BANGOR, Maine — The minority owner of Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. and its host town, Orrington, are raising questions about how to keep that facility viable, as plans for a new $40-$60 million waste and recycling facility move ahead in Hampden.
The Municipal Review Committee, a group representing the trash disposal interests of 187 Maine communities, announced Monday night that it plans to develop a $60 million state-of-the-art solid waste recycling and processing facility in Hampden’s “triangle” area between Ammo Industrial Park, Interstate 95 and Coldbrook Road.
The group voted in January to pursue the Fiberight technology for its new facility, which is being planned to replace the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., a waste-to-energy plant in Orrington where member communities’ trash is sent to be burned and converted into electricity.
When plans were presented to the committee’s directors and members during the group’s annual meeting on Tuesday, however, representatives of PERC Holdings LLC — the plant’s minority private owner — and its host town both said they wanted to explore ways to keep PERC part of the region’s waste disposal scene. Majority private owner USA Energy did not send representatives to the meeting.
One of the reasons the group representing the cities and towns cited for going forward with plans in Hampden was a Dec. 15 deadline for a proposal to incorporate PERC into its post-2018 plans. USA Energy did not come through with a proposal, committee officials said Tuesday.
PERC Holdings, however, earlier this year did initiate an effort to involve the Orrington plant in the committee’s plans.
Kevin Nordby, president of the limited liability corporation, said he did not submit a proposal by Dec. 15 because he was advised by an attorney that doing so could harm the relationship between the majority owner and the committee. On Tuesday, he said he was prepared to follow through if the committee’s attorney agreed no harm would come of it.
Nordby said PERC owners also have been exploring new technology.
“This is something that the three of us have been talking about for a long time,” he said. “It’s something that’s got to happen. With that said, we’ve got a really well-run, well-maintained facility and a lot of property that you already own.
“I really would rather continue to move forward and try to develop some way in which we could do a joint venture, bring that new technology in, add it where it works and what doesn’t work in the current plant we will take out,” he said.
Orrington Town Manager Paul White also is working to keep PERC afloat.
“The net impact, if everything was to go, would be close to $1 million” for the town, in terms of lost municipal revenues and having to pay to dispose of trash, which as the host community, Orrington does not do, White said.
White said he attended the annual meeting to learn more about the committee’s plans and to see if the relationship between the communities and the private owners can be salvaged.
“I wanted to learn what their motivation is, and also to propose to them that I would be willing to facilitate a meeting of all the owners — all three — USA Energy, PERC Holdings LLC and MRC, to sit down at a table with what their visions are and be able to work through those issues,” he said.
“I want to say that PERC as it exists today will not look as it does in 2018, but I’ve been assured by the primary owners that PERC will still operate after 2018,” he said.
The Municipal Review Committee’s leaders started looking for alternatives five years ago because they believe PERC, of which it is part owner, will not be profitable after 2018, when lucrative agreements for the electric power it generates expire.
During the committee’s annual meeting at the Cross Insurance Center on Tuesday, directors and members were led through the series of events that led to group to develop a plan for breaking away from PERC and moving to a waste processing facility that likely would be built by Fiberight, a company with a demonstration plant in Lawrenceville, Virginia, that distills municipal solid waste into ethanol, biogas or compressed natural gas.
Craig Stuart-Paul, the company’s chief executive, made a presentation to the Municipal Review Committee board in July. He calls the fuel product made from garbage “Trashanol,” and he has copyrighted the name.
The Municipal Review Committee announced earlier this year that it planned to get into the trash business and applied to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for a public benefit determination for a landfill to go along with a planned integrated solid waste, recycling and biofuels processing facility.
The landfill application was denied by the DEP, so the committee’s Hampden project would use existing state-owned landfills.
The proposal must receive a solid waste processing permit from the state and approval from the Hampden Planning Board before proceeding, with a target operational date of 2018.