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Firm Serves As Primary Counsel To Innovate Energy Project

The Firm is serving as primary counsel to Washington Electric Cooperative, Inc.'s ("WEC") project to convert landfill gas to electricity at Vermont's largest landfill in Coventry, Vermont. WEC is a rural electric cooperative located in East Montpelier and serves over 9,000 members, covering 2,728 square miles in parts of 41 towns in north-central Vermont. The landfill is owned by New England Waste Services of Vermont, a wholly owned subsidiary of Casella Waste Systems, based in Rutland.

The electricity produced from the Coventry facility will be used for WEC's members and will be a long-term source of power for 25 years or more. This innovate project will produce a renewable source of energy from the burning of methane gas and will serve as an economical source of power for WEC, and will provide stable and predictable energy costs to WEC's members.

In addition, the renewable energy produced from the facility will have Renewable Energy Certificates ("RECs") associated with it. WEC will own the RECs for the energy generated at the facility and will be able to sell all or some of its RECs to companies in the region who need to be able to claim more renewables in their portfolio.

The project will consist of a small generating plant on the landfill itself and a 46-kilovolt transmission line from the facility to a substation in Irasburg, owned by the Vermont Electric Power Company, the statewide transmission company.

Late last year, with the Firm's assistance, WEC entered into an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Pizzagalli Construction Company. The Firm is currently assisting WEC with the selection of a contractor to build the transmission line. The Firm also worked with WEC to form a wholly owned subsidiary, Coventry Clean Energy Corporation, which will be responsible for operating the facility and providing the electricity output to WEC.

The project is expected to be up and running by the summer of 2005.