September 4, 2006
Something in the air | Welcome to Athens, home of hippies, off-the-gridders and Maine's alternative Independence Day parade. Would this community welcome a biomass incinerator?
By Samantha Depoy
Standing at the kitchen table in her hilltop farmhouse in Athens, Faye Chandler giggles as she flips through her scrapbook, lingering at times over a particular photograph or newspaper clipping. Among them is a neatly trimmed article recounting how the Somerset County Sheriff's Department once raided the town's garage to chop down a four-foot marijuana plant growing there. Others are snapshots from West Athens' renowned Independence Day parade, a riotous affair that begins with a one-finger salute in the direction of Washington, D.C., (hint: the feds aren't getting the thumbs up from this crowd) and unifies an unlikely mishmash of personalities and political views, from hippies and honkeytonkers to loggers and librarians.
"There was one lady who wasn't wearing anything and she was covered completely in mud, and then these guys in a pickup truck went by and started shooting their squirt guns. And the water..." Chandler, a retired schoolteacher, trails off with a shrug and a snicker. "That's Athens. Where else would this happen? It's hysterical. I love it. Some people talk about trying to change it, but you might as well just enjoy the whole thing. No one can change Athens."
Chandler has some memories of Athens that aren't so fond ˆ the foremost from 2002, when the Boralex incinerator that everyone thought was burning wood chips turned out to be burning construction and demolition debris, a pile of which began smoldering. Smoke spewed over the town, and children at Athens Elementary School weren't allowed outside for recess during the six weeks the black smoke hung heavy in the hills.
Although the incinerator was closed within months of the fire, recollections of the event make Chandler and many of her fellow Athenians particularly skeptical of a recent proposal by Needham, Mass.-based GenPower LLC to place a biomass electricity generating plant on the former Boralex site. The plant, which would be upgraded to include a 160-foot smokestack, would burn construction and demolition debris ˆ much of it trucked in from Massachusetts ˆ to generate 42 megawatts of energy annually. But in July, voters in the town of 900 approved for a second time a moratorium on large-scale industrial projects, which has so far blocked the company from developing the facility.
"A lot of the opposition has to do with mistrust. It was an extremely bad situation back in 2002 and many have taken the approach of fool us once, shame on you, but fool us twice, shame on us," explains Craig Denis, a member of Citizens Against Pollution in Town, an ad hoc organization formed to oppose the GenPower project. "We're independent, free spirits up here. We don't like Maine being looked down on as the ideal receptacle for waste generated in other states. If you try and play games with rural Maine thinking you're dealing with a bunch of hicks, that ain't gonna fly. We're able to think for ourselves."
Athens certainly isn't the only Maine community that has shown skepticism towards hosting a construction and demolition debris incinerator within their town lines. Opponents of CDD incinerators are gearing up to speak out against Sappi Fine Paper's plans to burn the material at its Westbrook mill at a public hearing in September. But the town of Athens' experience with the Boralex plant, combined with the town's unconventional identity, makes it perhaps the least likely locale in Maine to welcome GenPower's project.
However, Thomas Emero, general counsel for GenPower, thought the town's independent spirit and familiarity with biomass energy would work in the company's favor. "We chose Athens because we believed that a town that has had a biomass plant realizes what good business they are. And they are," Emero says. "The good news is I think that thesis is right. The bad news is I think we underestimated how bad the previous owners had soiled the waters. We underestimated how upset some people were over that."
He compares GenPower ˆ a 12-person company that developed the 35-acre Westbrook Energy Center gas-fired power plant in the late 1990s before selling it to Calpine Corp. in 1999 ˆ to the local redemption center, but one that recycles two-by-fours instead of Pepsi bottles. Given the green gang in the community, Emero and GenPower figured Athens would be amenable to a plant that provided renewable energy and used technologies the company says would significantly lower the amount of air pollution created compared to other biomass incinerators in the state. "It's crucial to have biomass as part of the overall renewable energy mix, Emero says. "Every single one of these people who are against this proposal uses electricity. They need to realize their energy is coming from a lot more destructive sources."
Despite its maverick streak, Athens isn't just a haven for hippies. In fact, it's the collaboration between ordinarily politically passive residents like Chandler and those far-from-faded flower children that is helping CAPIT's efforts, says the group. "I really think we surprised them," says Hillary Lister, a 25-year-old CAPIT organizer. "This is the most diverse group I've ever been involved in. If it were just the people who typically protest, they'd be dismissed as a fringe group. Regardless, no one really wants the town to be the place everyone else's trash is dumped into. Once it's in, it's a lot harder to do anything about and that's why it's so important that we're active and organized now."
"Silence is the enemy of freedom"
A sign in Athens' blink-and-you-miss-it village center proclaims that "silence is the enemy of freedom." Since the 70s, this town about 10 miles north of Skowhegan has attracted its share of residents like Gail Edwards, owner of Blessed Maine Herbs, an Athens farm specializing in the cultivation and sales of medicinal herbs and herbal products like teas. A native of Hoboken, N.J., Edwards arrived in Athens during the mud season of 1972 to visit some musician friends she had met in New York. Land was cheap and plentiful and unspoiled, she recalls. "The people were just beautiful and the landscape was beautiful and it was everything I ever wanted in a home," she explains, her eyes sweeping a backyard bursting with purple lavender, echinacea and a high-rise of hops. "This is my grandmother's garden in Hoboken times one hundred."
The back-to-the-land movement that brought Edwards also attracted many of her neighbors to Athens, and is one reason many here are vehemently opposed to GenPower's plan. But with practically as many makeshift roadside farm stands as mailboxes in town, land is integral to nearly everyone's existence here, whether they log, farm or fish. "You can't make a living off the land if the land is toxic," says Lister.
That's why some residents believe the proposal has elicited such a strong response. Chandler says the biomass incinerator issue has attracted the largest crowds she's seen at town meetings in the 20 years she's lived in Athens. The town's first selectman, Bruce Clavette, agrees. "It's a real cross section, that's why [CAPIT] has been so successful," he says. "If it had been just the hippie green minority, they wouldn't have gotten this far."
At Athens' March town meeting, residents voted 119-66 in favor of imposing a 180-day moratorium against GenPower's development. In July, Clavette's board voted to extend that ban for another 180 days to give CAPIT time to develop a town ordinance that would place strict standards on potential industrial facilities. The town has no comprehensive plan or planning board, meaning GenPower simply needs a license to operate from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The company is holding off on applying for that license until it determines whether the plant will get the go-ahead in Athens, or another community.
Clavette, who is unabashed about his opposition to GenPower, says the board's decision was about giving power to residents. "The people had clearly expressed a desire for a moratorium, so if we didn't extend that, it would have taken the issue out of the people's hands," he explains. "What [CAPIT] decides to do is their business, but I am 110% committed to letting the people of Athens decide this one."
Clavette and others in town also aren't happy with the way GenPower has handled residents' questions and concerns. "It really burnt the town what happened with Boralex," Clavette says. "And I don't think GenPower did their research when they came here. If they'd been honest, the average citizen probably would have gone along with it. But this is the wrong type of business for this community and when you combine that with lies, it's not going to happen."
What Clavette calls lies are changes GenPower made to its plan after initially presenting it to the town. The company first said it would seek a permit to burn only 50% CDD, a pledge made during a 2004 selectmen's meeting in which the board granted the project Pine Tree Zone status, making GenPower eligable for tax breaks and credits. (Clavette was not on the board at that time.) Months later, GenPower said it might burn up to 100% CDD.
Emero says that he expects the plant to burn between 50% and 60% CDD, but being licensed to burn 100% will give the company more flexibility. "It's like telling a farmer he can plant 100 acres of corn, but only reap a certain number of bushels," he explains. "That would be illogical."
But Clavette and others in Athens call the changes a bait and switch that hasn't won the company any favor. "The science is complicated, so I have to make a decision based on the integrity of the people who are giving me the science," Clavette admits. "Maine leads the nation in asthma. Somerset County leads Maine. So why should Athens lead Somerset County? Somebody somewhere has to say 'no' and we're saying 'no'."
The people's will, or a hijacked debate?
Athens isn't the only town that has attempted to shut out GenPower. Last year, Hinsdale, N.H., residents prevented a plant much like the one proposed for Athens, and in May of this year New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch extended a statewide moratorium on the burning of CDD until 2008.
But Emero insists that Athens is more alone in its fight than townspeople assume. "We've been contacted by many other towns in Maine who say, 'We would love to have you in our town and we'll do everything in Augusta or wherever so that your project isn't hijacked like it was in Athens,'" Emero says, though he declines to name other towns GenPower is considering. "This is going to be built and it's going to be built in the state of Maine and the people of Athens are going to lose a $110 million tax base."
Many in Athens say good riddance. The jobs the plant would create would require engineering degrees that no one in Athens has, CAPIT contends, and many fear the economic impact on the tax base would be mitigated by the loss in value of already existing properties. "The bottom line is here is a plant they are going to put two miles from Athens village. The town is very hilly and you are going to be able to see that 160-foot stack everywhere. Yuck," says Robert Turnbull, who retired to Athens from Newport, R.I. nine years ago. "You can't imagine what it is going to do to property values. It's going to send them down the pipe."
Although Athens is among the most impoverished in one of Maine's poorest counties, with the unemployment rate in town at nearly 14% in 2003 according to the Maine Department of Labor, Edwards explains that the standard economic impact discussion often used to generate support for a development isn't enough for Athens residents.
"We all live here for the clean environment. We all have children in this little elementary school and we want them to be safe," Edwards says. "I have a certified organic garden here. I've been a steward of this land and I've kept it pristine and pure for more than 30 years. That plant is going to poison us for a few people to make a few bucks."
In the end, though, Emero says the anti-GenPower people aren't really responsible for impeding the proposal's progress. Instead, he's frustrated that only about one third of the town's 600 eligible voters are turning out to decide on the issue. "What we didn't expect was the lack of resolve by the rest of the people who are in favor if this. So the problem really becomes everyone else in town who isn't interested or active enough to fight," Emero says. "There are those people in CAPIT who are killing this plan before they even hear how it has the opportunity to better their lives in ways they can't imagine. It's grossly hypocritical and illogical. But Athens has become the worst town in Maine for this not because of those people but because of the people who are supportive of this and aren't speaking out."
GenPower does have supporters in town. The Linkletter family, who own a logging and trucking company, own the land that would be leased to GenPower for the Athens plant and have spoken in support of GenPower's proposal at town meetings. But calls to the family seeking comment were not returned, and Emero says the family is hesitant to talk to the press for fear of being vilified. But CAPIT supporters insist that skepticism of the GenPower proposal isn't limited to a narrow segment of Athens' population ˆ and that the urge to speak out has never been lacking in the community. "We're pro-establishment and anti-establishment as it comes. It's diverse. But one thing that's similar is nobody here lets someone pull something over them," Edwards says. "I do not see the people just lying down and taking it."
"There was one lady who wasn't wearing anything and she was covered completely in mud, and then these guys in a pickup truck went by and started shooting their squirt guns. And the water..." Chandler, a retired schoolteacher, trails off with a shrug and a snicker. "That's Athens. Where else would this happen? It's hysterical. I love it. Some people talk about trying to change it, but you might as well just enjoy the whole thing. No one can change Athens."
Chandler has some memories of Athens that aren't so fond ˆ the foremost from 2002, when the Boralex incinerator that everyone thought was burning wood chips turned out to be burning construction and demolition debris, a pile of which began smoldering. Smoke spewed over the town, and children at Athens Elementary School weren't allowed outside for recess during the six weeks the black smoke hung heavy in the hills.
Although the incinerator was closed within months of the fire, recollections of the event make Chandler and many of her fellow Athenians particularly skeptical of a recent proposal by Needham, Mass.-based GenPower LLC to place a biomass electricity generating plant on the former Boralex site. The plant, which would be upgraded to include a 160-foot smokestack, would burn construction and demolition debris ˆ much of it trucked in from Massachusetts ˆ to generate 42 megawatts of energy annually. But in July, voters in the town of 900 approved for a second time a moratorium on large-scale industrial projects, which has so far blocked the company from developing the facility.
"A lot of the opposition has to do with mistrust. It was an extremely bad situation back in 2002 and many have taken the approach of fool us once, shame on you, but fool us twice, shame on us," explains Craig Denis, a member of Citizens Against Pollution in Town, an ad hoc organization formed to oppose the GenPower project. "We're independent, free spirits up here. We don't like Maine being looked down on as the ideal receptacle for waste generated in other states. If you try and play games with rural Maine thinking you're dealing with a bunch of hicks, that ain't gonna fly. We're able to think for ourselves."
Athens certainly isn't the only Maine community that has shown skepticism towards hosting a construction and demolition debris incinerator within their town lines. Opponents of CDD incinerators are gearing up to speak out against Sappi Fine Paper's plans to burn the material at its Westbrook mill at a public hearing in September. But the town of Athens' experience with the Boralex plant, combined with the town's unconventional identity, makes it perhaps the least likely locale in Maine to welcome GenPower's project.
However, Thomas Emero, general counsel for GenPower, thought the town's independent spirit and familiarity with biomass energy would work in the company's favor. "We chose Athens because we believed that a town that has had a biomass plant realizes what good business they are. And they are," Emero says. "The good news is I think that thesis is right. The bad news is I think we underestimated how bad the previous owners had soiled the waters. We underestimated how upset some people were over that."
He compares GenPower ˆ a 12-person company that developed the 35-acre Westbrook Energy Center gas-fired power plant in the late 1990s before selling it to Calpine Corp. in 1999 ˆ to the local redemption center, but one that recycles two-by-fours instead of Pepsi bottles. Given the green gang in the community, Emero and GenPower figured Athens would be amenable to a plant that provided renewable energy and used technologies the company says would significantly lower the amount of air pollution created compared to other biomass incinerators in the state. "It's crucial to have biomass as part of the overall renewable energy mix, Emero says. "Every single one of these people who are against this proposal uses electricity. They need to realize their energy is coming from a lot more destructive sources."
Despite its maverick streak, Athens isn't just a haven for hippies. In fact, it's the collaboration between ordinarily politically passive residents like Chandler and those far-from-faded flower children that is helping CAPIT's efforts, says the group. "I really think we surprised them," says Hillary Lister, a 25-year-old CAPIT organizer. "This is the most diverse group I've ever been involved in. If it were just the people who typically protest, they'd be dismissed as a fringe group. Regardless, no one really wants the town to be the place everyone else's trash is dumped into. Once it's in, it's a lot harder to do anything about and that's why it's so important that we're active and organized now."
"Silence is the enemy of freedom"
A sign in Athens' blink-and-you-miss-it village center proclaims that "silence is the enemy of freedom." Since the 70s, this town about 10 miles north of Skowhegan has attracted its share of residents like Gail Edwards, owner of Blessed Maine Herbs, an Athens farm specializing in the cultivation and sales of medicinal herbs and herbal products like teas. A native of Hoboken, N.J., Edwards arrived in Athens during the mud season of 1972 to visit some musician friends she had met in New York. Land was cheap and plentiful and unspoiled, she recalls. "The people were just beautiful and the landscape was beautiful and it was everything I ever wanted in a home," she explains, her eyes sweeping a backyard bursting with purple lavender, echinacea and a high-rise of hops. "This is my grandmother's garden in Hoboken times one hundred."
The back-to-the-land movement that brought Edwards also attracted many of her neighbors to Athens, and is one reason many here are vehemently opposed to GenPower's plan. But with practically as many makeshift roadside farm stands as mailboxes in town, land is integral to nearly everyone's existence here, whether they log, farm or fish. "You can't make a living off the land if the land is toxic," says Lister.
That's why some residents believe the proposal has elicited such a strong response. Chandler says the biomass incinerator issue has attracted the largest crowds she's seen at town meetings in the 20 years she's lived in Athens. The town's first selectman, Bruce Clavette, agrees. "It's a real cross section, that's why [CAPIT] has been so successful," he says. "If it had been just the hippie green minority, they wouldn't have gotten this far."
At Athens' March town meeting, residents voted 119-66 in favor of imposing a 180-day moratorium against GenPower's development. In July, Clavette's board voted to extend that ban for another 180 days to give CAPIT time to develop a town ordinance that would place strict standards on potential industrial facilities. The town has no comprehensive plan or planning board, meaning GenPower simply needs a license to operate from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The company is holding off on applying for that license until it determines whether the plant will get the go-ahead in Athens, or another community.
Clavette, who is unabashed about his opposition to GenPower, says the board's decision was about giving power to residents. "The people had clearly expressed a desire for a moratorium, so if we didn't extend that, it would have taken the issue out of the people's hands," he explains. "What [CAPIT] decides to do is their business, but I am 110% committed to letting the people of Athens decide this one."
Clavette and others in town also aren't happy with the way GenPower has handled residents' questions and concerns. "It really burnt the town what happened with Boralex," Clavette says. "And I don't think GenPower did their research when they came here. If they'd been honest, the average citizen probably would have gone along with it. But this is the wrong type of business for this community and when you combine that with lies, it's not going to happen."
What Clavette calls lies are changes GenPower made to its plan after initially presenting it to the town. The company first said it would seek a permit to burn only 50% CDD, a pledge made during a 2004 selectmen's meeting in which the board granted the project Pine Tree Zone status, making GenPower eligable for tax breaks and credits. (Clavette was not on the board at that time.) Months later, GenPower said it might burn up to 100% CDD.
Emero says that he expects the plant to burn between 50% and 60% CDD, but being licensed to burn 100% will give the company more flexibility. "It's like telling a farmer he can plant 100 acres of corn, but only reap a certain number of bushels," he explains. "That would be illogical."
But Clavette and others in Athens call the changes a bait and switch that hasn't won the company any favor. "The science is complicated, so I have to make a decision based on the integrity of the people who are giving me the science," Clavette admits. "Maine leads the nation in asthma. Somerset County leads Maine. So why should Athens lead Somerset County? Somebody somewhere has to say 'no' and we're saying 'no'."
The people's will, or a hijacked debate?
Athens isn't the only town that has attempted to shut out GenPower. Last year, Hinsdale, N.H., residents prevented a plant much like the one proposed for Athens, and in May of this year New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch extended a statewide moratorium on the burning of CDD until 2008.
But Emero insists that Athens is more alone in its fight than townspeople assume. "We've been contacted by many other towns in Maine who say, 'We would love to have you in our town and we'll do everything in Augusta or wherever so that your project isn't hijacked like it was in Athens,'" Emero says, though he declines to name other towns GenPower is considering. "This is going to be built and it's going to be built in the state of Maine and the people of Athens are going to lose a $110 million tax base."
Many in Athens say good riddance. The jobs the plant would create would require engineering degrees that no one in Athens has, CAPIT contends, and many fear the economic impact on the tax base would be mitigated by the loss in value of already existing properties. "The bottom line is here is a plant they are going to put two miles from Athens village. The town is very hilly and you are going to be able to see that 160-foot stack everywhere. Yuck," says Robert Turnbull, who retired to Athens from Newport, R.I. nine years ago. "You can't imagine what it is going to do to property values. It's going to send them down the pipe."
Although Athens is among the most impoverished in one of Maine's poorest counties, with the unemployment rate in town at nearly 14% in 2003 according to the Maine Department of Labor, Edwards explains that the standard economic impact discussion often used to generate support for a development isn't enough for Athens residents.
"We all live here for the clean environment. We all have children in this little elementary school and we want them to be safe," Edwards says. "I have a certified organic garden here. I've been a steward of this land and I've kept it pristine and pure for more than 30 years. That plant is going to poison us for a few people to make a few bucks."
In the end, though, Emero says the anti-GenPower people aren't really responsible for impeding the proposal's progress. Instead, he's frustrated that only about one third of the town's 600 eligible voters are turning out to decide on the issue. "What we didn't expect was the lack of resolve by the rest of the people who are in favor if this. So the problem really becomes everyone else in town who isn't interested or active enough to fight," Emero says. "There are those people in CAPIT who are killing this plan before they even hear how it has the opportunity to better their lives in ways they can't imagine. It's grossly hypocritical and illogical. But Athens has become the worst town in Maine for this not because of those people but because of the people who are supportive of this and aren't speaking out."
GenPower does have supporters in town. The Linkletter family, who own a logging and trucking company, own the land that would be leased to GenPower for the Athens plant and have spoken in support of GenPower's proposal at town meetings. But calls to the family seeking comment were not returned, and Emero says the family is hesitant to talk to the press for fear of being vilified. But CAPIT supporters insist that skepticism of the GenPower proposal isn't limited to a narrow segment of Athens' population ˆ and that the urge to speak out has never been lacking in the community. "We're pro-establishment and anti-establishment as it comes. It's diverse. But one thing that's similar is nobody here lets someone pull something over them," Edwards says. "I do not see the people just lying down and taking it."
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