LIVERMORE FALLS – Quebec-based power company Boralex Inc. agreed last month to pay more than $2,500 in air emissions fines for environmental violations at its Livermore Falls plant.
Boralex Livermore Falls, Inc. burns wood residue – biomass – and was fined by the state Department of Environmental Protection for exceeding opacity limits and for submitting its required semiannual report late, according to a DEP press release.
Opacity violations are visible smoke emissions coming from a smokestack, DEP spokesman David Carney said Wednesday. “If you looked at a stack, there are different percentages of opacity,” he said. Boralex is licensed at 20 percent opacity, and any time emissions exceed that percentage the company is in violation.
“This is all monitored by electronic monitors,” Carney said.
Parent company Boralex Inc. was fined nearly $115,000 in November for a string of similar violations at the Livermore Falls plant and plants in Stratton, Ashland and Fort Fairfield. “We do have an unfortunate history with (Boralex),” Carney said. Money from the fines usually goes into the state general fund, but 80 percent of it can occasionally also be funneled into supplemental state environmental projects, he said.
Boralex spokeswoman Patricia Lamaire declined comment on the DEP fines.
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