Plans for Berlin biomass plant dead
THE CONWAY DAILY SUN, Thursday, July 7, 2011— Page 3
BY BARBARA TETREAULT THE BERLIN DAILY SUN
BERLIN — It's lights out for plans for a 75-megawatt biomass plant in Berlin. Cate Street Capital, of Portsmouth, declared its efforts to construct a 75-megawatt biomass plant on the former pulp mill site are dead after the parties failed to reach an agreement by the company’s deadline of June 30. Six smaller biomass plants, Independent Power Producers, are appealing the Public Utilities Commission’s approval of a power purchase agreement between the Berlin Station and
Public Service of New Hampshire to the state Supreme Court. For several months, Cate Street, PSNH, the PUC, the Independent Power Producers, and state officials, including Gov. John Lynch, have been attempting to negotiate an agreement that would see the IPPs withdraw the appeal. Cate Street Capital spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne said the company needed an agreement by June 30 to allow it to get its financing in place and meet its winter construction schedule. Mike O’Leary, of Bridgewater Power Company, said the June 30 deadline was not part of the discussion when the negotiations first got under way. He
said Cate Street Capital inserted the deadline part way into negotiations. O’Leary said all the IPPs have done is exercise their business rights by filing as intervenors in the PUC docket on the power purchase agreement between Berlin Station and PSNH. He said appealing the PUC’s order to the Supreme Court is part of the process. Tranchemontagne said the negotiations settled on short-term power purchase agreements for the four plants currently without such contracts. He said the IPPS wanted other concessions including a cash payment. “The IPPS got greedy and started asking for more,” he said Saturday.
O’Leary said Cate Street Capital is trying to make the IPPs the villain when all they are trying to do is protect their jobs, infrastructure and businesses. He noted that the IPPs have all been in business for a long time. His plant opened in 1984. In contrast, he said Cate Street has never built, owned or operated a biomass plant. O’Leary said his company has been operating without a power purchase agreement since August 2010, selling its power on the spot market. He said his company is just hanging on and has been seeking a short-term agreement from PSNH since before the Berlin Station was on the PUC docket.
Indictments possible Thursday in Dittmeyer case BY ERIK EISELE THE CONWAY DAILY SUN
OSSIPEE — The state will have a chance Thursday to ask a grand jury to review the case against the three men arrested in connection with Krista Dittmeyer’s murder. Anthony Papile, Michael Petelis and Trevor Ferguson are still in jail following their arrests in early May on charges filed with Ossipee District Court, but they have yet to be formally charged in superior court where serious crimes are tried. The Attorney General’s office did not present its cases when grand jury met immediately following the arrests, but now prosecutors have had almost two months to work on the cases. Officials are not saying whether this will be the time. “I’m not going to make any comment,” said Jane Young, the prosecutor in charge of the case, sticking to the tight-lipped strategy she has used singe the Attorney General’s office took the case from the Conway Police
Department. Grand jury proceedings are closed to the public, so if the state does ask for formal charges they won’t be released until the indictments are come out next week. Regardless of whether the Attorney General’s office goes to the grand jury this session, however, Young did say prosecutors would be at the probable cause hearing for Papile and Petelis in Ossipee District Court on Monday. Ferguson waived his probable cause hearing and therefore won't be joining the other two. Papile, 28, of Ossipee, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly hitting Dittmeyer, a 20-year-old Portland woman with ties to the Bridgton, Maine, and Conway areas, over the head with a rubber club, binding her with duct tape and dumping her into a pond at the base of Cranmore ski area. Petelis, 28, of Ossipee, and Ferguson, 23, of Tamworth, are both charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, though their roles in the incident vary
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significantly, according to papers filed with the court. Papile and Petelis made a plan to steal drugs and money from Dittmeyer on April 22, according to documents filed the charges. Petelis sent Dittmeyer a text message telling her to let him know what she was on her way to his apartment at 1880 White Mountain Highway in Ossipee at 9:43 p.m. When she arrived, Papile allegedly struck her on the head with a rubber club. Papile and Petelis bound her, according to investigators, and Papile put her in the trunk of her car, which had her 14-month-old daughter inside. Papile allegedly drove her car to Cranmore, where investigators say he dumped her body into the pond. He left the car running with flashers on and the child inside. Ferguson allegedly agreed to pick up Papile and drive him back to Ossipee in exchange for gas money and a small amount of drugs. Once back in Ossipee, investigators say Papile
and Petelis divided up the drugs and money they stole from Dittmeyer. When Dittmeyer’s car was discovered on the morning of April 23 it started a nationwide media frenzy. Reporters from CNN, ABC and NBC descended on Conway along side stations from around New England. The Conway police handled the investigation until Dittmeyer was found in the pond several days later. Papile, Petelis and Ferguson were arrested a few weeks later, but since their initial court appearance very little additional information has been released. The autopsy report, which Young originally said would be delayed several weeks until the toxicology report came back, has not been released, and Young said on Wednesday she did not know when it would be. So now that the Attorney General’s office has ended all news releases about the case, the next set of details likely won’t come out until they are made public by the court.
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