Company drops Walpole power plant project

A Maryland-based company that hoped to locate a 580-megawatt power plant in Walpole said Thursday that it will drop the plan after a year of public opposition and a Town Meeting vote Monday that approved a zoning change intended to block the plant.

Competitive Power Ventures had tried to win local support, said its vice president and public affairs counsel, Braith Kelley. The company had the option of taking its proposal directly to the state agency that approves sites for power plants, but after meeting with local and state officials today and considering Monday's 105-10 vote, Kelly said the writing is on the wall.

"Other communities, while skeptical at first, are supportive of our projects everywhere,'' Kelly said of five pending plants in the United States and Canada. "But that is not the case in Walpole. We are not going to the state because we are not going to shove this project down people's throats."