Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Awards Scholarships

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LUDLOW, Mass. — The Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation (BWPCC) has selected two students from the Lanesborough/Hancock area, one from the Mount Greylock Regional High School class of 2025 and one from the McCann Technical School class of 2025, to receive $1,000 scholarships. 
 
The scholarships are awarded to qualifying seniors at select schools in the Berkshires who are planning to attend either a two- or four-year college or trade school program.
 
This is the third year of the BWPCC scholarship program. The BWPCC owns and operates the Berkshire Wind Power Project, a 12-turbine, 19.6-megawatt wind farm located on Brodie Mountain in Hancock and Lanesborough. The non-profit BWPCC consists of 16 municipal utilities located in Ashburnham, Boylston, Chicopee, Groton, Holden, Hull, Ipswich, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Russell, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, and West Boylston, and their joint action agency, the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. 
 
This year's scholarship recipients are Malia Koffi (Mount Greylock) of Lanesborough and Dylan Turner (McCann) of Hancock.
 
Koffi will attend Berkshire Community College and major in Health Sciences. In high school, she served as captain of the Mount Greylock softball team, as a member of the Black Student Union, and was a three-time recipient of the Greylock Way Award, which recognizes students and staff who exemplify the school's core values of Accountability, Respect, Integrity, Stewardship, and Excellence in their daily lives.
 
Turner will attend the Elite Lineman Training Institute in Georgia. While at McCann, he played on the varsity baseball team, was a member of the National Honor Society, and participated in SkillsUSA, and McCann's Corporate Work Experience, where he worked for a local electrician.
 
"We are proud to support the 2025 Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation scholarship recipients, whose proactive perseverance was demonstrated throughout their successful high school journeys,” said MMWEC Chief Executive Officer Ron DeCurzio.
 
Since 1998, MMWEC has awarded $70,000 in scholarships to help students defray the cost of higher education.
 
MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities.  MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state's consumer-owned, municipal utilities.  It is the largest provider of asset-owned generation for municipal light departments in New England.

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North Adams Finance Committee Warned of Coming Sludge Costs

By Tammy Daniels iBerkshires Staff
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Waste treatment plan supervisor Brad Furlon warned the Finance Committee last week to expect a future 500 percent increase in sludge disposal.
 
"Even though the district is still has the approval of suitability to apply compost to land, we no longer do it, primarily because of the contaminant, PFAs," he said. "Compost plant supplies is a $200,000 increase this year. There's no way around this cost whatsoever. ...
 
"Unfortunately, these costs are going to go up. They expect this sludge disposal cost in the next five to 10 years to increase 500 percent."
 
PFAs, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are considered "forever chemicals" because of how long it takes for them to breakdown. They are used in numerous products and have become endemic in air, soil and water.
 
The Hoosac Water Quality District, a shared regional waste treatment system between North Adams and Williamstown, had planned to accept sludge from other communities and sell off the resulting compost through waste hauler Casella. But that proposal ran into opposition; Williamstown has a citizens petition on its annual town meeting warrant this year that would prohibit the use of contaminated compost. 
 
The district is still producing compost, which has to be removed. 
 
"We had a backlog of about 2,500 yards of compost that was on site," Furlon said. "We worked on a plan to dispose of our compost. Even though the district is still has the approval of suitability to apply compost to land, we no longer do it, primarily because of the contaminant, PFAs. ... the most feasible way and economical that we looked at was to be able to take our compost to a landfill in Ontario, N.Y."
 
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