Athens voters put brakes on biomass incinerator 180-day moratorium on project OK’d at town meeting

ATHENS – “The town has spoken,” Athens resident John Chapman said Saturday after a town meeting vote of 119 in favor to 66 against a 180-day moratorium on the proposed GenPower LLC biomass incinerator project.

“This was a mandate,” Chapman said. “We’ve got momentum going here. All we ever wanted was a vote of the people and that is what we got.”

At the Athens annual town meeting Saturday afternoon, GenPower’s efforts to build a biomass incinerator scheduled to burn demolition debris to create electricity took a giant step backward as the six-month moratorium went into effect immediately.

More than 200 residents packed the Athens Elementary School and waited for nearly four hours as the emotional moratorium vote was the last article in the warrant.

The vote followed a contentious year that has pitted neighbor against neighbor in the dispute over whether GenPower’s project will adversely affect the environment.

The concerns center on GenPower’s modification of its original plan to burn only 25 percent demolition debris, much of it from out of state, to a plan to increase that to 100 percent demolition debris.

A local grass-roots group, Citizens Against Pollution in Town, has held weekly protests in downtown Athens and joined other Maine environmental groups in conducting protests in Augusta.

Hillary Lister, a CAPIT member, said after the meeting that the moratorium will give the community a chance to process ordinances that will give townspeople the ability to control this sort of growth.

“I don’t want this to be all negative,” she added. “We also want to come up with real alternatives to bring some economic growth to Athens.”

On Saturday, one GenPower supporter, resident Richard Linkletter, was nearly shouted off the floor when he stated that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is backing the biomass plan and that the plant would not pollute the environment.

He questioned why residents were making emotional arguments rather than looking at the science of the project.

The moratorium states that the construction and demolition debris that GenPower will burn contains many toxic substances, while GenPower has maintained that technology that will be used at the plant will block the release of toxins.

Opponents of the $80 million GenPower project realize they still have a long way to go as the moratorium only represents a delay, giving the town time to consider appropriate ordinances. It does not in itself prohibit the GenPower plan.

The Massachusett’s-based GenPower is in the middle of the process of submitting an air-permit application to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The company’s first application was rejected because it failed to include a public hearing.

Another CAPIT founder, Douglas Malloy, said that a tax-increment financing package that GenPower is seeking from the town of Athens would benefit the company and not the town.

He said the 180-day moratorium would give townspeople time to protect themselves from decisions being made too quickly.

“That is one of the things that bothered us about this,” said Lister. “The process was completely out of our control. Meetings were being held in secret and we had no idea what was going on.”

The GenPower issue played a large role during Friday’s voting.

Robert Turnbull, a vocal GenPower opponent, defeated incumbent Brent L. Foss for the first selectman’s seat, 194 to 112. Incumbent Charles G. Rotondi defeated Maya L. Oliver and Chad W. Steward for the second selectman’s seat. Rotondi had not taken a public stand on the GenPower issue.

Incumbent Guy C. Anton, who opposed GenPower, defeated Cory Bussell for the third selectman’s seat, 200-to-111.

“The selectmen who were defeated were all in favor of GenPower. They wanted the jobs and the taxes,” said John Chapman. “If they were going to burn virgin wood chips, we would have had no problem with it. But not when they are going to send poison into our air and water.”