By Stephanie Grinnell
Staff Writer
The Maine Energy Recovery Company experienced two firsts recently, and both resulted in fines, one from the city of Biddeford and one from the state of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection.
The city imposed a $1,569 fine May 19 stemming from an odor violation detected May 13 and reported through the city’s EnviroLine, a phone number dedicated for odor complaints in the city. Biddeford Police and trained odor response agents evaluate odor complaints per a clause in the five-year waste handling agreement with Maine Energy signed last year. If found in violation, Maine Energy may be fined by the city, with increasing severity if odor violations continue.
“This [fine] would never have been able to be done without the contract,” City Manager John Bubier said.
Maine Energy General Manager Ken Robbins said the company disagrees with the fine imposed by the city for several reasons and said the company has asked the city to reconsider.
“They [odor response protocols] were not followed at all,” he said.
Robbins said there was not adequate time for the company’s representative, Environmental Manager Jim Secunde, to arrive and test the odor at the same time as the city’s representative Code Enforcement and Police Officer George Monteith. Robbins said the designated agents are supposed to perform odor testing at the same time to arrive at a mutual consensus about the level of the odor.
“It’s important they get there together,” he said.
Robbins also argued Monteith was not a certified odor response agent because he did not participate in a recent recertification class hosted by the company. Environmental Code Officer Brian Phinney, however, disagreed and said Monteith was certified at the time because the once per year training took place May 29, 2007.
“It hasn’t been a year,” he said.
The city is hosting its own recertification training June 18. Until then, Phinney is the only person certified by the city to be an odor response agent. The city will pay for the training, which will take place at the police station.
Training for odor response agents involves a series of tests designed to differentiate between severities of odors. Both the city and Maine Energy train to use the n-butanol scale. A violation for Maine Energy may be issued a fine for odors greater than 2.5 on the scale. The May 13 violation measured three, according to a letter from Phinney to Robbins notifying him of the violation and the fine.
Phinney said there were 68 calls to the EnviroLine for odors last year between April and October.
This year, two calls were received in February, with both calls noted as “no odor.” Four calls came in May, with three attributed to Maine Energy and one as no odor detected. To date, four calls have been received in June, with none designated as coming from Maine Energy. Secunde said the numbers did not surprise him and he is glad the city is tracking trends in calls, though he noted the trends will not result in physical changes to the facility.
Secunde said if a problem, such as an open door, is found before odor testing has been done, the problem is fixed prior to the test.
“We get a complaint so we can do something, that’s the way the system is supposed to work,” he said.
The DEP fined Maine Energy $38,700 for a failed stack test conducted Aug. 18, 2007, which found a higher concentration of particulate in one of the boilers than is allowed, and 23 self-reported violations. Robbins said a routine cleaning of the baghouse compartment revealed a filtering problem and the filter bags were dropped into the ash below without examination in September.
“In retrospect, we should have examined the bags,” Robbins said, noting the company was not aware of the stack test results at the time. “When we got the results of the stack test, we knew then it was the problem with the bags.”
Robbins said a Oct. 12, 2007 stack test revealed the problem had been solved. He said the company and the DEP worked out an administrative consent agreement, which fines the company $38,700 for the stack test violation and 23 self-reported incidents. Robbins said the DEP board must approve the agreement, then Maine Energy will have “a clean slate.”
Robbins and Secunde said the particulate that escaped the facility was a small enough amount to not cause a health concern for the general public.
Secunde said the heavy metal content was equal to 1/100 of the allowable limit determined by DEP with human health standards in mind. Robbins said an effort has been made to better monitor the particulate with upgrades to monitoring machinery in the facility.
Contact Stephanie Grinnell by calling 282-4337 ext. 213 or email news@inthecourier.com.