Red Bluff Daily News

July 13, 2005

See Also:

Document: Appeal of Inentec permit

Red Bluff Daily News, 9/10/05: InEnTec appeal date set

Red Bluff Daily News, 9/9/05: InEnTec opponents air their concerns

For more information, contact:

Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

S.F. group calls for more thorough review of InEnTec

REBECCA WOLF-DN Staff Writer

Company, county officials defend data

RED BLUFF A San Francisco environmental group is asking for a more thorough environmental review for the proposed medical waste treatment facility south of Red Bluff.

Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice said that InEnTec Medical Services, LLC, has provided "questionable information" to the county regarding the new technology that will turn medical waste into power.

" I believe that certain claims being made require more scrutiny," Angel said. "Almost nobody knows the full scope of what is being proposed here."

A negative declaration, a less intensive report than an environmental impact report, was completed for the project, and a 30-day review and public comment period closed in December.
Angel contends that for this type of a project, an EIR should have been completed.

County planning director George Robson could not be reached for comment on the environmental report Tuesday.

Assistant air pollution control officer Gary Bovee said that the county determined that a negative declaration was sufficient based on the information provided by InEnTec. "We reviewed the process and health risk assessments," Bovee said. "... The risk is so low it doesn't trigger an EIR."

He added that the health risk was determined to be less than one in a million, for those who breathe the air 24 hours a day, for 70 years.
InEnTec Medical Services of Richland, Wash., plans to situate the project on the west side of Reading Road.

The company treats medical waste with a plasma arc system at temperatures that exceed 2,000 degrees. The system either vaporizes the medical waste or produces glass.

The waste is mostly paper, plastic and trash, but it has been exposed to people with diseases and must be handled according to strict regulations.

Initially, the facility will process 2 to 4 tons a day of medical waste generated by Northern California health care providers. It may take up to six months to reach full system capacity of 6 tons a day.
About 1 to 1.5 megawatt of green electric power will be produced from a mixture of the syngas combined with natural gas when the facility is operating at full capacity.

Angel said the process uses an incinerator, which by state law requires an EIR. Bill Quapp, InEnTec director of project development, said that the unit was a plasma gasification unit that makes fuel where incinerators do not.

" He chooses to mislabel information," Quapp said of Angel. "He's either lying or technically incompetent."

Among what Angel calls questionable is the company's Web site that states that several treatment facilities are "already successfully operating." He claims that two of the sites have had problems with the systems.

However, Quapp maintains that the systems did work and operate cleanly. He added that those systems were operated by other businesses that had other issues and said that the Red Bluff facility will be managed differently.

" We will maintain operational responsibility," Quapp said. "We're taking all the risk. ... If it doesn't work or it pollutes beyond California standards, we shut down."

Bovee said that even with the permits, the company will have to prove after construction that the system operates within acceptable parameters.

" It doesn't make sense for them to falsify information," Bovee said.
The Tehama County Air Pollution Control District is just a few days away from approving the final permit to construct for InEnTec, Bovee said.

Angel said he has spent the past eight years working to protect communities from projects that could potentially impact public health.

He said that his mother died at the age of 45 from breast cancer in what he calls a well-known cluster of breast cancer cases in Long Island.

Angel said that Greenaction has stopped similar projects from going into communities in other states. "We just asked a couple of questions and the companies disappeared," he said.

Quapp said he is aware of Greenaction's investigations elsewhere but said this is a different situation. "We have the data," Quapp said. "We have extensive data to back our claims."

BACKGROUND: InEnTec is proposing building a hazardous waste treatment facility south of Red Bluff on Reading Road. The project is days away from receiving the final permits needed to begin construction in August.

WHAT'S NEW: A San Francisco group, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, is asking for a more thorough environmental review of the project.