July 14, 2016

Protesting environmental racism in South Providence

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Protests against environmental racism and the expansion of fracked gas infrastructure in Rhode Island continued yesterday as members of the FANG Collective and the Environmental Justice League of RI, along with area residents and other community and environmental organizations, held signs and delivered flyers to drivers at the corner of Eddy St and Thurbers Ave.

National Grid is trying to build a $180 million fracked gas production facility in South Providence, and organizers call this is a clear example of environmental racism as all 11 of the EPA’s identified toxic polluters in Providence are already in this zip code, which is predominantly made up of low-income people of color. The impact and dangers of this project are enormous and have been outlined by the EJ League in detail.

Among those attending the protest was Kate Aubin, who is running for Cranston City Council. The section of Edgewood, where she lives, would potentially be affected by a disaster occurring in any one of several chemical and toxic storage facilities in South Providence.

2016-07-13 NoLNGinPVD 011 — Handing out flyers to motorists in English or Spanish

2016-07-13 NoLNGinPVD 004 — Laura Perez, House district 11 candidate

2016-07-13 NoLNGinPVD 001 — Mary Pendergast

July 14, 2016July 14, 2016

RIDEM issues blistering critique of Invenergy’s power plant application

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RIDEM’s third data request to Invenergy, released yesterday, reads as a devastating critique of the proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant. If Governor Gina Raimondo was serious when she recently told ecoRI News that, “…if there are issues then the plant won’t go forward,” then the project is dead on arrival.

In addition to “missing info” that renders the application incomplete, on page 3 the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management notes that impact of the the various projects in Burrillville has been fragmented, making the cumulative impact of Invenergy’s proposed power plant; Spectra Energy’s Aim Project; Eversource Energy, National Grid and Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast project and TransCanada’s Ocean State Power difficult to determine.

“For the purposes of comparing costs and benefits to wildlife, all of the existing and proposed work related to increased natural gas operations (processing and transport) in Burrillville should be reviewed as a single and complete project,” says RIDEM, “Piecemeal review of related projects in different stages by different applicants undercounts their cumulative impacts from loss of forests and fragmentation, air, noise and light pollution etc. in an area of the state that has been a longstanding conservation priority.”

On page 7, RIDEM alleges that the “applicant makes several confusing and conflicting assertions about the purpose and need for the project…

“The emissions and cost-benefit analyses both primarily only list benefits. A proper analysis should include costs, yet there is no mention of loss of forests, biodiversity, ecosystem services etc… This seems particularly important since the application notes that the majority of the benefits outlined (e.g. construction jobs and energy costs savings) would be rather short-lived and the majority of the foreseeable costs would be long term or permanent.”

When it comes to selling the idea of a fracked gas power plant, the RIDEM data request accuses Invenergy of circular logic. “A pointed example includes dismissing hydropower in the Power Generation Alternatives section (and omitting it from all other sections) solely because it would not be appropriate on the proposed [power plant] site, which was selected for proximity to the gas line, and then dismissing alternative project locations because they do not have the desired natural gas infrastructure.”

Further, the “premise that natural gas is the only way to meet [New England’s energy] demand is not borne out by the information provided,” says RIDEM.

RIDEM’s report to the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) will be shaped by Invenergy’s answers to these and other questions. Though these questions raise serious doubts about the need for the new plant and Invenergy’s integrity in preparing its application, ultimately the EFSB takes RIDEM’s report as advisory only, meaning the board could choose to approve the project despite these issues.

Yet Governor Gina Raimondo’s words, that “if there are issues then the plant won’t go forward,” ring loudly here. The issues raised in this set of data requests are serious, and the questions raised must be addressed honestly.

July 14, 2016

CNBC’s state rankings flawed and anti-middle class

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From the headlines, you would think that CNBC is the gold standard economic authority. After the cable news network released its 10th annual “America’s Top States for Business 2016” listing, in which Rhode Island was ranked dead last, local corporate media raced to bring the bad news to readers and viewers. CNBC ranks R.I. worst state for business, CNBC: Rhode Island ranked ‘Bottom State for Business‘, and RI back to dead last in new CNBC rankings are typical examples from the Projo, Channel 10 and Channel 12 respectively.

Missing from the Cassandra-like coverage is any hint that the rankings are meaningless and based on metrics that rate our state on how well our policies kowtow to the whims of business, not on how well they benefit the poor and middle class. Only Ted Nesi even approaches this angle in his coverage, but he did so through the lens of competing political discourse. But what about the economics of the report? Does it hold up under scrutiny? I’ve tackled the subject of economic rankings before, here and here, trying to bring some sort of real economic analysis to bear.

I asked Doctor of Economics Douglas Hall, Director of Economic and Fiscal Policy at the Economic Progress Institute, for some insights. Hall said that many of CNBC’s economic indicators “have a lot of merit and point to the need to address matters via public policy, such as repairing the state’s crumbling infrastructure and the need to help Rhode Islanders improve their educational attainment. But when you deconstruct their aggregate groupings,” said Hall, “many of the categories are deeply flawed and point to policies that would severely undermine the well-being and quality of life of working families in Rhode Island.”

One indicator the report uses is “union membership and the states’ right to work laws.” Low union membership and strong anti-union right to work laws contribute to a higher economic ranking for a state in CNBC’s report, yet Hall says that “research clearly shows that as unionization rates have gone down, the well-being of the American middle class has gone down.” In Hall’s view, this metric “taints the entire aggregate measure.”

Another metric, the CNBC aggregate category for the cost of doing business, considers the cost of paying wages and presumably, says Hall, “a state in which every employee worked for sub-poverty wages would get a very high grade in this category, while those paying living wages that can sustain a family and support a viable business community through demand for goods and services, would get a low grade in this category.”

It seems clear that these rankings of states by various business interests, including corporate entities such as CNBC, puppet organizations such as ALEC and members of the State Policy Network (which includes the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity) and various Chambers of Commerce are are not objective measures of a state’s economic well-being, but are tools crafted to shape public policy to the advantage of large business interests and to the detriment of the poor and middle class.

The most sensible tactic in dealing with such garbage is to file it accordingly.

July 14, 2016

Acushnet, not Burrillville, targeted for Spectra LNG storage facility says town council

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Spectra Energy is not planning to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Burrillville alongside the controversial compressor station and near the site of Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant. The Burrillville Town Council evealed at their Wednesday night meeting that when Spectra submits their official FERC pre-application for the project on July 22, it will be Acushnet, MA, not Burrillville, that will be forced to fight against yet another fracked gas infrastructure nightmare in New England.

The existence of Spectra’s plan came to light when the Burrillville Town Council released the agenda for the July 13 meeting, which included item 16-200 “Correspondence from Spectra Energy regarding Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC – Access Northeast Project (Pre-filing Docket No. PF16-1-000) relative to potential construction of a liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) storage facility in New England.”

This project is yet another addition to the expansion of fracked gas infrastructure in New England. Page 4 of the Supplemental Project Information Filing for Spectra’s Access Northeast Project (FERC Docket No. PF16-1-000) released in April 2016, reads “As part of this Project, Algonquin will upgrade and expand the existing Algonquin pipeline system and construct a liquefied natural gas storage facility in New England to deliver, on peak days, up to an additional 925,000 dekatherms per day (“Dth/d”) of natural gas.”

This same document, on page 11, lists Burrillville as an alternative site for the facility, noting that further expansion of pipeline capacity might be needed due to its location.

4.2.2.1 Burrillville Site Area

Algonquin began evaluating alternative sites as far west as its Burrillville Compressor Station, which offers a large site already owned in fee by Algonquin. The Burrillville, Rhode Island alternative site is located adjacent to Algonquin’s existing Burrillville Compressor Station. Due to its location, any LNG service that would be pulled into on the G-System and Algonquin’s mainline pipelines from the proposed LNG facility site would have to be pushed from the alternative site at Burrillville using Algonquin’s mainline pipelines that, to this point in the Project development, have been designed to carry 195,000 Dth/d. The location of the LNG site at Burrillville would require that Algonquin’s mainline pipelines carry an additional 225,000 Dth/d for a total of 420,000 Dth/d. To render the same service as that provided by the proposed Access Northeast LNG Facility site (Acushnet, Massachusetts), additional upgrades would be required including: the installation of a total of approximately 17.7 miles of new pipeline (8.1 miles of additional 36-inch diameter pipeline at the Burrillville Compressor Station Discharged 9.6 miles of 30-inch loop on the G-1 System); plus additional horsepower at the proposed Rehoboth Compressor Station.

At Wednesday’s Burrillville Town Council meeting, Town Manager Michael Wood said that there were two locations being considered in Burrillville, the one adjacent to the compressor station mentioned above and another location “off Barnes Rd.” Council president John Pacheco III cautioned those in attendance that the information looks good for Burrillville, but that no one will definitively know Spectra’s plans until July 22.

Repeated calls to Spectra’s media hotline on Tuesday and Wednesday went unanswered, save for an email that Thanked me for my interest, answered none of my questions and referred me to Spectra’s Algonquin Northeast Project website.

Of course, just because the project isn’t being built in Burrillville doesn’t make this a win. Acushnet already has an LNG storage facility, and this will be a second one, or possibly an upgrade.

“This project shouldn’t be built anywhere,” said a Burrillville resident to me after the meeting.