly development in the region because of heavy truck traffic delivering the woodchips to the North Springfield industrial park. But the Board went even further, said that the project “would not promote the general good of the state of Vermont,” because of its low level of thermal efficiency and the plant's expected annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Board also said that the project's electricity was currently not needed, and that other power could be provided “in a more cost-effective manner through energy conservation programs and measures and energy-efficiency and load-management measures.” The news was hailed by Bob Kischko, chairman of the North Springfield Action Group, a neighborhood organization, that fought the project, saying it would disrupt North Springfield and add significant amounts of air pollution to the area. The North Springfield Sustainable Energy Project is a joint project of Winstanley Enterprises Inc., and Weston Solutions, who had been pursuing a wood-fired power plant, that would provide steam heat to clients in the industrial park. Adam Winstanley was unavailable for comment, and other project officials declined to comment on a possible appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court. For the complete story, see Wednesday's Rutland Herald. Biomass biomass 2014TopNewStories
So goes the revenue and also any complaints of the residential tax rate should cease, as I don't see any other businesses knocking the door down to start up in Springfield, it leaves only property owners to foot the bill to maintain the roads and services we do have. So as long as we keep business out, property owners must be happy with the taxes they pay
ReplyDeleteStatus quo for Springfield. No business, no growth and not in my backyard. I think those residences that overlook the beautiful industrial park with no industry should be taxed a view tax.
ReplyDeleteNIMBYs won this round. Am wondering what other industrial projects we lost that were waiting on this approval. Perhaps the tooth fairy will now arrive to increase the grand list and build a road to the relatively empty industrial park for us. Perhaps a wildflower garden?
DeleteSpringfield takes another huge step into the toilet bowl it is becoming! Time for me and my family to leave this dying place.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so let's start thinking about attracting or creating an industry that will do for Springfield what the machine tool industry did. I have three ideas. Who else has some?
ReplyDeleteOh oh oh, Chuck, I love this game.
DeleteI think we should attract a business that will create a product that attracts other businesses. Maybe they will offer something like free heat or greatly reduced heat or something that will significantly lower the cost of doing business in Springfield, which would make it more economical for businesses to locate here. Imagine if you had to choose between Springfield, Vermont and Claremont, NH, but the location in Springfield, Vermont would allow you to reduce the heating costs of your plant by something like 60-70%.
Second, maybe the business we attract should buy products from or produced by blue collar workers, such as loggers. AND, maybe this business will use a low grade product that isnt very attractive to any other business. This would further help our local economy helping put money in peoples pockets that would then go buy other products and services.
This business should also be willing to locate itself in our industrial park, because that is why we built and zoned for an industrial park.
Most of all we should attract a business that will grow the grand list significantly.
I love this game Chuck, can we find a business such as this that might be willing to establish itself in Springfield?
That idea was tried and didn't make the cut, 8:02. Got another?
DeleteWho needs it anyway ? Wasn't the prison suppose to solve all your problems? Didn't you get all kinds of money through grants and low cost loans?
ReplyDeleteSad to see it fail to come through really. In a town that seems to be here at this point just as a service town full of free services for the "unfortunate" that is funded by the working class of Vermont. It was just one good thing for the town that was shot down once again just because some people didn't want to see it or deal with the truck traffic. Maybe it is time to move away and go some where, where small and big business can coincide with one another!
ReplyDeleteSorry but it was the P S B that didn't want it not just "some people".
DeleteFor "unfortunate," I think you mean "Wal-Mart employees." The Claremont store costs taxpayers $905,000 in social service costs because it pays so little, and of course it has sucked a lot of the businesses out of our town.
Deletethey say that the bio mass plant is not good for the town,but they think the prison and state offices is,how about we close the 2,sell them to somebody who will pay taxes on the buildings
ReplyDeleteHow about the rec center paying taxes - oh, that was sold to the hospital so now we get no tax money from them. That was not the original plan but somehow, it went through and no one has said what will happen with the prison money that was used for the rec center. Is the hospital getting this money - no one in town seems to want to talk about this!
DeleteYes and it's not like the hospital can't afford to pay us taxes. We have to pay them very very high cost for our HEALTH and most of the time go undiagnosed weather we can afford it or not.
Deleteif the hospital didn't buy it it would be another empty building and it employs about 40 people and it isn't getting any of the "prison" money - would you rather have another empty building to go along with the empty lot at the industrial park?
DeleteWhat is that a threat? Why can’t one of the largest business in town pay the same tax rate as everyone? I do believe the prison money helped build this.
DeleteWell you believe wrong, it was built with donations and a bank loan, try checking your facts once in a while. Also if you consider the free services the hospital gives away to the citizens of this town it's a lot more then any property taxes any business in this town pays. And what threat are you talking about? Is asking a question now a threat?
Deletelets get some more grants, loans, tax incentives to build roads to carry the amount of trucks that will need to enter the park and upkeep our roads and pay the millions of dollars in tax incentives to the developer of the biomass project....make sense?
ReplyDeleteI was ok with the biomass plant coming to town. NOSAG fought hard to keep it out of Springfield. Nice to see people come together in town even if it went against what I thought was beneficial. Now I just hope they will fight as hard if not harder for new business, opportunity and change in Springfield and not just disappear now that the problem in their backyard is gone... Time will tell how much they truly care about their community. Time to step up NOSAG, show us how much you truly care about Springfield, our people and our surrounding communities. Don't let us forget who you are. We want to see you continue to be in the news fighting for the revival and well being of Springfield... We all saw how hard you worked to fight the plant now keep that energy going in a positive way for our future!
ReplyDeleteNimby’s you won Springfield you lose. Now it’s time for the nimby’s to fight just as hard to get a replacement for the millions of dollars in tax revenue they managed to keep out after all it is an industrial park not pasture land.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to NoSag. There was not much room for another nail in the coffin of Springfield's economic development, but they found it. This sends a strong message to any entrepeneur seeking to start up or relocate a business to Springfield that he or shee will face a protracted battle and high costs with little or no prospect of actually being able to get any enterprise off the ground.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are enjoying your high taxes, drug infestation and reputation as the crime capital of southeastern Vermont, because you just destroyed the last chance the region had for a turnaround.
So you sound as if you "dun graduated da 6 grade" all that wisdom, how do you keep it bottled up?
Delete“…the project would “interfere” with the orderly development in the region because of heavy truck traffic delivering the woodchips to the North Springfield industrial park.” So that’s what happened to Springfield! Idlenot Dairy’s truck traffic must have interfered with the orderly development of the region, thereby causing nearly three decades of economic decline. And in an heroic effort to prevent an even further slide into the gutter, the brainiacs on the PSB have brilliantly invoked such twisted logic to guarantee that the town’s decay continues unabated!
ReplyDeleteIdlenot was run under by the Aldrich brothers. Look at the court transcripts.
Deleteand Ben & Jerry's trucks must have really upset things
DeleteThat has no effect on Idlenot's decline.
DeleteI'm talking about the industrial park
DeleteAt least we attract drug dealers and users, seems to be plenty of them around and it's a growing industry, maybe some of them can set up camp in the industrial park seeing how we don't want any industry there
ReplyDeleteThe height of hubris that the bureaucratic apparatchiks of a two-bit leftist state, one of the least densely populated in the nation, would invoke a fatuous justification based on worries about such a small plant’s
ReplyDelete“expected annual greenhouse gas emissions”. Yet another red herring employed by the statists in their persistent attempts at inhibiting economic development, depriving people of well paying jobs and the economic freedom that ensues from them, while continuing to hold a majority of Vermonters hostage to a steady supply of “public assistance” programs. Ethan Allen is rolling over in his grave!
Ironically Ethan Allen's Homestead is a stones throw away from a Biomass plant that has ruined the health and well being of Vermont's most popular city. Due to the Mcneil biomass plant Burlington continues to rank among the unhealthiest cities in the nation. It is routinely criticized for being a poor place to raise children.
DeleteYou are such a tool (and perhaps something that rhymes with too) for the leftists!
DeleteJuly 28, 2013 - The Nation's 2nd Best Place to Live is Burlington, Vermont
www.examiner.com/article/the-nation-s-2nd-best-place-to-live-is-burlington-vermont
Your propaganda doesn't play here!
Again, here is some incredibly wrong information.
Delete11:02, that cannot be correct. Burlington has the states largest biomass plant, how could they have such an inefficient, wood burning plant spewing chemicals into the environment, yet still be the second best place to live in the country. Your hogwas is not welcome here. Facts are facts, biomass is bad for towns, if you have a biomass plant your town will never thrive and all of your residents will die.
DeleteThat's right 3:24, deny the facts! Deny, deny, deny, until the Easter Bunny arrives! You have obviously become irrational about this entire subject and have succumbed to the indoctrination of the leftists and are merely parroting their fear mongering tactics. Yet, while doing so, every day you go out and crank that car in your door yard,"spewing chemicals into the environment", yet you are okay with that. Your oil burning furnace is "spewing chemicals into the environment" every day, too. Both are in exceedingly close proximity to you, yet you ignore those threats because they are both personal conveniences to you. And therein is the blatant hypocrisy that is in operation here. This isn't about saving the world, this is about selfishly preventing progress from occurring because it's happening too close to one's personal property. And as for your concluding sentence, how is it that Burlington, VT (home to a biomass plant) and its people continue to thrive?
DeleteIf we could only get all the druggies and dealers to relocate to the Industrial park. Then we could lock the gate and sleep in peace every night.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, put them in flop houses in the NIMBY's neighborhood and let them deal with the real fruits of their labors!
DeleteA big thanks to NOSAG! Thanks for completely taking the hopes away of future businesses coming to the Industrial park where business is supposed to be! Thanks for driving forward thinkers out of the area! Thanks for thinking of your own personal needs and not the greater needs of a town!
ReplyDeleteFor the people that are disappointed that the biomass was rejected we only have ourselves to blame and I put myself firmly in the category of both disappointed and responsible. We didn't become vocal enough with our support for this project before the PSB. We allowed NoSAG to dictate what was best for our community.
ReplyDeleteWhile your sense of guilt is respectable, it is misapplied. When it comes to the politically appointed PSB, the adage "Stupid is as stupid does" wholly applies. Their delusional thinking is devoid of all logic. Citing trucks as inhibitors to regional development and a small plant's emissions (which are virtually imperceptible on a global scale) as grounds to deny a town its right to economic progress is prima facie evidence that you can't fix stupid. Stupidity has taken root in Vermont's leftist government(s) and will continue to shackle Vermonters to lives of minimal economic opportunities and mere subsistence. Those in the seats of government, their appointees, and their supporters have already attained their own economic success and therefore see no reason why the status quo should not be "good enough" for everyone else. We have reached the point where our civil servants can't look beyond their next government paycheck and larger and larger blocks of voters can't see beyond their next government subsistence check. We are on the road to ruin, and at the moment it would appear to be an expressway!
DeleteSame old rhetoric from those who were "for" the plant. You talk about the millions in tax revenue and all those "well-paying" jobs, but you cite no evidence that either would ever come to fruition. In actually, the plant would have had a reprieve on paying taxes -- for years! I am, in no way, anti-industry or anti-capitalism. I just want to see Springfield woo businesses that will actually be good for our tax base and all our citizens...not just screw the few who would have lived on top of this disgusting plant.
ReplyDeleteSo exactly what businesses are "woo-worthy" enough for you? You have no answer, do you? Congratulations, you are a big part of Springfield's problem! As long as you stand in the way of economic progress in the name of some nebulous, altruistic delusion that a town as poor as Springfield can only welcome "businesses that will actually be good for our tax base and all our citizens", you are THE PROBLEM!
DeleteOkay, here's one idea:
DeleteA young couple running a light manufacturing business (15 employees) in Mississippi want to relocate to Vermont because they want their children to enjoy the college education they got.
How do we attract them to Springfield? How about: Promote employee ownership: great deals on homes for all their employees and themselves if they convert to e.o. (This basically locks in the company until the last child of the last employee has at least graduated high school; no mega-corp is going to buy them out). Next, a terrific school system. Third, a fabulous health care plan for all, handles the usual conditions all the way up to retirement and stays with the families in good times and bad. Bingo, resolve three infrastructure problems, gain fifteen families up front and pave the way for a lot more to come.
But it takes people with vision to make it happen…..
The terrific college education they got where? There are thousands of colleges throughout the United States, to include Ole' Miss and Southern Mississippi University! Not to mention that the tax structure, cost of living, and right to work laws are far more conducive to business in Mississippi than the anti-business state of Vermont. Hey, I have an idea, let's make everything free for everybody so they'll all come to Springfield, where they'll continue to expect even more for nothing.
DeleteI think it says a lot about the people who read this blog that all the comments are on this article and NOT on the full text of the PSB's ruling. Hey! Let's not read the facts and just spew our ignorant opinions...
ReplyDeleteFact - this kills future business coming to Springfield.
DeleteLets see how hard NOSAG works to keep the Biomass plant from operating in Charlestown. Lets see if they have the same environmental concerns. All the profits and benefits of this business will move across the river. All the PSB/NOSAG did was hurt Vermont and Springfield economically. The Biomass plant will be built. It will be built in an area that wants to grow and not be suppressed by social services.
Doesn't this ruling basically elimate any business that would require a large amount of truck traffic from ever setting up shop in the industrial park?
ReplyDeleteWith one battle NoSAG has won the war against economic growth in Springfield. Well played NoSAG, well played.
Read your town plan....the industrial park was zoned for light Manuf. not a huge electrical producing incinerator..yes INCINERATOR!!!!
ReplyDeleteThey can't read.....
DeleteWell 6:04 and schmo I suggest reading Page 97 of the hearing officers opinion as it pertains to the relevance of zoning in this case.
DeleteRight, the town plan! LOL. 30 years of town plans that have resulted in _________? You must enjoy reading fiction!
Deleteback when fellows was booming how many people worked there 4-500?? there was more traffic then there will every be now
ReplyDelete