A publication of Work On Waste USA, Inc., 82 Judson, Canton,
NY 13617 315-379-9200 April 1992
INCINERATORS IN TROUBLE: Part 1.
NEW JERSEY: NEWARK. “PREMATURE TUBE FAILURES”
AT AMERICAN REF-FUEL’S 2,250 TPD INCINERATOR SHUTS DOWN 1-YEAR
OLD INCINERATOR FOR SEVEN DAYS. According to a 2-27-92
report in the Newark Star Ledger: “...Such
an outage was never supposed to happen. The $320 million Essex
County facility has three separate burners and was designed so
that each of its boilers could be taken out for maintenance without
halting the flow of garbage. But a problem affecting two of the
boilers developed during the weekend, and then the third boiler
went down yesterday morning, leaving plant officials no option
but to cease operations. The incinerator normally burns 1,500
tons of trash each day from Essex and under a regional agreement
takes in another 900 tons a day from Bergen and up to 300 tons
per day from Hudson County. According to American Ref-Fuel,
which operates the incinerator, the boiler problem was caused
by premature tube failures. Those tubes carry water heated by
the burning garbage, creating steam that spins a turbine generator
to produce electricity. A Ref-Fuel spokesman said a preliminary
engineering investigation indicated the tube failures were caused
by the flames from the burning garbage being directed onto the
walls in a small area of the boiler. Repairs were under way yesterday,
along with modifications to help avoid similar problems, the spokesman
said....Crane operators, who feed the plant’s boilers with
remote-controlled grappling claws that pull trash out of a disposal
pit the size of a football field, were piling up mounds of smelly
waste to the top of the 95-foot pit wall to make some room for
garbage still on the outside tipping floor...the garbage will
be sent to the Pioneer Crossing Landfill in Birdsborough, PA.,
until the waste-to-energy facility returns to service...”
The Star Ledger reported on 3-3-92 that 150
workers were assigned to work on repairing the problems at the
incinerator and that “[t]wo speciality engineers from Deutsche
Babcock Analgen, the European designer of the technology,
are also working on the repairs...” The current tip fee
at the Newark incinerator is $73.52 per ton and is soon expected
to rise to between $77-$90 per tip fee ton. Ash from the incinerator
is sent to the Chambers Landfill in Charles City, VA.
In 1991 Bergen County rejected building an incinerator and chose
instead to landfill their waste at the Chambers Landfill for
$60 per ton. Because the oversized Essex County incinerator
had a shortage of trash, a deal was made with Bergen County.
That deal allows Bergen County to bring waste to the Newark incinerator
for $45.16 a ton, and when the tip fee rises for Essex
County, Bergen will still pay less per ton than Essex County.
(See Waste Not #127 for history of Newark’s incinerator).
For more
info. contact Betty Wood at 201-226-1595 or Arnold Cohen at the
Ironbound Committee at 201-589-4668.
NEW YORK: ALBANY. 10 YEAR OLD STATE-OWNED RDF INCINERATOR
SLATED TO BE SHUT DOWN.
When Albany’s incinerator
went on line in 1982 it was state-of-the-art. It was designed
to burn 600 tpd -but was only able to burn 400 tpd- and is located
next to the State capitol buildings, in downtown Albany. Aside
from a 10 year history of supplying the area with excessive particulate
emissions, the incinerator supplies heat and air conditioning
to NY State’s office buildings. According to Judy Enck of
the New York Public Interest Research Group this plant
has several unique features. 1. It is owned and operated
by the State of New York. The state has determined that this
notoriously poorly run incinerator (operated by the State!) would
need millions of dollars for a retrofit to meet federal air emission
standards by 1995, and instead of retrofitting, they have decided
to stop burning garbage in the incinerator before February 1995
and, instead, burn a cleaner fuel in the facility: natural
gas. 2. A sweetheart contract between the city of Albany
and NY State was signed in 1982. (The project was “conceived”
by Erastus Corning II, who had served as Mayor of Albany for 40
years -the longest tenured Mayor in America.) The city of Albany
gets paid by the State for the garbage it delivers to the
incinerator (which includes municipal waste from 14 other communities).
The city of Albany receives approximately $10 million a year
for delivering garbage to the state-run incinerator and for disposing
of the ash! The State owns and operates the RDF incinerator and
the shredding operation (which is located “far from habitation”
at the Rapp Road landfill site in Albany) and the city owns the
landfill. The ash is landfilled at the unlined Rapp Road
landfill, which has no leachate collection, located in the middle
of the Albany Pine Bush -an ecological pristine area that is home
to the Karner blue butterfly, which is soon expected to enter
the endangered species list. The city got an expansion to the
landfill, and now they want to sell the landfill to a private
company. 2. The incinerator has seldom, if ever, been
in compliance with its permit conditions for particulate emissions.
Pollution controls: a 3-field electrostatic precipitator (ESP).
Thomas Jorling, Commissioner of the NY Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC), lives within 500 feet of this incinerator,
and has stated on several occasions that this incinerator is “abysmal.”
The incinerator is operated by New York Office
of General Services. 3. The incinerator was cited
in 1991 by the NY-based INFORM group for emitting the highest
levels of dioxins and furans out of 7 incinerators they had data
on - 188 times the state-of-the-art standard on dioxin of 0.10
nanograms per dry normal cubic meter. Albany measured 18.8 ng/dry
normal cubic meter. Of the 7 incinerators INFORM reported on,
the Albany plant had the highest furnace temperature, 2500°F,
and the highest dioxin emissions. (Reference:
Burning Garbage in the US: Practice vs. State of the Art,
published in 1991 by INFORM, 381 Park Avenue South, NY, NY 10016.
Tel: 212-689-4040.) 4. The RDF operation has suffered
more than 32 explosions in the last few years. The shredding plant
was designed by Smith & Mahoney of Albany. (The boilers
were built by Zurn Industries.) 5. In 1986 Dr.
Daniel Wartenburg, then with the Harvard School of Public Health,
concluded that the plant’s chromium and nickel emissions
could cause a significant increase in cancer cases among people
living near the plant. Wartenburg calculated a lifetime cancer
risk from NY DEC test results of ambient air emissions for chromium
and nickel: up to 3,000 cancers per million from the
chromium emissions and 300 cancers per million from the
nickel emissions. The response of the state was not to shut
down the incinerator, but rather to study where the chromium was
coming from. Though we never found out where the chromium was
coming from, one explanation given was that the chromium might
be from from the shredding operation of the garbage
to make the refuse derived fuel. According to a report in the
Albany Times Union of 11-13-86: “...the
equipment used to shred the trash is made of a steel alloy which
has a high chromium content. The plant has two shredders, each
of which consists of 16 steel hammers. Those hammers periodically
wear out...about 1,000 pounds of steel from the hammers decompose
into the garbage each month. For the past several years the plant
has been using replacement hammers which...contain relatively
high amounts of chromium. Although most of the chromium is bonded
into the steel alloy, the report states that chromium which is
not ‘fixed’ into the steel makes up 2.17 percent of
the weight. That would mean that of the 1,000 pounds of steel
wearing off the hammers each month, nearly 22 pounds would be
chromium...As the shredders wear out, they have to go in and weld
on what they call ‘buildup’ onto the walls and the rotors...It
has a high chromium and high nickel content. We used about 100
pounds of that a month. Over the past six years, I’d say
we used at least 5,000 pounds of weld wire...” 6.
Dangerously elevated lead levels have been detected in children
who lived near the plant and a lawsuit is under consideration.
Of 9 incinerators that INFORM had data on, the Albany incinerator
had the highest lead emissions. 7. NY State and Albany
have put out bids to sell the incinerator operations, which include
the RDF incinerator, the shredding operation and the city owned
landfill. 17 companies have responded to the request for bids,
including BFI & Wheelabrator. For more information
contact Judy Enck at NYPIRG’s Albany office: Tel:
518-436-0876.
NEW JERSEY: HIGH LEVELS OF MERCURY FOUND NEAR OGDEN MARTIN'S
400 TPD INCINERATOR IN WARREN COUNTY.
"Preliminary
results of a state study show toxic mercury in rainwater and eels
sampled near the Warren County garbage incinerator, officials
said yesterday...In rainwater, the study found concentrations
of soluble mercury ranging from below detectable levels to 540
parts per trillion, according to a DEPE [Department of Environmental
Protection & Energy] summary. Rainwater was collected at
17 sites near the incinerator on four separate days in the winter
and fall of 1991, the summary said. The sites ranged from 1.5
kilometers to 5 kilometers away from the plant, scattered
in different directions. DEPE officials said the samples at the
high end of the range were higher than a recent Minnesota study,
but cautioned the latter involved monthly averages over a longer
period of time. The highest reading ‘was one collection,
on one day at one site,' Sindling [assistant DEPE commissioner
in charge of policy and research] said...Air sampling at four
sites near the plant found concentrations of vapor-state mercury
ranging from 0.52 to 25.69 micrograms of mercury in a cubic
meter of air. New Jersey has no health standard for the metal,
but Pennsylvania requires the air around an incinerator to contain
no more than 0.024 micrograms of mercury in a cubic meter of
air..." The Times [Trenton, NJ], 4-2-92,
pgs. A-1 & A-9. For more information contact: Anna Maria Caldara
at 201-362-8805.
WASTE NOT # 191 A publication of Work on Waste USA,
published 48 times a year. Annual rates are: Groups & Non-Profits
$50; Students & Seniors $35; Individual
$40; Consultants & For-Profits $125; Canadian
$US45; Overseas $65. Editors: Ellen & Paul
Connett, 82 Judson Street, Canton, NY 13617. Tel: 315-379-9200.
Fax: 315-379-0448.