City officials and environmental activists are celebrating what they term a "huge victory" for the community after backers of a diesel-fueled power plant along Chelsea's waterfront withdrew their plans last week.
"I feel like the community and a number of elected officials sent a very clear message that no matter what that power plant proposal looked like, we just didn't want it in Chelsea," said City Council president Roseann Bongiovanni. "There were a lot of environmental organizations that were standing with Chelsea, saying that the air in Chelsea is already very polluted and we don't need another source of air pollution in the city. This is a huge victory."
The withdrawal, filed Wednesday with the state Department of Public Utilities and the Energy Facilities Siting Board, came nearly six months to the day that Ian A. Bowles, secretary of the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, determined that the project appeared unlikely to receive state approval because it did not meet a standard of water dependency required for that site.
Last year, Energy Management Inc., the same company behind the Cape Wind proposal for Nantucket Sound, proposed a two-stack 250-megawatt power plant on Eastern Avenue to be fueled by ultra-low-sulfur diesel and used during peak energy demand periods for a maximum of eight hours a day, or 1,600 hours a year. Company officials maintained that the plant would improve Chelsea's air quality. City Manager Jay Ash estimated the project would have earned about $500,000 in annual tax revenue.
Dennis Duffy, Energy Management vice president of regulatory affairs, said the company is "considering other uses for the site."
Energy Management faced a challenging permitting process, according to a spokesman for Environmental Affairs.
"We think this is a wise decision, given the challenges in obtaining permits for this project as proposed," said spokesman Robert Keough in an e-mail statement.
In October 2006, two months before Energy Management officially filed a petition with the state, the City Council voted 7 to 4 to adopt a resolution crafted by Bongiovanni opposing the power plant. Some councilors criticized the move as premature.
At several community meetings with the company and in letters to state environmental and energy agencies, local environmental activists and state and local elected officials argued that the plant was a bad fit for Chelsea, which is classified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a community that is overburdened with disproportionate levels of environmental hazards. Officials also quoted from studies indicating that Chelsea has some of the state's highest asthma and stroke rates. At meetings, some parents of students in the nearby Mary C. Burke Elementary School Complex expressed concern over their children's health.
T.J. Hellmann, coordinator of Chelsea Collaborative's Chelsea Green Space and Recreation Committee, credited the community for coming together in opposition to the power plant.
"For us, it was beautiful to see so many in the community so united around this issue," Hellmann said. "You had people from second-graders at the complex writing letters to the governor, to people in their walkers protesting outside City Hall, and jam-packed meetings going to 11 o'clock. It was nice to see so many people mobilized around protecting Chelsea and Chelsea's environment."
State Representative Eugene O'Flaherty, an opponent of the proposal, said this is not the first time Chelsea residents have demonstrated their ability to galvanize. Ten years ago, residents denounced plans by a company to convert waterfront oil tanks into asphalt batching centers, prompting O'Flaherty to file his first piece of legislation, later signed into law by then-acting governor Paul Cellucci, banning asphalt batching and storage plants from being placed near residential neighborhoods in three communities, including Chelsea.
"We have examples of getting together when we feel the future of our city is threatened," O'Flaherty said. "I'm pleased the community rose to the occasion again, and I'm glad they hung in there because at times it looked like we weren't going to be successful."
Hellmann said residents he called on the phone last week "began jumping up and down" upon hearing of Energy Management's decision. Hellmann said the next step is to brainstorm with the community about what may work on the site, which is zoned for marine industrial use.
"We finally did it," he said. "Sometimes it feels like we're never going to beat the big guy, but we did."
Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com
