The Kingdom Community Wind project has support from townspeople in Lowell and local contractors, and they want Vermonters outside the Northeast Kingdom to know it.
That’s the message 50 to 75 people who held a pro-Lowell rally wanted to get across on Thursday.
Town of Lowell voters approved the project on Town Meeting Day in 2010, and it received a certificate of public good from the Vermont Public Service Board in May.
“I’m proud to be a part of it,” said Eric Boyden, vice president of J.A. McDonald, Inc., the construction company contracting with Green Mountain Power for the project. He was part of the crowd that gathered at the Lowell fire station to support the 63-megawatt project.
Boyden said of the 70 employees working for his company on the mountain, 68 are Vermonters.
On Monday, Judge Martin Maley issued a preliminary injunction in favor of Green Mountain Power, finding that protesters camping on Don and Shirley Nelson’s property adjacent to the work site meant to cause irreparable harm to the company and the public by occupying an area within 1,000 feet of a blasting zone—delaying the construction schedule and jeopardizing the utility’s ability to take advantage of federal tax credits. The order authorizes the Orleans County sheriff and Vermont State Police to arrest any person within the zone when construction workers are blasting.
Lowell Selecboard member Alden Warner said the project was getting more negative publicity than it deserved.
“We felt like we had to get out and speak our piece,” Warner said.
Warner said the project could bring millions in revenue to the town over 25 years.
Before the Lowell vote, selectboard members negotiated an agreement with Green Mountain Power in which the utility promised to pay the town at least $400,000 a year, and likely closer to $535,000 a year, for 25 years.
In testimony before the Public Service Board on behalf of Green Mountain Power, Robert Dostis said the company’s agreement with the Town of Lowell would provide for minimum annual payments to Lowell in an amount that is expected to generate approximately $15 million over the Lowell agreement’s 25-year term.
Rep. Mark Higley, R-Orleans-Franklin, spoke in favor of the project. He emphasized the environmental harms that come with other energy like Hydro-Quebec, which has drawn criticism for destroying fish habitat, releasing mercury into the environment and displacing native Cree peoples.
“There are pros and cons to everything, and a lot of times it’s hard to accept something in your own backyard,” Higley said.
Liz Gamache, manager of corporate services for the Vermont Electric Cooperative—whose customers will receive power from the project—said “there’s no silver bullet” for energy needs and all sources of energy have their problems.
“You can’t say no to everything,” Gamache said.
She cautioned that efforts by protesters to delay construction on the project could result in increased rates for customers. The project is eligible for production tax credits for the project of approximately $47 million to $48 million if it becomes operational by Dec. 31, 2012. If construction isn’t completed by then, Green Mountain Power could lose the credits, and Gamache said, potentially pass those costs on to customers. In fact, it was this potential loss of tax credits that granted Green Mountain Power the requisite “irreparable harm” it needed in order to win on its preliminary injunction motion to keep protesters at a distance. These tax credits, according to Judge Maley’s order and Green Mountain Power, would be returned to customers through lower rates if the project gets finished on time.
“Anything that puts upward pressure on project costs is likely to increase rates,” Gamache said.
Ira Powsner, a student at Sterling College and vocal opponent of the project, challenged that the cooperative could actually raise rates without doing the proper analysis and gaining approval from the Public Service Board.
John Beling, director of the Advocacy Division of the Department of Public Service Public, verified that if the utility needed to increase rates because it failed to get the production tax credit, the Public Service Board must deem such an increase “just and reasonable. ”It isn’t clear whether the credits would result in lower rates, Beling said. All things being equal, however, he said the less money Green Mountain Power spends on the project, the less money ratepayers would likely have to pay since the cost of the project would be reflected in their rates.
The Other Side of the Mountain
While supporters of the project clapped and cheered for some speakers amid signs that said “Lowell Voted Yes,” opponents of the project stood fast on Don and Shirley Nelson’s land. Laminated signs of Judge Maley’s court order lined the tagged trail heading up to the campsite where protesters quietly stood their ground. Five tents stood about a hundred of feet away from the rumble of construction equipment and trucks on the ridgeline.
Five people were taking a turn squatting in the area near the construction site. Occasionally, protesters would speak in code names with radios as they figured out who would take the hike up the mountain to replace one of the others.
Construction vehicles beeped as they ground along the road, which is currently being built for the mountaintop.
Ron Holland, a physician in Newport, said at this point the intensity of the confrontation between project opponents and Green Mountain Power is a bigger issue than renewable energy. Holland, speaking from the mountain, said “here, we are exercising our rights for free speech, and they, in the name of profits, can get the courts to move us. Now, that’s a big issue.”
Holland said that wind development in Vermont will produce minor reductions in carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change in comparison to the vast amount of nonrenewable projects being built across the world.
“Here, the culture is so captured by industry and politicians that we don’t recognize it for what it is,” Holland said.
Powsner, who had attended the pro-Kingdom Community Wind rally in Lowell earlier in the day, said he wanted to set the record straight.
“We’re not against people of Lowell,” he said. “We’re not against job creation.”
While the debate over the ongoing project in the Northeast Kingdom rumbled on Thursday, Green Mountain Power representatives were noticeably absent from the action. Robert Dostis, a spokesman for the company, said the rally in support of the project was the town’s idea, and Green Mountain Power decided to stay out of it.
For now, construction continues on the mountain. Court orders line the Nelson’s land. And the clock ticks on to Dec. 31, 2012.
Editor’s note: We misidentified Dr. Holland as Robert. His first name is Ron. We regret the error.
