Sierra Vista Herald and Bisbee Daily Review

Monday, December 20, 2004, page one

Firm's waste-to-energy proposal gets scrutinized

By Michael Sullivan

BISBEE - Is a waste-to-energy proposal for the county landfill a realistic alternative to burying trash, or just so much hot air?

Some 40 citizens and Cochise County government officials met for 21/2 hours Thursday morning to scrutinize a proposal made in November by a California firm to use an intense heating process to convert solid waste now being buried into energy and a recyclable material.

A $25 million, 2,000-square-foot plant would be built by Global Energy Resources at no cost to the county at the regional 240-acre landfill in the Whetstone area. The company asked that the county arrange for a 20-year "feedstock" supply contract to include 100,000 annual tons of municipal solid waste and 100,000 waste tires per year.

L.H. Hamilton, county Facilities and Solid Waste director, said the county now sends about 78,000 tons of refuse per year to the landfill, which has increased by 5,000 tons during the past three years.

The technology is being used around the world, GER's president, John Cummings, told local government officials at the Nov. 9 meeting. He asked for a memorandum of understanding or letter of intent so that engineering could begin.

At the Nov. 9 meeting, Cummings said a patented plasma gasification process is used in combination with "pyrolosis" to reduce virtually everything now being buried in the county landfill to a recyclable glassy material. The glass can be used as roadfill, he said. The bulk of the trash would be converted into natural gas and ethanol and can be used to generate electricity, Cummings said.

Whatever liquid is contained in the trash will be converted to clean water and can be recharged into the aquifer, Cummings said. Even sewage sludge, which now needs to be extracted and dried, can be used as an energy source, he added.

District 2 County Supervisor Paul Newman, who called Thursday's meeting, described the proposal as "alchemy." Newman pointed out that he has been suspicious of the proposal from the beginning, especially after he was contacted by environmental groups.

"It raised a red flag with me," Newman said.

Newman said he has asked for documentation and was told by Cummings at a meeting on Dec. 8 in Bisbee that it would take several weeks to provide it.

Newman then contacted the Governor's Office, the state Attorney General's Office and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality regarding the matter.

GER also was invited to the meeting, Newman said, along with fellow supervisors Pat Call and Les Thompson. Call and Thompson said they had schedule conflicts.

Susan Keith of ADEQ was at the meeting.

Terry Nordbrock, with Families Against Cancer, in Tucson, said her young son has leukemia and is concerned about the possibility of toxic emissions from an incinerator.

Her goal is "avoiding future cancer kids," she said. She commended Newman for his concern.

Keith pointed out that her department is responsible for protecting the public from hazardous emissions, and GER would have to apply for permits and provide detailed information to ensure the plan would not endanger public health. She added that she attended a meeting in Nogales Wednesday at which a similar proposal was discussed for converting sewage sludge into energy.

County Administrator Jody Klein assured the people assembled for the meeting that the proposal is "not a done deal."

Klein, who sits on the county Solid Waste Steering Committee with the managers of six cities, said, "A number of major questions were raised. Š We're not passing judgment, one way or the other. Our role is to explore and look at every possibility ... If basic questions don't get answered, we walk and don't go any farther."

Dr. Gary Spivey, epidemiologist with the county Health Department, said he is wary of claims made by GER that the plant would purify water used in processing before recharging it into the aquifer.

Where's the

documentation?

"I'm really disappointed that Global Energy is not here today," said Bradley Angel, executive director of GreenAction, a California-based environmental organization.

"It's not only worrisome," Angel said. "It's astonishing" that the company has not provided data to back up its claims.

The company's Web site says GER "develops and owns facilities that convert waste products to energy and/or synfuels."

That statement was challenged Thursday by Angel, who has been monitoring similar claims and proposals by various firms in California. There is no documentation available to back up Cummings' assertions, Angel said. He's been unable to find any facilities GER has developed or owns or any landfill in the U.S. that uses the process described by Cummings.

The 6-month-old company's one-page Web site says GER has a "patented" plasma gasification and pyrolosis process. Angel said he learned that the patent has only been applied for. He contacted the company for more information but has received no response.

GER promotional material described plasma as "an intense energy force," consisting of an ionized gas source that, "when subjected to the proper combination of conditions, becomes an electrical conductor generating extremely intense energy, such as lightning."

Pyrolysis is chemical decomposition brought about by using very high heat, in the absence of air.

The glass can be used as roadfill or by the abrasives industry, Cummings said at the Nov. 9 meeting. The bulk of the trash would be converted to "syn" gas and ethanol and also could be used to generate electricity.

"This is not a burner," he said. "We're not incinerating trash." So, there would be no hazardous emissions.

Angel disputed most of Cummings' claims.

"There will definitely be hazardous emissions," he said. "This is an incinerator in disguise." Also, it is impossible to destroy metals or render them non-hazardous.

While it is understandable that county officials are interested in looking at alternatives to burying trash, Angel said they need to be aware of a pattern he's been seeing for the past two years in California. Dozens of new companies "are popping up," Angel said. "What we've found has raised tremendous concerns. There is a pattern."

That pattern is for companies to make promises similar to those made by Cummings to win the support of public officials, Angel said. Some facilities have even been given permits, but none have been developed, and some of the companies are no longer in business

"They all claim they're not incinerators," Angel said, but there is no way to burn plastic, for example, without creating toxic dioxins in the emissions.

"Cochise County could have a new claim to fame," Angel said, by becoming the first locale in the United States to employ the subject technology for garbage gasification.

Similar technology is being proposed in Hawaii, Angel said. Asia Pacific Environmental Technology owns the Hawaii Vitrification Facility on the island of Oahu, Angel said. A plasma arc process system is proposed to replace an incinerator that burned medical waste.

The Hawaii Department of Health has filed a complaint and order against Asia Pacific Environmental Technology, doing business as Hawaii Medical Vitrification (HMV). The complaint alleges that, among other things, HMV stored excessive amounts of untreated infectious medical waste at the HMV facility in Kapolei, Oahu, and violated the state''s solid waste rules. The Department of Health imposed a penalty of $60,270.

Angel said a garbage gasification plant in the Alameda, Calif., area was recently rejected by the Alameda Public Utilities Board.

The Santa Cruz, Calif., County Board of Supervisors also recently voted to study a proposal from American Ref-Fuel to build a giant waste-to-energy garbage incinerator to burn waste from several counties.

The meeting was opened up to questions and comments from the floor, and concerns were expressed over the lack of a comprehensive county recycling system and the shortfall in the amount of waste the proposal requires and the volume produced in the county.

If less than 100,000 tons of waste and 100,000 tires were available locally, would waste and tires be imported from outside the county?

Not all questions could be answered, but Hamilton said he shared everyone's concerns and has been actively seeking an alternative to burying solid waste. The landfill's liners will eventually break down, Hamilton said, and hazardous materials will leach into the aquifer. While he believes "there will be a technology to take care of our solid waste ... there is no intent to recommend any technology that does not prove out."

"Continuing to bury garbage is not a viable alternative in the long haul," Hamilton said.

He also favors recycling, but pointed out that few markets exist for anything but paper.

"Even if we collected it (cardboard, plastics, glass and cans), we might not be able to sell it," Hamilton said. He urged citizens in the audience to take the initiative and apply pressure on local government for more recycling programs.

The meeting was videotaped by Bisbee's public access cable television station and will be shown on Channel 5 at a future date.

Copyright © 2004 Sierra Vista Herald.