Coos commisioners plan to intervene on Laidlaw’s behalf
LANCASTER — The Coos County Commission-ers said they plan to fi le as intervenors in support of Laidlaw Berlin Biopower when the company goes before the state Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Committee for its permit to construct and operate a biomass facility in Berlin.Laidlaw offi cials did a presentation at the com-mission’s monthly meeting yesterday on their pro-posal to develop a 66-megawatt biomass plant on the former pulp mill site.Commissioner Paul Grenier said the commis-sioners have informally discussed fi ling as inter-venors in the SEC process and expect to do so. He noted the commission took an active role in sup-porting Granite Reliable Power’s proposed wind farm in Phillips Brook and said the board will do the same for Laidlaw.Commissioner Tom Brandy said he is 100 per-cent in support of the Laidlaw proposal. He said he believes the plant would help not just Berlin but the entire county. The commission’s support for Laid-law is contrary to the position of the Berlin city council which plans to fi le as an intervenor to oppose the project. The council has increased the line item for legal services in its proposed fi scal 2010 budget by $100,000 to enable it to hire a lawyer to represent the city in the SEC proceedings.Laidlaw Vice President Lou Brava-kis told the commission Laidlaw is still developing the site plan and working on the SEC application. The company has hired Barry Needleman of the law fi rm of McLane, Graf, Raulerson & Middleton, an expert in environmen-tal permitting and compliance, to put it together. Bravakis said Laidlaw hopes to submit it to the SEC soon. Once the application is submitted, the SEC has nine months to issue a decision. Bravakis acknowledged the opposi-tion of the mayor and city council to the project but said he feels the major-ity of Berlin residents are in favor of it. He updated the council on the prog-ress made by Laidlaw so far. He said the company has arranged fi nanc-ing for the project which he said is an accomplishment in these fi nan-cial times. He said the development fi nancing has been released and as soon as the permitting is completed, Laidlaw will close on the construction fi nancing.Bravakis said construction is esti-mated at $100 million and said Laid-law has already heard from contractors who want to work on the project which will take 12 to 18 months to complete. He explained that the existing chemi-cal recovery boiler will be converted to burn biomass using state-of-the-art combustion and pollution control tech-nology. The biomass plant will meet the standards required to qualify for renewable energy credits.Laidlaw is in the ISO-NE interco-nection queue and Bravakis said the Coos transmission loop can accom-modate both GRP’s wind farm and his company’s biomass plant. He said Laidlaw has an agreement to sell its power to Public Service of N.H. Laid-law also has announced an agreement to provide Fraser Papers with hot water for its Gorham paper mill.Noting that questions have been raised about wood availability, Brava-kis said Laidlaw has hired LandVest to expand the wood study it did for the state Department of Resources and Economic Development. He noted that before they closed, Groveton Paper Board, Fraser pulp mill, and the Gilman, Vt. paper mill used over 1.2 million tons of low grade wood annually. Bravakis said the Laidlaw biomass plant would use between 700,000 and 750,000 tons per year. With a 20-year power agreement, he said Laidlaw would be in a position to enter in long-term contracts with COMMISSIONERS from page oneloggers, providing stability to those operations. He said the biomass plant would have wood purchases of about $25 million annually.The biomass plant would employ 40 people directly. Bravakis said Laidlaw purchased 62 acres of the mill property and will use less than half the site. He noted when North American Dismantling took down the old mill buildings, it did not remove the foundations and the site is fi ll of rubble.“The property is a real brownfi eld,” he said. While not suitable for some busi-nesses. Bravakis said Laidlaw is interesting in attracting light manu-facturing or commercial businesses that could benefi t from stream or hot water that are byproducts of power production.Attending the meeting with Bra-vakis was Laidlaw partner Raymond Kusche and its Berlin representative, Tony Urban.
