– BCNS/Sudi Smoller – I agree with Commissioner Lazares. We are only trying to get more information. Can’t you see how you come across as being untransparent? Because, when we ask you things, you don’t tell us. And, that has long been the history of our relationship….I’m thrilled that we are involved in the battery project. I feel like you haven’t told anyone about it. The fact that it is one out of 14 communities.…Where exactly is it going? How will it impact Peabody? We haven’t heard any of that. And people want to hear that. And, when you say, send me an email and I’ll email you back, people don’t hear that.

– Commissioner Thomas D’Amato – At the risk of extending this, I get your point. This a cultural change….

-Audience Member – We can’t hear you. Use your microphone.

(D’Amato turns on his microphone and the sound in the room improves, but not on video, because the mics are not connected to the mixer.)

– D’Amato – It’s become a cultural thing. I used to remark that we liked to fly under the radar, great service…(inaudible)… You want us to be more public or higher profile. I don’t know if that can happen overnight. We have a new board; we have more tolerant board members. I understand but we’re not in the business of (inaudible) taking it public. We’re in the business of …(inaudible) service… and in due time, you’ll hear all that. But questions around an empty lot and wanting to know what that is, I don’t know what to say to that.

(referring to a question raised by Stewart Lazares earlier in the meeting.)

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – We want to make sure that you are taking action towards a sustainable future that does not involve greenhouse gasses.

– D’Amato – Yea that’s part of it. That’s not our complete mantra. What’s going on today… is not going to happen overnight….

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – It has to be part of all of our mantras.

– D’Amato – It’s part of our mantra… The federal government is writing checks it can’t cash. It’s part of our mantra. We can’t write checks that we can’t cash. I get it, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – We have to keep chipping away at it…I think you have the best rates and great service. But, I think your mission statement has to be expanded. In today’s world, it has to be more than that. You have to give leadership to the future on

sustainability…(inaudible)….People are feeling like you’re not telling us the good or the bad.

– D’Amato – I think we’re doing as good as anybody. Do you think we’re not doing a good job?

– Commissioner Tracy Valletti – To Sudi’s point about emailing and people not hearing it because it is internal, can we treat that as correspondence and address it publicly?

-Joe Anastasi, PMLP Director – We can do a number of things but that is one of the reasons why we created and transitioned to the Energy Awareness Forum online – for that exact purpose to contain a list of questions and answers that the public has asked.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – The deadline (on the PMLP website) still says January 21.

– Anastasi – So, it’s out of date. You can still submit a question.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – And then, when will we see the answer? And then, once you publish it after 60 days, where does that answer go?

– Anastasi – Right there on the energy awareness age.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – Well, I can’t seem to find much information on that page. (BCNS checked the page on 3/30 and found the deadline has been updated to: If you ask a question and wish to follow up, please use our Contact Page or call Community Relations at 978-531-5975. https://pmlp.com/229/Energy-Awareness-Forum)

– Anastasi – It’s only because there’s only been two questions asked in two-and-a half ears.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – It’s a bit disheartening when we have to make a deadline and the latest deadline is last January for several months.

– Audience Member – If you don’t answer our questions, then we are really in trouble.

– Anastasi – In my opinion, actions speak louder than words. And, we have made every action in the right direction. If our words are not up to date then we apologize and we’ll be better at that. But, our actions have been unanimously fantastic for the last 50 years and no one is going to make us feel that we haven’t done enough because we’ve done more than almost everyone. We are ahead of the curve.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – And I’ve said you have, but for the one part: lack of public and community engagement. It’s about the future.

– Anastasi – I am very sorry that you feel that way but I disagree that we are not doing enough. I believe we are. I will always try to be better and that’s something that I take on every day of my life. So, we will be better but I don’t accept that we’re not good enough.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – The question that immediately comes to mind: Why are there three pages of public notices in the Weekly News this week from this board and you don’t say one word about it before this meeting or at this meeting. What any of that means,

people don’t understand. (Go to pages 12-14.

– Anastasi – Because a lot goes into those decisions and we barely got it out in time. You’ll find out more information is going to be available tomorrow.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – That’s like saying to me ‘you can see the budget once we pass it.’

– Anastasi – The newspaper article today is about Monday. So it’s not live until Monday.

– D’Amato – Can I add one thing because you have a feeling like we’re not forthcoming or whatnot – not public enough. I have a feeling sometimes like you are looking to trip us up. That we’re under the microscope, that you.. say nice things but it comes across….I can feel that we’re under the microscope with you guys within the last year and a half.

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller = Can I be frank. That’s because…

– Commissioner ? – asks “of 2015A?” (the new 60MW peaker)

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – Because, you don’t share anything with us. You turn off the microphones. The way you treat us and treat public engagement is not very welcoming. So, we’re constantly feeling – we better get there early to make sure the microphones are not

missing again. We better get there early, so we can record this and then people don’t use their microphones so we can’t hear it. It seems no matter what we do, you all are trying to nix it. I’d like to get past that too but that’s been our history since we first found out about the Peabody Peaker. That’s been the history of our interactions. You still have not released your budget. You are publicly elected and you don’t let us see it or talk about it until it’s

been passed?

You ask why we seem to be resisting you? Because other boards don’t do that. They publish their budget. They have a way of communicating. They publish minutes in their entirety, not just a tweaking of the agenda. They record their meetings not necessarily on video but on audio.

– D’Amato – What if everything is the way you wanted and our rates were terrible and our service was terrible? Would that be good?

– BCNS, Sudi Smoller – I’d be here working to address that.

– BCNS: Ron Smoller – Regarding the forum, I truly believe that you are not aware…I’ve sent questions well ahead of what’s shown as the Jan 21 deadline. It’s March 28, there has not been a question posted, including questions that I did send you last September. There should have been a posting in December, it’s a quarterly forum. There should have been answers to questions in December, maybe there weren’t any, mine was before December but it was shortly after. There should been another one (posting) this month, March 21 would be the (traditional) deadline date. It should have been a posting of my questions I submitted before Jan 21. There’s nothing there.

– Anastasi – Every question that has been submitted through the forum is posted on the forum. If you send a question in another fashion it doesn’t …

– BCNS, Ron Smoller – I submitted through the forum, two questions, prior to Jan 21 and they’re still not there. That’s over 60 days. (The two questions, as of 3/30, were not on the update on the Energy Awareness Forum page.)

– Anastasi – I remember seeing them there.

– Audience member – Maybe they are gone now.

– Anastasi – Potentially, that is when we cut over to our new website, maybe.

– BCNS, Ron Smoller – They were meant to be on the Forum…

.Everything I have ever submitted to you ….. I have always followed your rules. I’m always trying to follow all of your rules. I don’t think they’re all great but I get it.

Peabody TV – 8:03 is where BCNS “remarks” begin. Stewart Lazares spoke just prior to 8:03.

The Peabody Municipal Light Commission met last night in regular session. This month’s handout on “Open Meeting Law & Remarks of the General Public” changed the rules on making remarks by the general public from those issued on last month’s agenda.

However, they did allow extended public comments that you’ll want to hear! The volume is poor again due to them not using microphones. 8:03 is where BCNS “remarks” begin. Stewart Lazares spoke just prior to 8:03. https://peabodytv.org/videos-on-demand/?vid=1220

Anastasi presented a detailed and informative summary of the budget. This is a transcription from the PAT video recording of the January 25 meeting.

“PMLP is proudly in its 133rd year in service to our great community. Every year of that rich history, we have succeeded in many endeavors. Since 1891, every endeavor we ever have undertaken has one singular purpose: to provide power. As few as 5 yrs ago, providing power was fairly straight forward. Since 2019 however the electric industry has seen unprecedented change bringing volatility to all aspects of our business, from fuel sources to generation, from emissions to transmission, from storage systems to renewable technologies. Not to mention, an ongoing pervavsive shift toward electrication with ev cars, heat pumps, and even lawn care tools.

“Add to that drastic evolution, on a timeline, smack dab in the middle of those recent five years, add a global pandemic. The fall out from COVID 19 is still affecting our people, our economy and our industry – ushering in radical changes to workforce structure, and talent, severe supply chain issues and monumental rates of inflation. And, as if this wasn’t enough, new federal and state mandates are dictating extremely rapid road maps to somehow, miraculously, get to net zero carbon emissions in less than 30 years while at the same time ramping up reliability and resilience requirements. Frankly, this is an impossible situation in mathematics this is referred to as an indeterminate form. In life, we call this a no win scenario. We can’t possibly hope to win. But that’s okay. We can hope to achieve goals. That’s what we intend to do to the best of our ability and with a never quit approach.

“All of these factors that affect the industry. PMLP and our ratepayers, cost money. Yet in an effort to keep costs low for our customers, PMLP has raised rates only once in the past 14 years This year, we faced many of the previously mentioned problems, primarily 300% inflation for transformers and other critical infrastructure supplies. Milestone 2023 winter and summers equated to a 3.4 reduction in electric sales and work force demand and retention challenges.

“In the face of these adversities, PMLP’s budget for 2024 needed three revisions to avoid showing losses. In the end, this meant we had to cut $13 miliion, which is nearly 20 percent of what we planned.

“Despite these unfortunate cuts, the budget we will be discussing tonight presents PMLP with a bare bones path to accomplish our prime directive of delivering power while also hopefully providing some insight into how we can initiate a long term, sustainable cost of service study to navigate the future years I hope to have this cost of service study for review in February or March for your discussion.

Some notable projects and initiatives that survived the cuts are:

Rate review and new rate design

Utility scale battery energy storage system

Main building renovations

Active grant pursuit with community outreach

Continued citywide LED lighting conversions

New fleet communications system

Substation infrastructure upgrades’

A mass notification system for outages and other emergencies

Commission Chair Melvin started to reconvene the meeting.

Anastasi asked: “Is there any discussion about the budget? You could choose to vote now or vote in executive session and come back and ratify.”

Melvin: “We’re going to vote on the budget in executive session.”

Anastasi: “That’s your choice.”

Melvin: “I have no further discussion on the budget but, if I could add, we are the elected officials that go through this budget and that’s why we’re elected. This process is really not an open process to the public. However, at some point it will be released.”

A copy of the finished budget arrived to BCNS two days later: go to PMLP 2024 Budget

Newly elected Chairman Ray Melvin announced, “Under my chairmanship, I will always ensure transparency with the public, as my predecessors have done in the past; however, going forward, the board will accept any and all questions pertaining to the light department through e-mail, website, social media or phone.”

Sounds like an improvement – yet, a brief time later in the meeting, Melvin would not allow the board to discuss the light plant’s 2024 budget during the open public meeting.

“I have no further discussion on the budget but, if I could add, we are the elected officials that go through this budget and that’s why we’re elected. This process is really not an open process to the public. However, at some point it will be released.”

Melvin prevented discussion in the open meeting and sent it into executive session, Although BCNS left the meeting when the board went into executive session, we received a copy of the budget two days later. The board voted on it when they returned that night from executive session. We don’t know how commissioners voted or the amount of funding passed,

After the public meeting adjourned, Commissioner Tom Paras (a 20-year member of the Commission) said that the PMLP budget was publicly discussed in the past, but now “it’s all done in-house.”

During the public part of the meeting on Jan. 25, PMLP Manager Joe Anastasi did provide comments on the proposed budget; his remarks begin at 17:43 on the video recording link at https://peabodytv.org/videos-on-demand/?vid=1180: (Note: If BCNS did not provide volunteer support to Peabody TV, the meeting would not have been recorded and we would not have access to Anastasi’s comments.)

During the public participation part of the Jan 25 meeting, Peabody resident and Breathe Clean North Shore co-founder, Ron Smoller, also provided comments about the commission’s continued lack of transparency.

“I want to express my disappointment in the PMLP regarding this year’s budget process. Every other City of Peabody council or committee that has a budget has an open and transparent budget process where a proposed budget is released for review and comment ahead of a public vote. Not PMLP. The budget for ‘our’ light plant is created and discussed behind closed doors and even standard requests to see the proposed budget are declined. ‘No budget for you,’ that’s what we hear.”

Smoller continued, “Even though it’s not a requirement at this time to provide a draft budget to interested owners of the PMLP (it is ours, remember) it would certainly be in line with the stated intent of PMLP to be more transparent… We have heard many times over the last year or two about how transparent you want to be, frankly the problem is, your actions have not matched your words, I ask you again to consider this unnecessarily secretive process going forward.”

Last year, we never saw the complete proposed budget but were provided with a working document and had all of our questions answered before the ’23 PMLP budget was passed. They’ve changed that up this year. Want to know how the PMLP will spend millions and on what? Me too. Not sure when that will happen. Why?

The Commission meets at 6:30PM, 201 Warren St. Ext. PAT coverage of meeting will be available Jan. 26.

Earmarked for open space, the parcel to be purchased is now the Green Meadows Golf Course.  The city has leased the golf course land from Rousselot, and its predecessor, Eastman Gelatine Corporation, for the past 20 years.  The land purchase includes the lime pits/lagoons where tannery and other industrial waste was dumped for decades.  The lagoons, a former Superfund site, were buried when the golf course was built and have remained undisturbed.  The city pledged to continue to keep the area of closed pits undisturbed.

The industrial site has been used for more than 150 years, starting with glue factories that became Eastman Gelatine Corporation and now Rousselot.  The facility today is within an Environmental Justice area.

Health concerns prompted the state to conduct a study of the 22-acre lime pit parcel. In 1984, the Mass. Dept. of Public Health studied an excess number of deaths due to pancreatic cancer in a census tract near the polluted pits. The study found twelve deaths occurred from 1974 to 1982 while only four deaths were expected, based on statewide mortality rates for that disease,  “The likelihood of this occuring by chance is extremely rare (9 out of 10,000),” the report reads  https://ia802503.us.archive.org/11/items/investigationint00mass_0/investigationint00mass_0_djvu.txt

Seepage  from  the  lagoons  entered  both  Sidney’s  Pond  and  a potential  aquifer  found  in  the  Meadow  Pond  area .  The lagoons are downstream from Spring Pond, which is  part of the Peabody water system.

The waste generated from the gelatine process is  called “tankage” which  contains  90%  water,  as  well  as  solid  bone pieces  (Eastman  Gelatine  Lime  Lagoon  Site  History).  Tankage  has  been  dumped in  the  lagoons  across  Washington  Street  from  the  plant  for  over  50  years.   As  of  March  1983,  the  company  ceased  dumping  in  the  lagoons  and began  trucking  the  sludge  to  the  South  Essex  Sewerage  District  (SESD) treatment  facility  in  Salem. 

The company is one of the city’s largest land owners with 14 parcels that cover 330 acres in Peabody.  While it was owned by Eastman Gelatine, they company sold, leased or donated several parcels for municipal and civic projects: 

• Leased land on Lynnfield Street to the Peabody-Lynnfield YMCA for $1 so it could build a gymnasium and office, in 2002 donated four acres worth $1 million 
• Gave property next to the plant to the City which became the George Peabody Museum.
• Contributed several pieces of old tanning equipment
• Leased 40 acres around Sidney’s Pond to the city (Meadows Golf Course)

With 137 acres being purchased by the city, the company owns another 193 acres.  Plans for those plots have not been announced.  Mayor Ted Bettenocourt said the city hopes to continue to add open space to provide potential access to: Goldthwaite Brook, Flume Pond and nearby vernal pools, as well as the area behind Lynnfield Street to the YMCA.  

Of interest to BCNS:

The Rousselot site includes a natural gas generator housed off Allen’s Lane.  It includes 3 combustion boilers and 2 phosphate dryers that emit 42194.5 metric tons of fossil fuel based CO2 emissions. 

In comparison, the oldest generator Unit 1 at the Waters River Power Station emits 6,746.3 metric tons annually of CO2.  The second peaker at Waters River, Unit 2, emits 14114.4 metric tons of CO2 annually.  That’s  a total of 20860.7 metric tons of CO2 emitted each year.

Rousselot’s plant emits 21,000 metric tons of CO2 more than the Waters River substation – although, the third peaker at the plant is not yet operating.

Questions:  Does the sale of the property grandfather-in the plant’s generator?  Is it running now?  When will it stop?  

SOURCES: 

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/BirdObserver4.4_Page99-103_Birds%20of%20Springs%20Pond%20Area%2C%20Peabody-Salem_Rick%20S.%20Heil.pdf

https://ghgdata.epa.gov/ghgp/service/html/latest?et=undefined&id=1001068

https://ia802503.us.archive.org/11/items/investigationint00mass_0/investigationint00mass_0_djvu.txt

Curt Bellavance, Director of Community Development in Peabody, sent notice to BCNS on Dec. 28: “Because you have inquired about this in the past, I just wanted to let you know I submitted the necessary paperwork and reports to the Mass DOER for designation as a Green Community.  The DOER will review all the documents and we will most likely meet in another two weeks to discuss anything that may be outstanding or needs clarification,” he wrote.

Green Community status entitles the city to receive an initial adoption grant of $125,000, Once Peabody attains Green Community designation from the state, the city will receive an Adoption Grant in the amount of $125,000  and, once those funds are spent, the City will receive another $125,000 based on Peabody’s population. 

How will the city spend the funds?   Bellavance wrote the funds “would be used for a variety of projects, such as: insulation window replacement, heating systems, weatherization, electric vehicles, LED lighting, building operator certification training, air sealing, pipe insulation, and EV chargers.” 

The  Community Development Department will identify and target the most effective projects as part of the energy reduction plan, he said.

The Green Community grants are awarded to projects and find clean energy solutions to reduce costs and strengthen the local economy, technical help and financial suppor for local initiatives that improve energy efficiency.

This link leads to a description of the grants from 27 Massachusetts communities that were  funded in the Spring 2023 Green Community grant round: https://www.mass.gov/doc/competitive-grant-awards-2023-block-1/download

The  Community Development Department will identify and target the most effective projects as part of the energy reduction plan, he said.

This link leads to a description of the grants from 27 Massachusetts communities that were  funded in the Spring 2023 Green Community grant round: https://www.mass.gov/doc/competitive-grant-awards-2023-block-1/download

The Green Community grants are awarded to projects and clean energy solutions to reduce costs and strengthen the local economy, technical help and financial suppor for local initiatives that improve energy efficiency.

BCNS has wondered how the Green Community funds might be spent – in particular, BCNS supports the city’s desire to hire a Sustainability Director.  It appears Green Community funds won’t make that happen. 

I also don’t find mention of creating that position in the city’s 2024 budget published to date: https://peabody-ma.gov/finance/FY%202024%20%20Budget%20Presentation%20pdf.pdf

Both MMWEC and PMLP officials stated during public meetings that batteries are not a feasible replacement for the proposed plant because batteries are expensive, require more space than is available and would fail to provide adequate reliability to the electric grid.

“MMWEC said that batteries would not work for Peabody because there was not enough room on the site,” said Jane Dye of CHEF, Citizens for Holden’s Energy Future. “Our response was “What? Batteries don’t have to all be in the same place. Spread them around to different MLPs (muncipial light plants).”

That’s what’s happening. Fourteen MMWEC communities, including Peabody, have partnered wiith MMWEC and Delorean Power LLC (Delorean), a Virginia-based, energy storage project developer, owner and operator. The first 5MW battery energy storage facility is planned in Holden Mass.

PMLP’s website includes information about a utility battery storage facility. “Battery Storage reduces our bulk power costs by allowing us to store power when it is cheaper for us to buy (during non-peak times), and then to use the battery to shave the peak which helps to reduce stress on the bulk power system and reduces PMLP’s transmission and capacity costs. This will be a collaborative project with MMWEC, and is targeted to be installed on PMLP’s property at 201 Warren Street Ext.” https://pmlp.com/224/Current-Projects

The resulting shift in energy demand from on-peak to off-peak hours will lead to significant cost and environmental benefits for customers in the 14 communities involved. But, Peabody’s customers will also see a reduction in air pollution since our three oil-and-gas burning peaker plants should run less.

The energy storage project is the first in a series that Delorean has developed with facilitation from MMWEC. In late 2022, Delorean won an exclusive partnership to build similar energy storage projects across the state with many expected to finish construction by the end of 2024.

https://www.salemnews.com/…/article_7e98ab0c-d97c-5ea0…

(Psst – Seems our spectral visitors are infatuated with the audio of PMLP meetings. Who’s controlling the mics? No volume?! We’re working on it! Stay tuned!) On Halloween, 10/31. the audio was restored. Thanks PAT!

According to applications for permits, Special Project 2015A will emit nearly 51,000 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year—the equivalent of adding 11,000 combustion engine cars to Massachusetts’ roads each year. Furthermore, the peaker plant will require installing a natural gas compressor to increase natural gas pressure, a 90-foot smokestack and a 2,500-7,500 gallon new tank to hold aqueous urea.”

This view of the plant was revealed recently when parked vehicles were moved at the 58R Pulaski St address.

photos by Sophie Noelle Hartley