A proposal to build a power plant in Billerica by the meandering Concord River has ignited a firestorm of complaints from residents in neighboring Tewksbury, Lowell, and Chelmsford, who would live in the shadow of the $200 million facility.
"As a mother of three young children, my primary concern is the emissions and what impact they might have on my family's health," said Paige Impink, who lives in Tewksbury, within a mile of the 13.8-acre plant site just off Billerica Avenue. "There are serious air- and water-quality issues associated with this plant, and many, many unanswered questions."
But despite the objections of Impink, as well as other area residents who have banded together to oppose the project under an organization called the Billerica Watchers Group, plans for the plant appear to be moving forward. Three state agencies are on track to wrap up their reviews of the proposal this winter, with final briefs due to the state's Energy Facilities Siting Board on Jan. 18.
Montgomery Energy Billerica Power Partners, a national energy investment firm with an office in Burlington, Conn., would like to break ground this summer, according to Edward T. Liston, executive vice president and chief operating officer of DG Clean Power, a partner in the project.
The plant would begin generating power within one year, he said, supplying electricity to Independent System Operator New England, the Holyoke organization that runs the region's six-state power grid. The Billerica facility would be designed to operate up to 2,300 hours a year, but would run only during periods of peak electricity demand, such as a summer heat wave or winter cold snap, Liston said.
For years, New England power grid officials have been trying to promote such "peaking" plants, arguing they would help the Boston metropolitan region and southwestern Connecticut stave off the threat of rolling blackouts.
The Billerica facility, dubbed the Billerica Energy Center, would be capable of producing up to 348 megawatts of electricity. It would run primarily on natural gas but could switch to ultra-low sulfur diesel as a backup.
Ed Camplese, president of the Billerica Watchers Group, said he fears plant operators may, in the future, run the facility chiefly on diesel rather than natural gas. In documents submitted to the office of Ian A. Bowles, the Massachusetts secretary of energy and environmental affairs, Montgomery Energy states that diesel would be used "in the case of lack of sufficient economic supply" of gas.
Plant operators plan to store 500,000 gallons of diesel and 50,000 gallons of aqueous ammonia at the facility, in tanks less than 750 feet from the Concord River, the state documents show. (The ammonia is used in the air pollution control process.) In addition, the plant could use up to 180,000 gallons of water a day to cool its turbines. Liston said Montgomery Energy is investigating using treated wastewater from the Billerica sewage plant, with the town's public water supply as a backup.
Camplese said the plant's water demands could have an adverse impact on the town's water supply - Billerica residents are often subject to water bans - and notes that the tanks could leak and pollute the Concord River. The federally protected waterway flows into the Merrimack River, which supplies drinking water to several communities, including Andover, Lawrence, and Methuen.
Critics also question Billerica's ability to protect the Concord River. In May, the town agreed to pay a $250,000 penalty to settle allegations that Billerica discharged pollutants into the Concord River from its water treatment plant without a permit, according to US District Court documents.
Meanwhile, proponents say any adverse impact would be insignificant. "There is more adverse impact on health sitting in traffic on [Interstate] 495 in rush hour than there would be from this plant," Liston said, adding that introduction of more gas-fired power plants would reduce the need to operate older, dirtier plants.
Louis Antonellis, a Billerica resident who supports the proposal, is quick to tout the potential benefits for Billerica: The plant would not make demands on local services - no heavy traffic, no children crowding local classrooms - but would add significant sums to the town coffers and bring jobs to the area.
Montgomery Energy and Billerica officials are negotiating the terms of an agreement that would require plant owners to make payments to the town in lieu of taxes, adding about $30 million to Billerica's revenues over the next 20 years, Liston said.
Billerica officials said they will look closely at the impact of the proposal on health and the environment as the project moves through the permitting process. Local health, planning, and conservation permits are likely to be requested in the coming months, Liston said, after the state reviews are completed.
"Our job is to make sure they go through the process properly," said Town Manager Rocco J. Longo, noting that town officials would weigh heavily a final impact report being prepared for the town by Environmental Health and Engineering Inc., or EHE, a Newton company with experience assessing the impact of power plants.
The site of the proposed plant, in an industrial corner among a sewage treatment plant, a junkyard, and an animal rendering facility, is near the confluence of Billerica, Chelmsford, Lowell, and Tewksbury: Large residential swaths of each of those communities lie within the area where emissions from the plant's six 80-foot-tall stacks would ultimately fall.
A preliminary EHE report said the air pollutants that would be generated by the plant have been associated with a range of health and environmental concerns, from inflammation of the respiratory tract and exacerbation of asthma to acid rain and global warming.
However, EHE concluded that plant operations would result "in a marginal increase in air pollutant concentrations," in amounts well below federal air quality standards.
The company's report did not assess the impact of fine particle pollution -- the kind the American Lung Association says "causes sickness, hospital admissions, and premature death" -- as neither state nor federal environmental agencies require such studies.
The Billerica Watchers Group questions the EHE findings, noting that the consultant did not conduct independent testing to reach its conclusions, but reviewed data supplied by Montgomery Energy.
The group has also expressed concerns about the air modeling that was done to determine the impact of the plant's emissions, alleging those studies were inadequate.
Billerica's state representative, Democrat William G. Greene Jr., shares the group's concerns. He is calling for "comprehensive, independent, and long-term public health and environmental studies to be conducted before any permits are issued or approvals granted on this proposal."
Brenda J. Buote can be reached at bbuote@globe.com.
