Dufferin County could move closer to 100 per cent diversion from landfill sites with completion of the proposed thermal treatment and organics composting facilities along with continuation of the recycling (Blue Box) program, AlterNRG indicates in a letter to county council.

The letter, to be brought to the table at tonight’s Community Development Committee meeting, is in response to one written by Joan Lever of Melancthon, who said she has “grave concerns” about thermal arc technology and what she called the “Dufferin Gas Chamber” in the Dufferin EcoEnergy Park

DEEP).

Ms. Lever is a community activist who became prominent in opposition to wind turbines in Melancthon and Amaranth, and is now involved in Melancthon residents’ fight against tree clearing and farmhouse demolitions.

Her letter was addressed to Melancthon council at a time when municipalities were responding to the possibility of the county assuming waste management, and had been forwarded to county council. In it, she questions health risks, whether or not the technology is proven, and whether there is an environmental benefit from the system proposed for the DEEP, among other things.

AlterNRG (NRG) is co-proponent of the DEEP, thermal treatment, Energy From Waste facility. It owns Westinghouse plasma technology and was qualified by Dufferin’s consultants at the Request for Qualifications stage of selecting a supplier.

NRG does consider Ms. Lever to have raised valid concerns, according to a letter from Vice-President Ken Willis who “welcomes further dialogue.”

Mr. Willis disagrees with Ms. Lever’s contention that plasma gasification technology is “untested and unproven.” He says that “between (NRG’s) Westinghouse Plasma Centre and (its) facilities in Japan and North America, the Westinghouse Plasmas technology has over 500,000 successful operating hours.”

As well, he says the technology was originally developed by NASA to simulate space vehicle re-entry, and has been used for more than 20 years by such as Alcan and General Motors.

Mr. Willis does agree that a discussion of health issues is important for all stakeholders.

He says the NRG systems are “designed to prevent the formation and emission of airborne toxins,” and its Japanese facilities are meeting or exceeding that country’s stringent standards, and NRG’s own standards are “ten times more stringent that Japanese regulatory requirements.”

He draws upon several independent third-party studies to illustrate that the technology is safer from a health perspective than either incineration or landfill. He quotes the World Health Organization as saying that 90% of human exposure to dioxins if through the food supply.

One study cited is Lisbon University’s Institute of Preventive Medicine which found that “even conventional waste incineration ‘does not impact on dioxin blood levels of nearby residents’ of waste-to-energy plants.”

Mr. Willis does acknowledge Ms. Lever’s concerns about operational viability, but says the two facilities she cites both used “gasification systems from InEnTee Corporation,” and not from NRG.

Even so, he outlines reasons why the Hawaii Vitrification Facility (HMV) and the ATG one in Richland, WA, failed. Those reasons were not related to the gasification system but to a combination of “financial issues related to poor planning” at ATG and other reasons at HMV where a damaged refractory kiln “may have involved maintenance or issues specific to the feedstock.”

NRG’s two Japanese facilities have “successfully operated for over six years, proving the technology.” One of those, he says, is similar to the plant proposed for Dufferin with respect to the feedstock.

“We agree with Ms. Lever in supporting a zerowaste philosophy that begins with source reduction, reuse, and recycling. Rather than compete with recycling, we believe that waste-to-energy is a complementary core – the fourth R, recover – component of an effective, integrated waste management system.

“It is the safe, energysmart and environmentally conscious alternative to address the remaining 60% or so of waste currently going to landfill.”

Ms. Lever’s letter and Mr. Willis’s response are both available on the agenda package for the CDC meeting. It can be accessed on the Dufferin County website.