Peabody Generator Foes Demand Health Assessment At Public Hearing

PEABODY, MA — Dozens of public leaders, climate and health advocates, and North Shore citizens opposed to a planned peak-energy generator at Peabody's Waters River substation took advantage of a rare — and perhaps final — chance to speak out against the fossil fuel-powered project at a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Agency hearing at the Torigian Center on Wednesday night.

Though the hearing was ostensibly restricted to the approval of the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company's carbon dioxide emissions standards for the generator, longtime foes of the project called for a range of actions to slow, alter or prevent Project 2015A from moving forward as constituted.

A range of requests from speakers unanimously opposed to the generator plans as constituted included the repeated request for an environmental impact report and health assessment, the decommissioning of the two current generators at the substation at the time when the new generator comes online, public reporting of the emissions reports that reflect the cumulative emissions from the substation — not just those from the new generator — and, from some foes, additional demands that intentions to build any new energy source that operates on oil and gas be abandoned.

Several speakers said that the generator should be held to the same regulatory standards that currently exist as part of the state's 2021 climate roadmap law rather than the requirements that existed when the Department of Public Utilities previously approved the plans.

"It's very, very unfortunate and very troubling to me, and to many people, that the DPU has chosen not to apply those (climate roadmap provisions)," State Rep. Sally Kerans (D-Danvers) said. "I am fervently hoping that the DEP, in its assessment of the emissions control plan, will decide to do so."

The 60-megawatt peak generator, which the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company said is necessary to provide reliable energy and stable rates during limited extreme weather conditions each year, has already received state Department of Public Utilities funding approval.

MMWEC and Peabody Municipal Light Plant made some plan alterations aimed at lowering the emissions impact on the surrounding communities — including agreeing to decommission one of the two generators currently at the site — but ultimately got the go-ahead for much of the framework for the original plan the utility said will operate for approximately 239 hours per year and be 94 percent more efficient than generators across the state.

Those opposed to any new generator that operates on fossil fuels have kept up the fight— arguing that the generator risks becoming a "stranded asset" based on the state's climate roadmap.

"There are plans now for a school so close to where this plant will sit that you would have to ask: 'Would it be safe for children at that school to play outside at recess?'" Kerans asked. "How much does one neighborhood have to endure? That is the question that we have been asking."

Members of the Salem City Council, Peabody City Council and Sustainable Marblehead were at Wednesday's hearing, joining several of the climate advocacy groups that shined a light on the project in 2021 after it moved through the state approval process in relative obscurity for six years.

Ward 3 City Councilor Stephanie Peach said Peabody is already a "polluted city" from its century-old history as a tannery epicenter of the state.

"It's really hard then for us to then say that we're going to add something else that may pollute the very air that we breathe," she said during the hearing, "in the area of the city that has already been impacted so heavily by the leather industry because this is the oldest part of Peabody that we're talking about here.

"Peabody is bearing the burden for 14 other (public utility) communities (including Marblehead) that are buying into this. Danvers, who doesn't even buy into this (peak energy), is bearing the burden environmentally. I understand that this peaker that's being built is strides ahead of existing peakers as far as environmental impact. But there is still an impact."

Peabody Director of Health Services Sharon Cameron echoed calls for health assessments.

The application and the Mass DEP's proposed decision are available here. Comments on the proposed decision must be submitted in writing by Dec. 14. Comments may be submitted via the Public Access Portal, via electronic mail to edward.braczyk@mass.gov, or via mail to the Northeast Regional Office at 205B Lowell Street, Wilmington, MA, 01887.

The DEP said a recording of the hearing was to also be available here after the hearing.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)