Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the current dilemma facing scores of Maine towns — whether to stay with PERC or go with the MRC/Fiberight plan for their municipal solid waste — is that it didn’t have to be this way.
As one of the two partners in PERC Holdings, the third owner in the PERC facility, along with USA Energy and its 78 municipal owners, I believe that there are some very important issues that have been pushed aside in the escalating clash between the Municipal Review Committee board and USA Energy.
My partner and I have a total of 84 years in the solid waste management industry. We have sited landfills and run waste hauling companies, recycling centers, medical waste facilities and resource recovery facilities much like PERC.
We have been involved with the testing and development of many emerging technologies over the last 15 years. In fact, a few years ago we worked closely with MRC representatives in reviewing new technologies and touring some development sites.
At that time, we all agreed that the emerging technologies were not yet able to commercially handle the large waste stream of the PERC communities. Our fear was that if a chosen technology didn’t work, 1,000 tons of waste a day would still need to be processed.
As former president of the U.S. Composting Council, I was involved in many projects, including ones using anaerobic digester, or AD, technology much like the Fiberight technology supported by the MRC. AD and the recovery of biogas is nothing new, and neither are the efforts to establish markets for biogas and the digestate that results from the AD process.
But unlike Europe, in this country we are not able to utilize that digestate even for land application, and we have yet to establish any significant markets for the biogas byproducts of this type of process.
Instead, our experience has shown us that the common thread that runs through all successful solid waste management systems is the ability to provide communities with stable, uninterrupted, environmentally sound processing of their solid waste.
Providing these basic functions must still be the priority after 2018. Only then can communities begin to pursue new solid waste processes and technologies.
In an attempt to bridge the gap between the MRC and USA Energy, PERC Holdings held several private meetings with the MRC board in which we expressed our concern that a split in the partnership would endanger the region’s ability to responsibly manage its solid waste and could result in the widespread use of landfills, which would be in conflict with the state’s solid waste hierarchy.
To preserve our current system while still pursuing improvements in waste recovery technology, we proposed to the MRC board that any new technology be sited at PERC in Orrington, where we already have the land, infrastructure, permits and established traffic flow.
This would allow everyone, especially the communities, to benefit from their existing investment in the PERC facility and to minimize the need to use the money in the Tipping Fee Stabilization fund for new land, permitting and infrastructure costs.
Simply put, PERC could continue to operate during the development or implementation of new technologies without the great risk of the “all or nothing” approach that was eventually adopted by the MRC.
Unfortunately, these rational and financially responsible recommendations were pushed aside by the MRC board and have never received proper consideration in the ongoing debate. The losers in all this are the communities.
The municipalities that already own nearly one-quarter of the PERC facility need to question why they are being asked by the MRC to abandon a proven waste management solution for a new technology that may or may not work.
It is a risk that is unnecessary, since the communities had the opportunity to incorporate Fiberight or any other new technology into the current PERC operations on PERC-owned land.
The MRC’s public refusal to work with the private partners of PERC is not the way to protect the environment, nor does it provide member communities with a proven, safe, reliable and fiscally responsible solid waste management option.
The current course of action serves only the narrow interests of the current MRC board members and their chosen developer.
That’s too bad, because it didn’t have to be this way.
Kevin Tritz is a partner in PERC Holdings, LLC, a minority owner of the PERC waste-to-energy facility in Orrington.