During the three day march from Providence to Burrillville, ahead of Governor Raimondo’s meeting with residents, the people protesting Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant made one small detour to the site of the 2001 MTBE disaster that affected and even destroyed so many lives in Pascoag. On the site of a long dead ExxonMobil Gas Station, overgrown with weeds and bushes, where only rubble and dirt remain, the marchers gathered to refresh themselves and listen to the stories of an environmental disaster.
Pascoag resident Thomas Sylvester laid out the scene for everyone. The gas station is on a hill. The contaminated water wells are about a quarter mile down the road. “Under where we are standing there is shell ledge and bedrock that is permeated with gasoline,” said Sylvester, “we speak about MTBE but really what we’re talking about is a gas spill.”
The wells that were contaminated were new. It took only months to reveal that they were contaminated. “What this means is that this gas station was leaking for a long time before those wells ever went in,” said Sylvester, “MTBE is a tracer, it’s the first contaminant to come out.” This means that the rest of the gasoline, and all the “really nasty stuff” that makes it up, is right behind the MTBE. In truth, the MTBE is only a small part of the problem, and a sign of bigger problems ahead.
Opening the well down the hill won’t remediate the area, says Sylvester. If someone were truly interested in remediating the water, the would put a well “almost where we are standing.” Using the well down the hill will only draw more contaminants down the hill, the “really nasty stuff” that right now is contained beneath the long dead Mobil station. The plan currently under consideration by Invenergy will draw more contaminants into the aquifer says Sylvester. Residents with their own wells might find their water becoming contaminated years from now.
There were a thousand homes and 4000 residents affected by the MTBE contamination. It took years for the state to be involved. People hired their own water safety experts, hired their own lawyers. There was no Energy Facilities Siting Board to hear their worries.
Sylvester first noticed the contamination when his wife was nursing their son, and the baby’s face became red and irritated where it came in contact with his wife’s skin. She had recently taken a shower, and the MTBE was hurting her baby. The sweet smell of the contamination filled the house. Sylvester began putting saran wrap over the toilets. He used bottled water in his house’s steam heating to minimize exposure to the well water. He and his family bathed and did laundry at their relative’s homes. They went without water, except for toilets, for 248 days.
Terri Lacey told the story of her niece and nephew, who “lived right around the corner.” They had a little girl at the time. Lacey’s niece developed thyroid cancer and her nephew developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her nephew was given last rites four times before a treatment finally sent his cancer into remission.
“I remember being in the shower and feeling something, I couldn’t even describe it. The water didn’t feel right on my skin and there was a smell….”
Invenergy “is not remediating [the well] for us, they’re opening a monster for us.”
When Governor Gina Raimondo came to Burrillville Monday evening to hear the concerns of residents regarding Invenergy’s proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, the people greeted her with applause, cheers, and gifts. Over the course of the two hour meeting, the Governor assured the people that she had not just listened to them, but had truly heard them.
The FANG Collective began their three day march to Burrillville Saturday morning, leaving from the State House in Providence just before 10am. The march is a protest against the Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, currently supported by Governor Gina Raimondo and opposed by the vast majority of Burrillville residents. The march also serves as a greeting of sorts to the Governor, as Raimondo is scheduled to meet with Burrillvillians and hear their concerns at the Burrillville High School on Monday night at 6pm.
“There have been 6 or 7 shootings in and around the Pence Park area in Pawtucket,” said Melissa Darosa, a streetworker for the 
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.
From July 16th to 18th local activists and residents will be 
Before the meeting got started though, the planning board dealt with correspondence from Barry Craig, a retired lawyer recently returned to Burrillville. Craig had filed a motion to have the town’s lawyer, Oleg Nikolyszyn, recuse himself because of allegations that he and the town council had violated the open meetings act when 
As loud as the power plant might be under normal operating conditions, it will be louder during start up and shutdown. When asked about Invenergy’s estimates about how long start ups and shutdowns take, Hessler said that Invenergy’s estimate of 10-30 minutes is “too short. There’s no way,” and said “I would not trust [Invenergy’s] numbers.”
On Thursday evening members of BASE (Burrillville Against Spectra Expansion) and 
WHEREAS, Invenergy’s Clear River Energy has proposed a $700 million project to construct a natural gas-fired electric power plant in the Town of Burrillville, which will consist of two single shaft “H” Class combined cycle units with output up to 1000 Mega watts, air cooled condensers and duel fuel capability (natural gas and oil back up) and is schedule for a June 2019 commercial operation date for Unit 1 and 2020 for Unit 2 and;
The issuance of the press release was likely decided at Tuesday night’s “special meeting” of the Town Council. In trying to access the video of this meeting, I discovered that there was no video. “As the camera was not working, there is no video for the June 7, 2016 Town Council meeting,” according to an email from the town clerk.
The June 2 open meeting of the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) was a rare opportunity to hear board members Margaret Curran, Janet Coit and Parag Agrawal talk openly about their thoughts regarding the process of the board in approving or denying Invenergy‘s proposed fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in Burrillville. That said, it’s also a bad idea to draw too many inferences about board members thoughts based on their words.
