In Springfield tonight, the Zoning Board of Appeals voted to overturn a building permit issued to developers seeking to build a wood chip burning plant. The plant has been the center of a three year battle since the City Council, then consisting of all at-large members, approved a special permit for the plant. The board rejected the argument that burning wood is not incineration, and therefore does not need a special permit. The developers need a special permit, which they are unlikely to obtain.
I will probably update this post after I write my full story at my blog, Western Mass Politics & Insight. However, I would like to make a key point. This plant has been rejected by people in the city, but for a time all levels of government approved of it. Since then, the city council has done a 180, the Department of Environmental Protection is reconsidering its tough opposition to objections to the air quality, and the EPA is looking into the health effects of biomass.
I want to focus on that last one. Currently, the EPA effectively does not regulate biomass, but it looking into the matter and may do so in the future. They can do that because of the Clean Air Act. Now I want to point out that a certain Senator voted to gut the Clean Air Act. Springfield suffers from below average air quality relative to the state as a whole. That we are a valley is part of it. However, is handicapping the people who keep our air clean, however strong our state air quality rules are, really the answer?
Also, the people of Springfield and their council and now their ZBA have rejected the notion that jobs automatically must take precedence over public health. Even if we agree, as Scott Brown has stated, that our clean air regime is killing jobs, the people of Springfield made pretty clear that they will not make that trade. This is famously poor Springfield saying no to poorer air quality the other consequences be damned. What do you want to bet that the parts of the state that are not so economically weak will trade away their air protections for a few jobs?
OH!
And cleaner air does not kill jobs. It improves quality of life. We used to call that promoting the general welfare.
