Palmer Renewable Energy has filed a lawsuit against the city of Springfield to the tune of somewhere in the ballpark of $50 million in response to the city council voting in May to revoke its permit to build a biomass plant in the city.
An artist's rendering of the proposed biomass plant in East Springfield.By Conor Berry & Robert Rizzuto
This updates a story posted at 6:34 a.m. Saturday.
SPRINGFIELD -- Palmer Renewable Energy has filed a lawsuit against Springfield after the City Council voted last month to revoke the energy development firm's permit to build a wood-burning biomass plant in East Springfield.
Although details of the civil complaint were not immediately available on Saturday, Springfield City Councilor Timothy J. Rooke confirmed that the city has received notice of the suit, which is reportedly seeking somewhere in the ballpark of $50 million.
On May 23, the 13-member City Council voted 10-2 -- one member was absent for the May vote -- to revoke the Palmer-based developer's special permit to build a $150 million biomass plant near the intersection of Page Boulevard and Cadwell Drive.
The council's decision triggered cheers from project opponents and an expected legal challenge from the developer.
04/05/11-Springfield-Staff Photo by Dave Roback- Protesters pro and con of the proposed biomass plant in Springfield stand in front of Duggin Middle School before the state public hearing on the project on Tuesday evening.Rooke and fellow City Councilor Kateri B. Walsh were the only two council members to vote against revocation.
“The money they are seeking would completely wipe out the city’s reserves and put us right back to where we were before the control board stepped in,” Rooke said. “At the time of the vote, the City Solicitor Ed Pikula advised the council not to vote to revoke the permit and to just wait for the state to issue its decision first.”
According to Rooke, if the state would have denied the permit to Palmer Renewable Energy, it would have saved the city the trouble of a lawsuit, such as the one filed on Friday.
Rooke said that when the vote took place in May, the state’s decision was only two weeks away.
Springfield City Council president Jose Tosado said that Rooke’s characterization of the pre-vote advising is incorrect, and that the council was not specifically told not to vote for revocation of the permit.
“We had a number of meetings with the city solicitor and we were only told we had the option to wait, not that we should,” Tosado said. “He laid out the grounds upon which we could vote to revoke the permit and I believe we had sufficient information to vote the way we did.”
David J. Callahan, (left), chairman of Palmer Paving Corp., in his Springfield office. On the right is Frank Fitzgerald, attorney for Palmer Renewable Energy .Attempts to reach City Solicitor Edward Pikula were unsuccessful on Saturday.
The City Council initially granted a permit to Palmer Renewable Energy in 2008. After further review, however, councilors claimed the project had changed significantly since its proposal. A majority of councilors felt the project might have a deleterious affect on the health and well-being of East Springfield residents.
Lawyers for the developer made it clear that revocation likely would spur a potential multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city.
Rooke called the revocation vote by his colleagues political in nature and “self-serving.”
“Decisions should be based on solid information and reasoning and I strongly believe they were swayed by emotion,” Rooke said. “The amount of pollution the plant would have put out is equivalent to six wood-burning stoves, considering the state-of-the-art equipment they would be installing.”
At the time of the vote, City Council President Jose Tosado called the decision one made for the future of the city and the health of its residents, a statement he stands by today.
“I have a clear conscience that we did the right thing for the health and well being of our city residents,” Tosado said. “They certainly have the right to exercise their legal options but I believe the city is on firm legal ground with this issue.”
Calls to Walsh and Mayor Domenic Sarno by The Republican on Saturday went unreturned.