Burrillville and North Smithfiel legislators oppose Invenergy’s fracked gas power plant

Posted By Wayne G. Barber

Republican Whip Representative Brian Newberry, North Smithfield/Burrillville, Cale Keable Dist 47 Representive and Senator Paul Fogarty Dist 43 Glocester/ Burrillville did the Right Thing for all present and future generations. Thank You !

North Smithfield turned this proposal down a few years ago and our neighbor Uxbridge Massachusetts did the same last week.

Thank You to all the 600 concerned citizens who turned out last week and some were turned away by fire code and stayed in the lobby waiting for a seat or in the parking lot. The fight is not over, please turn out in record numbers at the May meeting to put the final nail in this coffin.  Thank You,  in advance, Wayne G. Barber

Sen. Paul Fogarty (D-Dist. 23, Glocester, Burrillville, North Smithfield) and Rep. Cale Keable (D-Dist. 47, Burrillville, Glocester) and North Smithfield Republican Whip Brian Newberry announced today their unequivocal opposition to Invenergy’s application to construct a 1000-megawatt, fracked gas power plant in the heart of Burrillville’s idyllic village of Pascoag.
In a letter to the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board, the Burrillville legislators stated that their opposition was the result of lengthy discussions with their constituents.
“As an initial matter, it must be stated that Burrillville has already done more than its fair share for the cause of the region’s energy needs,” Senator Fogarty and Representative Keable wrote in their letter.
“As you know, Burrillville already hosts a fossil fuel burning power plant and has done so for over two decades. Siting a second power plant in the same town does not comport with any rational notion of fairness. More importantly, having two power plants within five miles of one another raises serious concerns regarding cumulative negative health effects,” the letter continued.
“Additionally, the very residents who would be impacted most adversely by the proposed power plant have already endured – and continue to endure – the extreme inconvenience of a gas pipeline compression station located directly adjacent to the proposed site of this power plant. These residents have sacrificed enough of the quiet enjoyment of their homes. No more should be asked of them. We certainly should not ask them to suffer the loss in market value to their homes that the siting of this power plant would entail,” stated the letter.
In their letter, Senator Fogarty and Representative Keable noted that Burrillville and neighboring Glocester contain many of Rhode Island’s natural resources – a significant reason that so many people have chosen to live in those rural towns. The George Washington Management Area, Casimir Pulaski Memorial State Park, the Buck Hill Management Area, and the Black Hut Management Area are all in the immediate vicinity. There are also in the immediate vicinity numerous pristine bodies of water including Wilson’s Reservoir, Wakefield Pond, Round Lake, Wallum Lake, Pascoag Reservoir/Echo Lake, Pulaski Pond, Bowdish Reservoir and Lake Washington.
In regard to these natural resources, Representative Keable and Senator Fogarty stated that, “[t]o put these natural resources at risk by siting a colossal power plant in the middle of them would be unconscionable.”
Senator Fogarty and Representative Keable made a strong case in their letter that the proximity of Zambarano Hospital to the proposed power plant makes the location an especially bad idea.
The letter states, “[W]e view as sacrosanct our obligation to speak on behalf of the patients at Zambarano Hospital, many of whom lack the capacity to speak on their own behalf. Our friends at Zambarano Hospital are the very people that government exists to protect – government should not now put them in harm’s way.”
“Our concerns with regard to Zambarano are twofold. First, the hospital’s water supply is drawn directly from Wallum Lake. That water supply must be protected. Second, in the event that there were a catastrophe at the proposed power plant, it seems highly unlikely that the nearly 120 patients at Zambarano could possibly be evacuated in a safe manner. We understand that he likelihood of this contingency is low. Should it come to pass, however, the humanitarian crises it would create would be unfathomable.”
The letter also focused on the negative impact to the nearby town of Glocester and village of Chepachet.
“For our Glocester constituents, this proposed power plant promises only burden, without any corresponding benefit. For example, we have serious concerns that during the proposed construction of this power plant traffic flow through the historic village of Chepachet would be unworkable. The village of Chepachet is already burdened with heavy traffic during peak times.”
The letter noted that the traffic and congestion concerns will also be a problem for Burrillville residents.
“Our concerns regarding traffic extend not only to Glocester, but also to Burrillville and in particular to those living on Route 100. Obviously, the sheer amount of heavy traffic that would be involved in building the proposed power plant would be incredibly burdensome for anyone living on Wallum Lake Road. Our peaceful town would be subjected to nuisance activity of all kinds: congestion, noise, light, and, in all likelihood, dropping property values.”
Representative Keable and Senator Fogarty also took note that they both voted to support the Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014 which calls for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2025, 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2035, and 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. They noted that the proposed power plant is in likely violation of the Act by furthering the state’s reliance on fossil fuels.
[from a press release]

Congratulations on your Grand Opening: Green Dragon Comics

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Green Dragon Comics 401 Putnam Pike Harmony ,R.I. 02829 (gps)

 Phone 1-401-949-2076  Open today 10 am till 8pm   Please support local business and local Tax Payers !  Right next to the Harmony Post Office !

We sell Comic Books, Board Games, Role Playing Card and Majic. Very friendly service. E-MAIL greendragoncomics@yahoo.com

Like them on Facebook and please tell them you saw this posting !

Austin T. Levy Film

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

FILM'S PRODUCERS ANNOUNCED
This film has received important financial support from the June Rockwell Levy Foundation. It has also been supported by the generous donations from several individuals who have encouraged this project from its beginning. There have also been important donations from friends, colleagues, and new friends I have not yet met in person. All of this support has been a blessing as this project has grown from an idea to a book to a one-hour documentary. Sp...ecial thanks are due Linda Rivet, the research librarian in Harrisville who introduced me to Austin T. Levy, and Jerry Leveille who has cheered and shepherded this project since the beginning.

All filming, both in the U.S. and the Bahamas, is completed. Special thanks and a medal for patience goes to my friend and the film's Director of Photography, Jim Karpeichik. He has been amazing.
As I finish what I hope is the final stage of funding to complete the film & script editing and narration, I am pleased to announce the names of the film's producers:
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Edgar Seligman - Dr. Matthew Kenny
PRODUCERS
John Waterman - Tina McKendall - Sherman Yee
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Jeanette Altavela - Pat Mehrtens
Mark & Hanne Proudfoot - Ann Marie Marshall
I am very thankful for their ongoing support and
confidence. There are still a few hurdles to jump,
but I am optimistic as always that they will be attained.
If there are others who wish to help or contribute to the final film, please contact me through this page or at kennethproudfoot@hotmail.com.
Thank you.
Kenneth Proudfoot
 

Uxbridge voters: power plant nixed on Town Vote !

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

A majority of the 600 voters attending the meeting and shot down the Power Plant !

UXBRIDGE - Voters at a special town meeting Saturday approved borrowing $44.8 million for mandated upgrades to the town's wastewater treatment plant, but voted against amending zoning bylaws that would have allowed a proposed power plant.

More than 600 people attended the meeting at Uxbridge High School auditorium, and the town meeting articles required a two-thirds majority to pass, according to Town Manager David A. Genereux.

The wastewater treatment plant upgrades have been ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The $44.8 million appropriation puts Uxbridge in a position to receive 0 percent and 2.4 percent loan funding through the State Revolving Fund.

A bylaw amendment that was defeated by a majority of voters Saturday would have allowed production capacity for an electrical generating facility to be increased from 350 megawatts to 1 gigawatt. Under current zoning, up to two plants with a combined capacity of 500 megawatts are allowed. The defeated article would also have amended that to allow up to two plants with a combined capacity of 2 gigawatts.

In February, EMI NextGen had proposed to the Board of Selectmen constructing a 1 gigawatt natural gas-powered electricity generating plant at the former Immanuel gravel pit site at 775 Millville Road, South Uxbridge. Another article would have rezoned the parcel at Millville Road to "Industrial." However, after the defeat of the bylaw amendment, the rezoning article was withdrawn, Mr. Genereux said.

Town meeting members had been told that the electricity generating plant would bring $3 million to $4 million per year to Uxbridge as payment in lieu of taxes revenue. The bylaw and rezoning articles were supported by the Board of Selectmen.

"That was a one-off proposal at this point," Mr. Genereux said after the meeting. "I'm glad we had a large attendance from the community, and the community spoke. We'll continue to look for other opportunities."

Burrillville Voters should demand that the Power Plant in Burrillville be PUT ON A BALLOT !

I know it's April, but don't Eat the Snow !

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

TOXIC SNOW coming To Burrillville & Rhode Island!
The proposed Invenergy power plant will spew a min of 3.3 Tons/ year of formal "Hazardous Pollutants" (more in the winter) into our air. "In a study published last week in Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a team of scientists in Canada found that snow soaks up the toxic and cancer-causing nanoparticles that are found in car exhaust. Snow appears to very effective at removing those particles from the air, but they are then of course embedded in the snow." Burrillville gets 3 FEET OF SNOW/year! http://www.newsweek.com/reminder-heres-why-you-should-absolutely-not-eat-snow-418925.

Maple Syrup

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Does your maple syrup actually contain maple?

Native Americans were known to have produced maple syrup long before Europeans ever arrived on the scene. No one quite knows how or why maple syrup production began, so the origins of the process have become the stuff of legend. What is known is that there was ritual associated with the process, and that the “sugar moon” (the first full moon of spring) was celebrated with a “maple dance.”
When the Europeans arrived here, the Native Americans began to teach them how to tap trees and process syrup, much as they did with so many other elements of life in the new world. By 1680, Europeans were harvesting maple products. Instead of making an incision in the tree bark, as Native Americans did, the Europeans used augers to make a hole in the tree. It wasn’t long before maple syrup was used as the primary form of concentrated sugar, since cane sugar had to be imported from the West Indies.
Around the time of the Civil War, processors began to use large flat metal sheet pans because they provided a greater surface area for evaporation. The first evaporator was patented in 1858. It was also around this time that cane sugar began to replace maple syrup as the primary sweetener in the United States.
There have been many technological advances in maple syrup production over the years, but the basic process remains the same as it was centuries ago: tap the trees, collect the sap, boil away.
There is not a lot of maple syrup produced in southern Rhode Island, and no single producer makes enough for it to be their sole means of support. But, the producers that are here are committed to the intricate process, and they have been at it for many years.

Maple syrup is graded according to color and taste. Because Vermont sugar maples have more sugar content, it takes less time in the boiling process for the sap to reach the proper sugar level. That’s why Vermont syrup is usually a light amber. In southern Rhode Island, most of the syrup produced is a medium or dark amber, which some people prefer because of its more intense, less delicate taste.
Trees with a larger diameter can accept more than one tap. A tree with a diameter of up to 12 inches is tapped once. For every additional 6 inches of diameter, another tap can be added. Windus has 200 taps, known as spiles, in his maple trees this year.
The production of maple syrup is not a very efficient process. You need approximately 50 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Once the sap is collected it is brought to the sugar house. There, it goes through several layers of processing. The objective is to get the syrup to the point that it reaches 66.7% sugar content, which is 59 on the Brix scale, the accepted standard for maple syrup.

There are dozens in any grocery store, labels that claim maple flavor, carrying the promise of woodsy, intense sweetness, often with an illustrated flourish of a maple leaf.
Too many of those goodies, maple producers say, have no maple at all inside. Oatmeal, cookies, agave syrup — familiar brands and products of all kinds, they say — are made with artificial flavors, not the real thing.

Different grades of syrup are lined up along a window inside of the Marvin's sugarhouse in Johnson, Vermont last April.

 

 

“You’re talking about an inferior product both in terms of quality and price,” said Roger Brown, a co-owner of Slopeside Syrup in Richmond, Vt. “Marketing it as something it’s not — that’s why we have rules against that.”
Some 31 US senators and congressional representatives have now gotten behind maple producers across the region and are demanding action. In a letter delivered last month to the Food and Drug Administration, the lawmakers asked the agency to “investigate and take action against misbranded products in interstate commerce.”
“These practices seem to intentionally mislead consumers who get cheap, industrially produced sweeteners and artificial flavors rather than the pure and genuine natural product they believed they have purchased,” the letter stated.

An FDA spokeswoman, Lauren Kotwicki, said in an e-mail, “The FDA is reviewing the petition and will respond directly to the petitioner.”
Like few other products, maple syrup comes with a ready-made and compelling marketing message. From its earliest days, it has been touted as a pure product, with its light golden color that runs clear and amber, like sunlight. It is produced with hard, backwoods work, bearing the stamp of authenticity. For a time, in the 19th century, it was held up as a symbol of morality — a product made by free men rather then the slave-produced sugar of the West Indies and elsewhere.

 

 Protecting the sweetener’s image is key for the industry, which has seen lucrative crops in recent years. Revenue from maple syrup in the United States totaled $100 million in 2015.
The issue has been especially inflaming in Vermont, where some 4.5 million maple trees yielded 1.4 million gallons of maple syrup in 2015 — 40.7 percent of the nation’s total, according to US Department of Agriculture data.
Massachusetts produced 75,000 gallons, Maine 553,000 gallons, and New Hampshire 154,000.
“False claims are meant to fool and cheat consumers, and they erode the well-earned reputation for quality of pure maple syrup,” said David Carle, spokesman for Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the lead signatories on the FDA letter. “It’s clear-cut theft, directly stealing income from maple producers in Vermont.”
Carle noted that the labeling effort comes as Vermont prepares to enforce a bill requiring that all genetically engineered food be labeled. The bill takes effect in July. The push for greater transparency about maple products is part of the same focus, he said.
“It’s about consumers’ right to know,” Carle said.
In a separate letter, maple syrup producer associations across the region highlighted several companies they said wrongly claimed maple ingredients. One was Quaker Oats and its “maple & brown sugar” flavor instant oatmeal. The ingredient list does not show maple sugar or syrup, mentioning only “natural and artificial flavors” among the other ingredients.
The company did not respond to requests for comment.
At Nature’s Path, which makes organic breakfast foods, spokeswoman Wendy Kubota said that after a 2015 inquiry from Vermont’s maple syrup makers, “we reformulated our Maple Nut Hot Oatmeal to include real organic maple sugar in the recipe. All the other products we make with maple in the name already contained real maple ingredients.”
The push to keep maple syrup’s image pure coincides with technological changes in the industry. Largely gone are days of buckets attached to trees and sap hauled away with yoked beasts. Today, the process involves tubes threaded through the woods to draw sap to a central location — a method that has helped US producers nearly triple output since 2000.
The increase has also been driven by healthy prices, said Mark L. Isselhardt, a maple specialist at the University of Vermont Extension’s Proctor Maple Research Center.
“People are using it for more than their pancakes and waffles,” he said. “And producers are happy to meet the demand.”
Growth in the industry, with more large commercial outfits jumping in, has been steady, he said. United States maple syrup makers tapped 500,000 more trees in 2015 than in 2013, according to Department of Agriculture numbers.
Efforts to imitate the taste of maple syrup with imposter ingredients is not new. In the early part of the last century, shelves filled with syrup diluted by “glucose, sorghum, or corn; some purveyors added decoctions of maple wood, hickory, or even of corn cobs,” according to the Atlantic Monthly. Producers and consumers alike cried foul, and the result was the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, the magazine noted.
For Brown, whose family in 2010 began making syrup from 20,000 maple trees on the property his grandparents used for a local ski area, the issue of falsely claiming maple as an ingredient means lost sales.
“When I offer samples of syrup at farmers market, one of the most common complaints I hear is, ‘I don’t like how it tastes.’ But it turns out they have never tried real, pure maple syrup. People have an incorrect perception of maple flavor as this weird chemical taste,” Brown said.

Source:  Sarah Schweitzer Globe Staff

Owner accused of setting restaurant ablaze for insurance money

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

The owner of a popular Glocester restaurant is facing charges he set fire to the business in order to collect insurance on it.
According to U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha, Daniel E. Saad pleaded not guilty Friday to arson and wire fraud charges.
Saad, 50, of Spencer, Mass., was released on bond following his arraignment.
Prosecutors allege Saad intentionally set fire to Snow’s Clam Box Restaurant and Pub on Putnam Pike back in November of 2014, causing significant damage to the building. He then filed a claim with his insurance company for any damages caused by the fire, according to Neronha.
Prosecutors Saad was facing significant debt at the time.
The federal indictment charges Saad with one count of arson, one count of use of fire to commit wire fraud, and two counts of wire fraud.
Source: Channel 12 news  Shaun Towne