Hearing on Withdrawing Water from Charlestown to Cool Northern RI Power Plant
When: Tuesday, December 5 at 6 p.m. (doors open at 5 p.m.)
Where: Charlestown Elementary School, 363 Carolina Back Road (Rt. 112), Charlestown (map below)
What: Hearing to allow public comment from Charlestown citizens and others on Invenergy Thermal Development’s proposal to withdraw groundwater from Charlestown and transport it by tanker trucks to Burrillville to cool the turbines of the natural gas and diesel power plant they are seeking to build in the forest in that town.
Who: The hearing is held by the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB), a state commission. The EFSB is the body in Rhode Island who will decide whether to allow the water withdrawal and also whether to allow the power plant. This will be the only public hearing held in Charlestown on this issue. The Town of Charlestown had to take legal action to get the EFSB to hold this hearing and recognize Charlestown as a community affected by the power plant.
Where will the water be withdrawn? From the center of the Indian Cedar Swamp, an over 900 acre, pristine wetland. The land was previously a state wildlife management area. It was transferred to the Narragansett Indian Tribe as part of the Settlement Act in 1978.
How much water will be withdrawn? Invenergy gives a range of 15,000 gallons of water per day up to approximately 724,320 gallons per day. The number of days at the higher level is not clear. In other contracts for water that Invenergy has attempted to negotiate for this power plant, there was no cap allowed by Invenergy on the volume of water withdrawn.
How many tanker truck trips will there be on local roads? At times there may be as few as 4 and at other times as many as 40 (or more) truck trips per day (20 in each direction).
Which roads will they use? Invenergy isn’t saying, but routes out of the Indian Cedar Swamp could be any of the following:
- Narragansett Trail (near the Francis Carter Preserve) to Kings Factory Road to Rt. 91 to Rt. 112 in Carolina and on to Richmond
- Rt. 112 to Rt. 2 to Rt. 138
- Kings Factory Road to Rt. 1 or Rt. 91
- And other combinations of the above routes
Isn’t the Cedar Swamp a conservation area? It was transferred to the Narragansett Tribe with the restriction that it be “held in perpetuity for conservation purposes and shall not be improved or developed.” Developing wells at the center of the cedar swamp, a pumping station, and some kind of access road will require significant alteration to the wetland. How that can comply with the conservation restriction is not explained.
Is the Narragansett Tribe in favor of this? One faction of the Narragansett made the deal, while other groups of tribal members are protesting the deal. Without a vote it is hard to know what the majority position is.
Please attend the hearing! No matter what your opinion is on withdrawing water from Charlestown and trucking it to Burrillville to cool a power plant, this is your only chance to express your opinion and influence the decision of the EFSB.
If you have a Facebook account visit our Facebook event on this hearing to sign up as “Going” or “Interested” and Facebook will send you a reminder as the date of the hearing gets near. Please also consider inviting your Rhode Island Facebook friends to this event.
Map to Charlestown Elementary School
November 30, 2017 @ 1:05 pm
Anthony P. Marchetti
This event is causing horror and stress to the taxpayers with no voice in the state of Rhode Island. It will impact the future of wild life, roads, tourism and the overall beauty of this now pristine community. Be aware of those you vote for in political elections. They do not have you or the state’s best interest at heart,
November 30, 2017 @ 12:54 pm
Mary A. Marchetti
November 30, 2017
It appears that the voice and vote of the Charlestown resident is unheeded. As a taxpayer of this community it makes you wonder where your tax dollars are going. If the political appointees of Providence can over cede what is best for Charlestown and allow this to happen what can it do in the future to other communities in Rhode Island. Watch this situation carefully it may set a precedent. We must all stand in unison and reject this proposal.
November 28, 2017 @ 11:52 am
Road, flora and fauna devastation, wells drying up from Invenergy pumping as well as from continued drought, property value decline, negative impact on RI tourism, increased traffic issues, increased taxes for repair of roads and bridges…the list goes on and on. These and more extremely negative issues aside and if the power plant actually becomes reality, is there any reason ocean water cannot be used to cool turbines?
November 16, 2017 @ 8:03 pm
To whom it may concern ,there may be another way to stop this,by helping us the Sampson Family,we can help.you
November 13, 2017 @ 12:13 pm
Subject to the 1978 Narragansett Land Trust agreement, all of the land that is held in trust by the Federal government of the Narragansett’s use is subject to “all” of the laws of the state of Rhode Island and the town of Charlestown, as any citizen’s property in the town would be. I am curious to know if there was a road/traffic impact study conducted on Invenergy’s endeavor to procure water for their energy plant? Does anyone know what the projected amount of trucks that would be necessary to provide water to the energy plant? Has anyone given any forethought whatsoever about what the trucks carrying all that water (8 pounds per gallon) would do to roadways and bridges designed to handle local, rural traffic? What route would these trucks be taking to get to Burrillville from the wells, there really are not too many roads that could accommodate any kind of heavy trucking! Just to go through a rural community in such a venture without any forethought whatsoever is ludicrous and also dangerous to our rural communities and not just Charlestown all of the surrounding communities equally as well.
November 9, 2017 @ 2:47 pm
Please watch this issue closely. The tanker trucks transporting the water alone will change life for you. Here on Route 216, the trucks coming from the Copar /Comolli quarry made our lives miserable. I had to drive my kids to Chariho every day because of the wanton carelessness of Copars truck drivers, who began arriving well before the quarry opened for daily business. They sped, they had trucks uncovered and at times even had no license plates. All of this reported to the Westerly Police to no avail. As to the flora and fauna of the once pristine wetlands that were disturbed, well, that’s an entire article in and of itself. Pay attention because there are lots of little details that add up to one change in lifestyle for Chrlestown. Providence politicos just see us as an asset waiting to be ravaged.