PORTSMOUTH — Monday’s Town Council meeting flew by in 18 minutes, but that certainly won’t be the case for its next two gatherings, both of which will be held in the Portsmouth High School auditorium due to an anticipated large turnout of residents.

At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 16, council will hold a public hearing to consider a host community agreement between the Town of Portsmouth and SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC, which wants to run electric cables through a section of town to transfer electricity generated by its off-shore wind facility.

At 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 22, the council will discuss and take action on the town’s request for proposals (RFP) regarding its future waste disposal options, which could possibly include a town-wide curbside pickup program.

And although it’s not being hosted by the Town Council, a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 24 by the R.I. Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) tackles yet another contentious local topic: the proposed permanent installation of Narragansett Electric Company’s liquified natural gas (LNG) vaporization facility on Old Mill Lane. That hearing begins at 6 p.m. and is also at PHS.

Host community agreement

SouthCoast Wind (formerly Mayflower Wind) proposes to construct an offshore wind energy generating facility in federal waters approximately 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 23 miles south of Nantucket within a federal lease area. 

The plan calls for connecting that facility via export cables through federal and state waters and eventually to an electrical substation at Brayton Point in Somerset in order to connect to the regional electric grid. To do that, the developers says they would need to run transmission cables up the Sakonnet River, beneath Island Park Beach, up Boyds Lane and Anthony Road, under the Montaup Country Club before reentering waters in Mt. Hope Bay and making final landfall in Somerset.

The proposal has generated considerable opposition from many residents who claim running transmission cables up the Sakonnet River will do irreparable harm to marine life, and in extension recreational and commercial fishing. Some also say offshore wind is not a viable solution to climate change, there are more suitable routes for the cables than up the river and over Portsmouth, the project will benefit Massachusetts and not Rhode Island, and more.

Their charges have been sharply disputed by many scientists and proponents of renewable energy, who say that opponents have greatly exaggerated the negative impacts of offshore wind and have made logical fallacies in their arguments.

The plan is currently under review by EFSB, which will ultimately decide if it goes forward; the Town Council, along with many other groups, can submit only an advisory opinion on the project to EFSB.

On Tuesday, the council will consider entering into a host community agreement between the Town of Portsmouth and SouthCoast Wind. Such an agreement would provide annual revenue to the town once the project has been constructed. Those payments, which can be used at the discretion of the town, may support locally driven initiatives such as coastal resiliency, broadband, energy efficiency, and other town-determined priorities, according to SouthCoast.

According to the agenda language for the hearing, the proposed host community agreement “provides for certain payments to be made by SouthCoast to the Town which includes annual payments of which a fixed portion, in the amount of $125,000 for each phase for the first 10 years of the project, would be allocated and deemed to be a payment in lieu of taxes and a stabilized amount of taxes to be paid on account of SouthCoast’s underground onshore export cables to be located in the Town.”

According to a draft of the host community agreement proposed for Portsmouth, the town would receive a total investment of $23.22 million over 33 years while receiving assurances that local construction impacts would be “minimized.” 

The town and SouthCoast would work “cooperatively on finalizing the route(s) for the onshore export cables, including minor modifications to the proposed routes that have been submitted to the siting boards,” according to the proposed agreement.

Also under the proposed pact, the town would agree “not oppose the project and/or onshore export cables before the (EFSB),” the draft agreement states.

The full draft agreement can be read on the town’s website at www.portsmouthri.gov.

More trash talk

On Jan. 22, the council will finally consider a change to a request for proposals (RFP) regarding its waste disposal program.

After more than three hours of contentious debate on Oct. 23, 2023, the council voted unanimously to advertise two separate RFPs:

• One is to develop a town-wide curbside collection program, which would provide for bulky waste to be picked up curbside for an additional cost to each resident. The town would seek just one vendor for the job in order to reduce costs for enrolled residents.

• The other is to prepare an RFP for curbside collection, but to keep the transfer station open for bulky waste and diversion materials two days a week. 

Hundreds of transfer station users, however, signed a petition demanding no changes to the current transfer station operation, and council member David Gleason has requested an addendum to the RFP to include an option for bids to “keep the transfer station open, in its entirety, as currently operating. The RFP shall include bids with use of town trash bags and without.”

The matter was originally on the agenda for the council’s regular meeting on Nov. 27 at Town Hall, but had to be moved to a special assembly at PHS in early December to accommodate the large number of interested residents. However, since discussion on the East Main Road roundabout went on for so long, the council tabled the matter until Jan. 22.

Old Mill Lane

Another controversial issue is the proposed permanent installation of the LNG storage/peak shaving facility on Old Mill Lane in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

For several years the site has been used only as a seasonal option to meet peak demand during the colder months. However in April 2022, the company filed a supplemental application with EFSB, identifying the

Old Mill Lane facility as its preferred long-term solution and to seek a full license

The EFSB will be accepting public comment on the proposal to permanently install equipment, with a potential to expand on the site.

The Old Mill Lane applications can be found here.