After months of debate about the future of trash disposal post-2018 across central and northern Maine, state environmental regulators and town officials in Hampden have cleared the way for construction of a trash-to-energy facility that could cost up to $69 million.
The Municipal Review Committee and Maryland-based Fiberight LLC have secured commitments from towns across the region to send about 107,000 tons of trash annually to the facility, far short of their original 150,000-ton goal, according to a Bangor Daily News analysis. But they argue the plant still can be viable.
With the Fiberight plant moving ahead, the post-2018 solid waste landscape will look much different for the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., currently the state’s largest waste-to-energy processor, which has accepted trash from the MRC’s 187 member towns for three decades. But only a handful of the MRC’s member towns opted to continue sending their trash to the facility in Orrington after their contracts expire in 2018.
Even with the substantial loss of tonnage, PERC officials maintain their facility can remain viable with a shift toward processing more commercial trash.
“We have absolutely every intention of keeping this running,” said Bob Knudsen, the vice president of USA Energy Group, the majority owner of PERC. “We’re not going to go away just because we don’t quite have enough tonnage.”
Attempts to stave off an exodus of tonnage during its months-long match against MRC and Fiberight leaves PERC with the need to tap new waste sources.
In December 2015, PERC announced a partnership with WasteZero, Casella and Exeter Agri-Energy to offer towns that stuck with the facility options for waste-reduction programs such as pay-as-you-throw and organics diversion in order to help them reduce disposal costs, according to a memo sent to PERC’s municipal customers.
PERC championed this plan as a way to give towns more control over their trash in contrast to Fiberight, whose biogas production depends on organic material in trash. Organics account for almost 43 percent of what Mainers throw away. Towns that send waste to the trash-to-energy plant in Hampden would need Fiberight’s approval before implementing initiatives to divert organics from the waste stream.
But even offering flexibility with waste-reduction programs and eliminating its minimum tonnage requirements and associated penalties didn’t prove successful in helping PERC retain a critical mass of MRC member towns.
Only about 23,200 tons of trash from 23 towns and the Penobscot County Unorganized Territory had been committed to PERC as of Tuesday, according to a BDN analysis. Just 22 towns with about 15,400 tons have not yet committed to a trash processor for after 2018.
To read the full story, visit http://bangordailynews.com/2016/08/06/the-point/waste-doesnt-stop-how-perc-plans-to-adapt-after-a-regional-trash-war/.