A PROPOSAL TO build a wood-burning power plant in Springfield is back in play after recent court rulings, but health advocates warn it could worsen the city’s already high asthma rates.
Palmer Renewable Energy first proposed the project in 2008. The company received permits from the city and state to build a biomass power plant, but since then, advocates, residents, public health experts, local officials, and legislators have fought against the project. In spring 2021, Massachusetts’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked its permit. Springfield officials argue the permits granted by the city have expired. However, a Superior Court judge ruled in January that the state-issued air permit is still valid, and the state Appeals Court ruled in May that the local building permits issued by the city are also valid.
The rulings allow the company to move forward with the biomass power plant which would burn wood and other organic material for energy.
The company can leverage a provision in the 2021 climate law that permits wood-burning power plants to sell renewable energy credits to municipal light plants beginning in 2026. While the state mandates that electric utilities source a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable energy, biomass power plants are not considered eligible under those rules. However, the 2021 law established a separate requirement for municipality-owned utilities, specifically including biomass as a qualifying clean energy source.
The attorneys who represented Palmer Renewable Energy did not respond to a request for comment on the company’s court victories.
Health advocates argued at a virtual event last week – organized by the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition, and the Healthy Air Network – that adding a biomass plant would roll back the progress that the city has made in reducing its asthma rates.
Opponents of the project – represented by the Conservation Law Foundation – are appealing the decision to the Supreme Judicial Court. They are also advocating for a legislative change proposed by Sen. Adam Gomez of Springfield that would remove wood-burning plants from the state’s definition of non-carbon-emitting sources for municipal plants.
Springfield was designated the “asthma capital” of the country in 2019 and had the fourth highest asthma rate in the nation in 2024, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
Gomez, who has opposed the project since he was a Springfield city councilor, called the inclusion of biomass in the 2021 law as a source of clean energy for municipal light plants a “loophole.” Emissions from a biomass plant are up to 2.8 times higher than emissions from sources like oil or coal. These types of power plants release harmful air pollutants like particulate matter and dioxins.
Wood-burning plants have been pitched as a carbon-neutral energy source, based on the idea that any carbon released will be recaptured by new trees. However, scientists question whether this process is truly carbon neutral, since it can take decades for trees to grow enough to offset the carbon emissions.
“If we don’t close the loophole, this polluting facility may finally have the financial lifeline it needs to become a reality, and we need to stop it now,” Gomez said at the event last week. “The bill is not just about words on a page; it’s about shutting off the flow of public dollars and clean energy subsidies to a facility that has no business being called green.”
Gomez’s proposal is included in the larger energy affordability bill that Gov. Maura Healey proposed in May to lower energy costs across the state.
Sarita Hudson, a senior director at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, said at the virtual event that Springfield has improved its air quality and asthma rates over the last 10 years, but that there are many reasons why Springfield tends to have bad air quality. The city has two major highways, industrial facilities, and hosted a fossil fuel-burning power plant up until 2022. And, because Springfield sits in a valley, air pollution gets trapped there.
Springfield residents have been fighting the biomass plant ever since the project was proposed, according to Michael Fenton, Springfield’s city council president. “Our opposition has really been throughout all the decades,” he said.
Gomez called the proposed facility a “zombie plant.” He said, “No matter how many times it’s defeated, it keeps coming back to life.”
Springfield residents and advocates mobilized against the project as soon as the City Council first issued the special permit to Palmer in 2008. The council initially approved the permit because the power plant would bring 50 full-time jobs and up to $1 million in tax revenue for the city. The company also promised to provide other benefits to the city, such as $667,000 in infrastructure improvements and $25,000 for a “green energy education” program in public schools.
After opposition to the power plant mounted, the city council in 2011 revoked the special permit for the biomass project, but the city’s building commissioner issued separate building permits that Palmer said were adequate for the project to move forward. In 2018, Palmer announced its intentions to break ground on the project, but the city, backed by the Zoning Board of Appeals, argued the permits had expired.
This year, both the air and the building permits have been revived through the state’s Superior Court and Appeals Court decisions.
“To be honest, I thought this issue was long gone,” said Gomez. “We’ve written letters, we’ve organized meetings, we’ve marched, we’ve testified, we’ve rallied, we’ve sued. … But now we find ourselves here once again facing the revived threat of the Palmer Renewable Energy Biomass Plant.”
