June 10, 2011
by Erik Potter, Enterprise News

Opponents of the proposed natural gas power plant on the city’s south side won a surprise victory Thursday when the state siting board said developers could not use city drinking water in their plant designs.

If the tentative 4-3 ruling holds, it would be a setback for Advanced Power, the company behind the plant, which still needs to find 2 million gallons of water a day to use in the 350-megawatt plant.

Kate Archard, a Brockton resident and opponent of the power plant, said the hearing room at South Station – filled mostly with industry people in support of the plant – was stunned at the ruling, which came down late Thursday afternoon.

“You could hear a penny drop,” she said.

[...]

Archard said the board members’ ruling came down to protecting the water ecosystem of Silver Lake – where Brockton gets the majority of its drinking water.

While depleting the lake isn’t the issue it once was, now that the city has water from the Aquarius desalination plant, Archard said the board members were not satisfied that the energy benefits of using the water at the plant would outweigh the potential environmental harm to the lake.

“It was a big win,” said Fred McDermott, another Brockton opponent of the plant who was at the hearing. “We’re thrilled for ourselves and the people in the Silver Lake area.”

[...]

The siting board’s original approval of the plant is under appeal in the Supreme Judicial Court. That case is pending while the siting board makes a final ruling on the three proposed changes.

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