TRAVERSE CITY -- Several local residents expressed reservations to public utility officials about plans to build wood-burning power plants in and around Traverse City.
Concerns voiced at the Tuesday meeting included impacts to air quality, heavy truck traffic and placing a biomass power plant in an industrial park off Parsons Road that's close to residential neighborhoods, schools, a medical facility and Grand Traverse Bay. Traverse City Light & Power board members may consider the land purchase at their Nov. 24 meeting, said Ed Rice, the public utility's executive director.
"Just across that road from the industrial park is a very large neighborhood with a park where children play," said Susan Auer Kirt, who lives on Parsons Road near the possible plant site.
Kirt asked Light & Power board members to "not be swayed by the (industrial) zoning."
Community activist M'Lynn Hartwell spoke about how biomass technology may be worse than coal-fired power production because research shows there are more arsenic releases and more particulate matter in the emitted smoke, among other concerns.
"Environmentally or economically, biomass appears to be an irresponsible choice for this community and we need to continue to look for other options," she said.
Utility officials said they won't push forward plans to spend upwards of $70 million to build as many as three wood-burning power plants until after a series of forums to gauge public opinion. The forums will come as part of a public relations campaign designed to sell the idea.
Light & Power officials are trying to find more renewable energy sources to meet, or exceed, state mandates set to go into effect in 2015.
Former Traverse City Mayor Margaret Dodd said efforts to involve the public in decision-making about biomass is "cooperation," but moving forward with a land purchase before a community decision is made is "confrontation." She also said she is concerned about smoke from a biomass plant and resulting heavy truck traffic in town.
"Zoning designation does not prevent what moves through the air," Dodd said.
Light & Power's board members did not respond to public comments before they went into a closed session to discuss buying three parcels that total about seven acres that are near property the utility already owns in the industrial park where a substation was built. If approved, a biomass plant will take up to five years to build, Rice said.
Related Items:
- TCL&P may buy potential biomass site
- Poll: Should TCLP involve public on biomass?
- Editorial: Public must have biomass input
- Light & Power proposal at center of debate
- TCL&P may hire biomass consultant
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