HAMPDEN, Maine — How much it will cost towns to dispose of trash and the kind of fuel that will be produced at a proposed $69 million solid waste recycling and biofuels processing facility in Hampden were topics at the Municipal Review Committee’s quarterly meeting, which was held Wednesday at the Hampden Town Hall.
“What are they going to pay? That is what people want [to know],” Greg Lounder, Municipal Review Committee executive director, said during a break in the daylong meeting.
Under the current plan, “the gross tipping fee will be $70 [per ton]. It’s in the mid-70s now,” he said. “We’re going to have revenue sharing. With that, it will drop to $57 a ton. That’s year one.”
Members also started talking about the future disposition of Municipal Review Committee assets that may be reinvested or dispersed depending on what communities prefer, Lounder said.
“There is $23 million held by the [Municipal Review Committee] board for the communities,” he said, referring to the 187 Maine cities and towns that make up the group. “Today, we initiate discussions about how these assets will be handled in the post-2018 environment.”
Those discussions will continue at the July quarterly meeting, after community leaders have had a chance to look at the many options, he said.
Member communities now send their trash to the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. in Orrington but decided to start looking for new options about five years ago as the end of a lucrative 30-year rubbish disposal contract between PERC and Emera Maine neared it’s end, which occurs in early 2018.
In the end, the Municipal Review Committee decided it will leave PERC in 2018. In February, it officially partnered with Maryland-based Fiberight LLC to create a solid waste recycling and biofuels processing facility located in the “triangle” area between Ammo Industrial Park, Interstate 95 and Coldbrook Road.
Andy Jones of Toxics Action Center in Portland spoke up asking about smells and noise after Denis St. Peter of CES Inc. gave a summary of a public information hearing held Monday that attracted about 55 residents. Another public information hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. May 5 at Hampden Town Hall’s community room.
The group also discussed what biofuels Fiberight plans to make in Maine, which at first included ethanol but has changed to biomethane.
“Right now there are no plans to make ethanol at this site,” George Aronson, senior technical advisor for the Municipal Review Committee and head of its oversight committee, said. “Right now the primary would be to digest it into methane with an option to make CNG [compressed natural gas] to fuel trucks.”
The equipment can be modified to make various biofuels, he said.
“Flexibility is a feature,” Aronson said. “They can change, and it’s a big benefit.”
The plan for the building also has grown from just shy of 100,000 square feet to 144,000 and now includes “an on-site gasifier to make the fuel on the site,” Aronson said.
“From the road it’s going to look like a commercial building,” St. Peter said. “All the truck maneuvering will be in the backside. All handling happens inside. All waste has to be inside and covered. It’s called no exposure certification.”
The garbage washing area, material separating area, pumping and hydrolysis will be inside the building. Sealed anaerobic digestive fuel tanks — the stills where the organic matter is changed into alcohols — will be outside located between the building and the truck weighing scales, according to the plans.
The development agreement between the Municipal Review Committee and Fiberight LLC was signed in February and has several milestones that, so far, have been met, Aronson said.
“They have been exemplary in meeting their goals, which is great,” he said.
The next big deadline is a mid-May Maine Department of Environmental Protection application for a Minor Source Air Emission License, one of the many federal, state and local permits that need to be gained before the plant is constructed in 2017.
“There are a lot of permits required for this facility,” St. Peter said.