Option eyed for solid waste disposal looks uncertain

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. » Whatever solution the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency finds for solid waste disposal, the chances it will be through a biomass facility are anything but certain.

The observation was made during an agency meeting last week. Board member David Gordon said the viability of a plant proposed for Rensselaer is being questioned because a source to sell the end product is in doubt.

“I had a very long conversation with members of the (Rensselaer) Planning Commission and they’re beginning the process of reviewing it,” he said. “They are also looking into issues related to BioHiTech and the capitalization of BioHiTech, looking at it as almost like a start-up and their relationship with Entsorga.”

BioHiTech Global Inc., which works as a developer for Entsorga North America, has proposed spending $35 million to construct a 69,000-squarefoot facility at the 40-acre former BASF property on the Hudson River shoreline in Rensselaer. Under the plan, the plant could process 150,000 tons of solid waste annually.

Developers for the company last year claimed they are able to achieve an 80 percent reduction in the amount of sold waste sent to landfills through a process that dries material, which is then sold as fuel for highheat production facilities such as cement kilns.

“In Rensselaer, they’re looking at whether or not this is essentially going to be a viable solution to take this piece of product and burn it in cement kilns,” Gordon said.

“They’re taking a very hard look at the use of the ... product,” Gordon added. “In particular at the cement operation in Ravena ... a few months ago there was a bit of a protest because there was a proposal coming out of Connecticut . ... There was some facility in Connecticut that was losing its outlets and they were going to be bringing solid waste, not processed solid waste, but solid waste, over to Ravena to burn in that kiln. There was a lot of protests and ... that proposal was withdrawn.”

BioHiTech Global has also proposed construction of a 69,000-square-foot building on 12 acres owned by the town of New Windsor near Stewart International Airport. It would also cost $35 million and process 150 tons of solid waste annually.

Gordon, who has visited two Entsorga plants in Europe, said the material produced by the biomass process is considered an alternative to coal.

“Coal ... as a fuel is not an environmental bargain,” he said. “I was not under the impression that the dried municipal solid waste would be any more of a burden on the environment than coal would have been on a BTU (British thermal unit) for BTU basis.”

BioHiTech spokesman Dennis Soriano said his company does not plan to deal with the Ravena cement plants and will focus on cement plants in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. He said he expects that both the Rensselaer and New Windsor facilities will provide fuel when they open in an estimated two years.

Soriano was also concerned that the product from the plants was being considered solid waste.

“One of the reasons that cement kilns in the Lehigh Valley are interested in it is that almost all those kilns are owned by foreign companies who use this type of fuel in their kilns in Europe,” he said.

Soriano also said the costs for municipalities to dispose of solid waste at the proposed facilities is expected to be slightly less expensive than the market rate tipping fee at a landfill.

“If Ulster County was interested in talking about taking solid waste at either or both of those facilities, we certainly would have that conversation with them,” he said.

The observation was made during an agency meeting last week. Board member David Gordon said the viability of a plant proposed for Rensselaer is being questioned because a source to sell the end product is in doubt.