About 15 years after biomass entered the public consciousness of Springfield, the matter is still milling paper. Most recently, this took the form of a fresh defeat for the proposed project once slated for East Springfield. What now seems like beating an expired horse, is actually a reminder of how far opponents have gone.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection may have driven a stake through the heart of the nigh-undead biomass power plant proposed for Springfield. In a five-page decision dated April 2, the department said it pulled the air quality permit amid growing public pressure and heightened
UPDATED 2/22/21 10:09AM: To include a statement from DEP and to include comments from Sen. Warren’s office. SPRINGFIELD—United States Senator Ed Markey joined opponents of the ever-undead proposal to build a biomass power plant here to voice his support for stopping the project once and
SPRINGFIELD—Aside from its atypical procedure to a select a new Council President, the City Council here glided through its last meeting of 2020. This Hell-spawned year had driven the body from its friendly-enough confines to cyberspace for nearly all of 2020. Monday was no different.
It was a little more than two weeks ago that the Springfield City Council did something it so rarely does. The body voted 12-1 to both assert the power it is imbued—power that it actually holds exclusively—and harness it for a cause that is not
UPDATED 9/12/14 4:18PM: To clarify that Sarno’s action does not, in itself, terminate the Council’s appeal. He may or may not authorize funds, but he does not have the discretion to authorize the appeal itself or not. SPRINGFIELD—In a decisive move to continue the battle against
More than five months after it had overturned Palmer Renewable Energy’s permit to begin construction, the Zoning Board of Appeals once again ruled against the proposed biomass plant. Left unresolved from that January meeting was the Springfield City Council’s appeal. The ZBA sustained the Council’s
The fight to stop a wood-burning electric plant on Page Boulevard lumbers on despite the recent victories of the plant’s many opponents. Palmer Renewable Energy, the plant’s developer has appealed both the City Council’s revocation of the plant’s special permit and the decision of the
**This post has been updated with pictures and for grammar. This post has also been corrected to accurately reflect the comments of one speaker with regard to Massachusetts municipal waste incinerator ban.** As early as five thirty, a half hour before the zoning board of
On a unanimous vote, the Springfield Zoning Board of Appeals overturned the building permit Building Commissioner Steven Desilets issued to Palmer Renewable Energy’s biomass facility slated for Page Boulevard. After nearly two and a half hours of testimony, the Board rejected Desilets and PRE’s contention