Protestors stand in front of Oxford Town Hall Feb. 22 holding signs opposing construction of the Competitive Power Ventures Towantic Energy Center on property near Oxford Airport. They were at a press conference called to dispute the project’s expected financial benefits to the town. (Marjorie Needham photo)
By MARJORIE NEEDHAM
The Stop Towantic Power Coalition spokesman, Paul Coward of Oxford, said at a press conference Monday that the proposed Oxford power plant will bring much less money into Oxford than town officials have projected. The income will be less, the group said, because if the power plant is built, an additional 520 homes planned for Oxford Greens, an over-55 community located about a half mile from the proposed plant, may not be built. They say the town’s numbers erroneously assume benefits from both the plant and the additional housing units.
The group’s cost/benefit analysis concludes that the financial benefit to Oxford if the plant is built will be $142.8 million over a 22-year period. If the plant is not built, the group says the financial benefit to Oxford over the same period will be $405 million. Coward said the group wants Oxford First Selectman George Temple and the Oxford Planning and Zoning Commission to reevaluate bringing the 805-megawatt power plant to town.
Coward also said the town can’t build the plant unless the voters approve. “We as voters have the right to approve the project,” he said.
Temple said in a telephone interview Wednesday any claim that Oxford residents never got to vote on the project is untrue. He said they voted for it in a referendum 15 years ago when Oxford sold the land for the project. “It was very much an issue at the referendum,” he said. “So it was put to a vote.” He said voting was done by paper ballot and there was such a high turnout for the referendum that ballot counting went on until 3 a.m.
Temple said what the group thinks doesn’t really matter because the town has a tax agreement in place with the power plant’s builder, Competitive Power Ventures (CPV). “It’s out of my hands. You have to honor agreements. That’s the law,” he said.
Asked if he thought CPV would abandon the project, Temple said, “I know it is going to proceed. We have already gotten inquiry about how to proceed under the agreement. I expect steel to start going into the ground next month.” He later modified his statement to say steel might not go in the ground next month, but he does expect CPV to start work on the project next month.
As for the Stop Towantic group’s financial analysis, Temple said the group had not presented its numbers to him. He said all he knows about it is what he has read in the newspapers, but, he said, “They are kind of reaching for straws here.”
He said the town’s agreement was signed 15 years ago when Mary Ann Drayton-Rogers was first selectman. He said at one point the builder threatened to leave town and abandon the project, but Drayton-Rogers modified the agreement so they would not leave.
“Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have done it. I would have called their bluff,” Temple said.
He said voters turned down the town’s most recent attempts to modify the agreement. The modification would have brought more tax money to the town and was possible because the original agreement allowed for modifications if the plant’s electrical output changed. The expected output has increased to 805 megawatts from 512 megawatts since the original agreement was signed.
The coalition’s financial analysis is based in part on new Oxford Greens homes selling at a rate of 66 homes per year until the remaining 520 homes have been built. They noted that last year only 16 new homes sold in Oxford Greens while 66 new homes sold in a similar 55-and-over community in Prospect. They attributed the lower sales in Oxford to concerns prospective buyers have about the power plant and said the 50 fewer homes built in Oxford last year represent a loss of approximately $350,000 in taxes.
Also in their analysis is a comparison of the economic benefits to the town of having the plant with 25 employees who might not live in Oxford versus the economic benefits of having 700 to 800 new homeowners in town. Their analysis says the benefits of not building the plant surpass those of building the plant after 4 or 5 years.
Their assumptions are based on either all or none of the remaining 520 Oxford Greens homes being built and do not include scenarios in which some, but not all, homes sell.
Despite the coalition’s efforts, Temple said CPV is already working on the road leading to the plant and will be closing its part of the deal with its investors very soon.
Temple noted the town has already received millions of dollars from CPV in lieu of taxes. He said CPV provided the town with a new pumping station and a new fire truck.
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