More on How Decisions are Made

The Town of Burrillville is not the decision making authority for approval of a power plant at Wallum Lake Road. Rhode Island law empowers the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) to coordinate the process and ultimately to make decisions for large public utilities like a power plant. The State law is intended to take local politics out of the decision. The same rationale exists for interstate utilities like the Algonquin Compressor Station over which Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has decision-making authority.

There are times when the Town of Burrillville will have input through providing advisory opinions and recommendations:

1.  In the Clear River Energy Center (CREC) project, the EFSB has asked for advisory opinions from town agencies, including the Planning and Zoning Boards. Their opinions are just that: advisory opinions that the EFSB must consider. Additionally, to keep in place the checks and balances so important to local government, no one, including the Town Council, has legal authority over Planning and Zoning opinions.
2. The Town Council’s role has just started and its impact will come later. As intervenors in the project, they will use experts hired by the Town to evaluate information and provide technical analysis and alternatives, if needed, to information that the EFSB will be reviewing. That includes, but is not limited to, environmental, noise, traffic, air and water quality. The EFSB will receive the Town’s opinions, testimony and evidence. They must consider that information in their decision-making, but can ultimately decide to use the input or not. Or, if the EFSB approves the project, it can use the input to place requirements or restrictions on a power plant before it’s built.