Amid audience shouts of “Shame on you!” and “Merry Christmas, Invenergy!” the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) voted unanimously to grant Invenergy a 90 day suspension on their application to build a $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in Burrillville, effectively quadrupling Invenergy’s previous 30 day extension.

Once Pascoag voted to terminate their letter of intent with Invenergy to provide water to cool Invenergy’s proposed power plant, and Harrisville also declined to provide water, the company asked for 30 days to find an alternative source. They were granted a 30 day extension 30 days ago and despite negotiating with Woonsocket for the water needed to oil the power plant, nothing concrete was presented at today’s hearing.

Instead we heard Invenergy lawyer Alan Shoer claim that Pascog’s termination of their letter of intent came “very late in the process, after almost a year of working with Invenergy.” This made it impossible for Invenergy to come up with an alternative plan, complained Shoer. Attorney Jerry Elmer with the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) later countered that “Invenergy made a careful, conscious, deliberate decision to file an application with the EFSB that had very tight, strict, statutory deadlines for things happening, before they had a secure water source… That was Invenergy’s sole election.”

In other words, continued Elmer, Invenergy knew that their non-binding letter of intent “may not result in a water source.”

The 90 day suspension comes with the minor caveat that Invenergy provide a status update in 60 days. The update must show concrete progress in securing a water source, though it is unclear what penalty Invenergy may face if they do not deliver an update that is satisfactory to the board. Criteria for the update seemed sketchy.

In 90 days, Invenergy must be able to present a water source to the board, along with a plan to transport the water to the location of the power plant. Burrillville recently provided a list of criteria that board member Janet Coit suggested would need to be satisfied for the suspension to be lifted. The criteria includes the source of the water, the means of transmission of the water, and the disposal of waste water, among other concerns.

In the event that Invenergy is unable to come up with a water supply, Coit suggested that the EFSB might be open to further suspensions at that time, effectively suggesting unlimited time for Invenergy to get their application in order, unless the board decides to dismiss the application per the motions from the Conservation Law Foundation and the Town of Burrillville.

Lawyer Michael McElroy gave a stellar speech to the board in support of dismissing Invenergy’s application, even going so far as to quote Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee. McElroy also directly confronted Chair Margaret Curran and board members Parag Agrawal and Janet Coit about concerns that the EFSB’s process “may be dictated by” Governor Gina Raimondo.

“The Town of Burrillville does not want this plant,” said McElroy, “I think that’s been made clear to this board. This plant would be a polluting monster that violates the town’s comprehensive plan and zoning ordinances and would negatively impact impact the quality of life for all Burrillville residents.

The EFSB, continued McElroy, “has been given extraordinary legal powers to grant permits that would otherwise be granted by my client, the Town of Burrillville. You have in essence become, among other things, the town’s planning board, its zoning board and its building inspector. But with such great power comes great responsibility. Your most important power and responsibility is to fully, fairly and impartially evaluate all of the issues that come before you after hearing from all of the parties on those issues.”

“The residents of the town and my clients have become concerned that throughout this process that the board’s votes on this process may be dictated by the governor, who has repeatedly and publicly expressed her support for this project despite the town’s overwhelming opposition. This board’s ill-advised and illegal previous attempts to silence the town and prevent it from being heard today only reinforces that concern.

McElroy urged the board to dismiss the docket, not suspend it. “Suspending the docket instead of dismissing it would give Invenergy what amounts to a gift of an indefinite suspension,” said McElroy. “The town has been fighting this battle now for almost a year at great monetary and emotional expense.”

McElroy’s fiery comments stand in sharp contrast to those of Jerry Elmer, who added that though the lack of water was a major issue that precipitated the motion to suspend, there was also the issue of a lack of information from Invenergy that caused six of the twelve advisory opinions to the board to be submitted incomplete.

After the board rendered its decision those watching the proceedings left the room singing “We shall overcome.”

Those from Burrillville I talked to were angry and disappointed by the ruling. They feel the process is corrupt and stacked against them. They feel that they are being forced to attend yet more town and city council meetings throughout the state in an effort to garner support and prevent the sale of water to Invenergy. Their holidays will now be filled with research, activism, environmental reports and endless meetings in towns and cities throughout the state and beyond to garner support for their cause and to prevent Invenergy from securing a source of water.

Yet though the process seems corrupt and Invenergy seems intent on grinding away their resolve, the people I talked to were adamant that they would not give up or stop fighting.

Back in September of 2001, just days prior to the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11, the village of Pascoag, in the Town of Burrillville, was made victim of a massive toxic event that continues to be felt by the residents of the sleepy hamlet. News of this disaster was drowned out in the media by the events of 9/11, but the effects on the health and safety of the people of Burrillville are equally as terrifying. I am writing, of course, of the contamination of Pascoag’s only public water supply by the failure of underground gasoline storage tanks located at 24 North Main St.

As of November of 2013, the property is owned by one  20 Fairmont St., LLC, which happens to share an East Providence address with Conley’s development company. An address to which the latest round of RIDEM NIE’s , or Notice of Intent to Enforce, have been sent, addressed to one Colleen Conley c/o Dr. Patrick Conley. The owner of the property is responsible for enacting soil and water monitoring and management plan with the RIDEM, also known as a Corrective Action Plan.

The failure of these tanks, according to DEM, released a significant, undetermined quantity of gasoline and the now-banned additive methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, into the aquifer under the village. The spill was so profuse that some testing wells were found to have standing gasoline in them months after the spill had been discovered. MTBE has been fully or partially banned in many states in the U.S., and for good reason; it has has proven to be a potent carcinogen.

In 2011, as a reporter for ecoRI News, I decided to look back on the spill and how it affected the lives of people in Pascoag. I spoke to many members of the community, the Pascoag Utility District (PUD), RIDEM, and sources at the EPA. Unfortunately, the then owner of the property was – and continues to be – “in the wind,” to use law enforcement parlance.

This small community has been ravaged by the lingering effects of the spill.

Many in the community have developed, as one town resident called, “oddball” cancers. Others believe that exposure to the chemical caused a spate of Multiple Sclerosis diagnoses in the town. In the weeks preceding the discovery of the spill, residents complained of afflictions from recurring ear infections, to massive chemical burns. The financial cost to the townspeople has been steep, as well. After the spill, the PUD was forced to tie into the wells of the Harrisville Fire District, and wound up paying double what most Rhode Islanders pay for public water for ten years.

By the time that the spill had reached its maximum impact to the aquifer, MTBE levels had risen to 42 times the EPA’s maximum exposure limit. Due to the fact that the owner of the property had skipped town, DEM was saddled with 100 percent of the cleanup costs which, without help from the EPA, would have bankrupted the state’s Leaking Underground Storage Tank program.

Since then, Exxon/Mobil has settled a class action suit with the people of Pascoag for a mere $7 million – which translates to about $800 for each claimant – and the town has just finished drilling a new well, far away from the contaminated site.

Conley and his associates have been repeatedly warned by RIDEM about non-compliance, and yet, still they seem shocked by the agency’s actions. In his op-ed in the ProJo, Conley writes:

Providence was home to the world’s largest tool factory (Brown and Sharpe), file company (Nicholson File), engine factory (Corliss Steam Engine Company), screw factory (American Screw Company), and silverware manufacturer (Gorham). These firms were exuberantly proclaimed as Providence’s “Five Industrial Wonders of the World.”

What he fails to mention is that the sites of all five of these former “powerhouses” are now horribly contaminated with everything from heavy metals, to petroleum by-products, to industrial process waste. He then writes:

If that zero-growth bureaucracy (DEM) existed in the 19th century, it would be a wonder if our five industrial wonders could have acquired permits to operate.

The answer to that question, Mr. Conley, is a resounding, “No!”

See, that’s the thing about the unending march of science, you tend to learn things in 150 years that cast a pallor over the “successes” of these former industrial giants. Namely, their horrible legacy of detrimental environmental and human health impacts.

The RIDEM has spent millions remediating this spill.  All they are asking from Mr. Conley and his associates is that they maintain a commitment to cleanup the site of the former gas station. The contamination was known when Conley bought the parcel, and thus he should have known about the need for a RIDEM-approved action plan for the site. Maybe Conley could do us all a couple of favors and a) STFU about the “regulatory burdens of DEM,” and b) stop being crybabies and CLEAN UP THE MESS THAT YOU KNOWINGLY PURCHASED!