Update on Nickel Hill - Part 2 -- Dracut Information Resource Forum

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Date Posted: 14:28:08 09/07/01 Fri
Author: Ed Valis
Subject: Update on Nickel Hill - Part 2

Andover is spending their $200k well!!! I wonder where they got the money? Taxes from their industrial base? GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

Ed :=)

Opponents seek repeal of permit for power plant

By KATHLEEN DEELY
Sun Staff

BOSTON -- In an attempt to render the Energy Facilities Siting Board's ruling on Nickel Hill Energy moot, opponents of the proposed power plant asked the Supreme Judicial Court yesterday to disregard the permit.

At an appeal hearing of the siting board's ruling yesterday, Robert Muldoon, representing the town of Andover, and S. James Boumil, representing Merrimack Valley Residents for the Environment, argued that the siting board ruled on findings they failed to make.

"With respect to the conclusion, there was a failure to make findings under the statute," Muldoon told the panel of seven judges.

The siting board operates under a statutory mandate to issue permits to companies that present the least environmental impact to the region. Muldoon contended that the board could not have determined Nickel Hill will minimize environmental impact at the East Dracut site while keeping costs down, because it barred inquiry into the price of alternate sites.

Muldoon also argued that the board's permit should be vacated because "there is no applicant for the benefit of the permit."

Although the proposed natural-gas plant was called off by its parent company, Constellation Power, in May, a new energy company is evaluating the 25-acre site and has extended its review until Oct. 1. The siting board permit can be sold to another company for the next 2 1/2 years before it expires.

Nickel Hill's lawyer David Rosenzweig said the anonymous company is seriously looking at Nickel Hill and has the wherewithal to go forward with the 750-megawatt plant.

"There are many players in the energy market, and although Constellation may have pulled away, there is still an interest out there by many companies," said Rosenzweig after the hearing.

But depending on the SJC's outcome, an interested buyer may need to go before the siting board again.

Boumil, said the board didn't look at the latest nitrogen-oxide control technology called SCONOX because it was too expensive.

William Reynolds, assistant attorney general, countered that the Energy Facilities Siting Board followed statutory guidelines and found another type of technology better.

The judges will now deliberate on the hearing and could take several months before a verdict is reached.

Kathleen Deely's e-mail address is kdeely@lowellsun.com.

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