Read these comments and you'll learn alot!

Deja vu all over again!.

Comments

[P.Bacon]

I do not live in Berlin but find it such a shame that the people of Northern NH cannot trust Laidlaw, the state government or the federal government to tell the truth and to assist in the revitalization of the North Country. So many articles in the paper about how everyone is going to do this and that and make it all better. Just one mess after another. And just like the federal prison, no really significant number of jobs from Laidlaw. Possible lay-offs in the winter? The federal prison was supposed to create 59 jobs. The state prison can't get enough staff and some of them are already looking to move over to the federal prison when it opens. Who staffs the state prison then? Will anyone really even apply to Laidlaw if they do manage to open? There has to be better solutions.People of Berlin, go to the town meetings and speak out, call your representatives in NH and Washington. Thanks for all the entries from people who have saught out the truth and cared enough to inform the citizenry.

[Lea]

This now makes 2 released wood studies that confirm the potential problem of Laidlaw's size and from what I understand there is a third saying the same thing but I have not been able to get my hands on it.

[jon edwards]

Very important wood supply study on Coos County and surrounding area which takes minutes to download as it is a large file. Take particular note on page 11 of where Laidlaw potentially stands in all of this.

http://www.cleanpowerdevelopment.us/documents/biomassFuelAvailabilityLarge.pdf

[jon edwards]

At tonight's council session, Clean Power Development, unveiled the second wood study to be released on northern NH wood supply that shows a need for the company to downgrade the size of their proposed plant to under 30 mw, the final size to be in harmony with demand created by the Fraser biomass changeover. In the expert wood study, it is pointed out that the local wood supply is insufficient to support more than one of the project proposals, but can operate in harmony with Fraser's proposed biomass conversion. In Mel Liston's hour long presentation, the owner of Clean Power educated the council on a variety of hurdles facing the North County and the biomass project proposed locally and he outlined his business plan to effectively navigate his company and the north country forward. This presentation was open to the public, reporters and council members were provided with copies of the wood study and the wood study is or will be available on Clean Power's web site at http://www.cleanpowerdevelopment.us/projects.php

[Jonathan Edwards]

Katie, Tonights meeting is a work session and will not provide for public input. Thanks for your help in trying to get organized. I think the first meeting to organize for will be for next Monday night's council meeting. Who's interested in showing up?

[KDPaine]

Jon, how about a listing here of the time of all meetings that you think we should show up for?
Make CoosConversation a source for activism?

[jon edwards]

What Lea is referring to is politics and business practices at their worst; elected officials, a company and those that stand to profit or lose money in direct proportion to their success or failure,potentially acting against the will of the citizens of Ellicotteville NY and now, apparently, Berlin.

Berlin's silent majority is just that; too silent. It's been well over 500 days of Laidlaw promises since they proclaimed they were purchasing the Burgess mill site and now they've switched direction to possibly leasing the infrastructure from a company that burns turkey manure in another biomass facility they've financed. I'm not sure if we deplete the area's wood supply that cost of chipping turkey manure to Berlin is possible or even something imagined, but the hurdles these companies face with this old Burgess mill seem endless.

The citizens of this city need to act for themselves rather than leave it up to someone else to set stage for a better future. If, as a citizen of Berlin, you wish to see that rusted boiler sitting there idle throughout the rest of this decade, sit back drink your beer and fall asleep by its silence. Or wake up, smell the coffee, go to council meetings or at least do something, speak up and ask for their help to end this road block into Berlin's brighter future. Ask them what's being done to convince NAD to at least look at alternatives for that Burgess mill site, or ask what guaranty they can provide that this Laidlaw project will be different from any other of the company's projects that have yet to become energy producing biomass facilities since the company's inception in 1999. Ask what the city plans to do to protect the coos county wood supply from depletion as a UNH study shows can potentially happen with the influx of a biomass plant of this size dependent on area wood supply. Ask how Grennova will flourish as a pellet company with a biomass company of this size exhausting the wood supply and ask how they expect the Fraser conversion to biomass not to become a risk to employment of those workers if/when wood supply effects that company.

If you haven't notice lately, huge tracts of land have been clear cut in Coos county leading to a verifiable UNH study that clearly defines we have a limited supply of wood that this Laidlaw company could exhaust. As a local citizen burning wood or pellets, what if it effected your ability to purchase wood? Do you think it's worth the direct 35 to 45 jobs the company quotes will be the end result? What if you had another biomass company that was willing to employ the same number of direct employees without depleting the area wood supply. You do have an interested company by the name of Clean Power which has stated they would burn half the wood and provide the same number of direct jobs. And they wouldn't be located in the city's direct center sticking out like a rusted statue of liberty to the city's main entrance. Their facility would look like a barn as viewed on http://www.cleanpowerdevelopment.us/business.php Ask all of the questions Lea raises in her very accurate post of what currently is happening. Stop being silent, as silent majorities don't effectively accomplish anything here.

[Lea]

Just a quik comment... What is happening in Berlin is a continuation of what happened in Ellicottville, NY. Bartoszek would like people to believe it was rich real estate agents (sound familiar) who came into Ellicottville “after” Laidlaw filed for the permits to build their plant. Laidlaw has made claims that “wealthy” land developers built expensive “lodges” and tried to turn the town into a “tourist” destination after Laidlaw filed for a permit. The truth is Ellicottville has been a ski resort since the 1930’s and has been a major destination of tourists from western NY State for many years. It was Ellicottville’s decision the town was no place for a biomass generating plant. I have been told by people involved with the deal in Ellicotville that Laidlaw first went to the state to get support. Everything was kept secret. The citizens of Ellicottville went out on the internet like the people in Berlin to find out what was going on and they didn’t like it. Many felt that Laidlaw was doing an end run around the town to get their plant built. There was pressure from people in the state to approve the plant but Ellicottville bristled at this pressure and refused to yield. It was originally a member of the Laidlaw opposition group who passed on the identity of the IHUB investor’s website and its strange goings on.

Here in NH again “mum” is the word. State senators refuse to talk about the subject, the city government says little, and the State commission who supposedly is trying to help the North Country with its economic problems, sits on Laidlaw information like it was a national secret. Why is the Laidlaw deal such a big secret? What’s the deal with the queue? Why was Tamarack allowed to back out over the queue but Laidlaw stays in? What is this “special deal” that Laidlaw claims will allow them to bypass the queue rules but everyone else has to adhere to? Noble is paying $10 million dollars to upgrade the capacity of the gird from 60 MW to 100 MW. Do they have a say in who uses this capacity they paid for? What about Clean Power Development and their plans? Are they a better fit for Berlin? They’re a NH company with NH owners while Laidlaw is a NY company who wants to use a Maine chip supplier. Shouldn’t Clean Power be receiving more support since we are supposed to be trying to help the NH economy? Am I missing something here? Laidlaw has existed since 1999 and in that time they have not built or ran a biomass plant and to top it off they‘re a “Pink Sheet” company. Their stock is a “sub penny” stock only worth 1/10 th of a penny. What about the wood supply? UNH says there is not enough to supply a 65 MW biomass plant. There are now two studies out there, done by forestry professionals that say the same thing. Bartoszek, a stock broker from NY, claims to know more about NH forests than our own experts. Rumor has it some of the owners of the biomass plants to the south of Berlin have expressed their reservations to the State about the chip supply. Is this just a rumor or is it also part of the State Secret?

Now lets get to the impact of Laidlaw as far as jobs go. Laidlaw isn’t going to have much more impact that Greenova, Clean Power and much less than the prisons, and would be a drop in the bucket compared to those employed by the pulp mill in the good times when Brown Paper was king. Laidlaw claims they’ll vary their power output with Noble. As Noble ramps up with the wind, Laidlaw will ramp down. This means during the wind months in Berlin, fall and winter, the plant will hardly run. What will happen to their employees then?

The bottom line is whether or not this biomass plant is worth all the trouble knowing that once it is built, Berlin will have slammed the door shut on tourism as a source of income. You will now have a possible noisy plant in the middle of town belching steam and blocking the view south and will have one trailer truck every 10 minutes going by the ball fields 24 hours a day during the summer months. And if you think the plant will draw other industries go take a look at Bridgewater, Tamworth, Bethlehem, and Whitefield. Finally, contrary to what some people think, the plant will not lower the cost of electricity in Berlin by one red cent.