By Eric McGuinness Hamilton Spectator October 28 2009
Burke Austin and about 20 of her Parkdale East neighbours want to stop the city from building a $65-million sludge incinerator at the Woodward Avenue sewage treatment plant.
She says the city has put off meeting with the objectors since June, only agreeing this week to sit down Nov. 5.
Jim Harnum, senior director of water and wastewater, said Monday the session would be closed to news media, then changed his mind yesterday and invited a Spectator reporter to attend.
His first comments were: “It’s a private meeting, not public. We’re not trying to hide anything, we’re not negotiating, not making any deals with them. There will be three or four people maximum. It’s not a meeting we would invite you to.”
Austin says Community Action Parkdale East (CAPE) has been objecting since the incinerator was proposed in the city’s 2007 Biosolids Master Plan. Biosolids are the industry term for sewage sludge.
She says dealing with public works staff has been “like pulling teeth. They didn’t refuse to meet, just kept saying they weren’t available. I’d describe their attitude as unco-operative politeness.”
CAPE argues that the proposed incinerator would be too close to Woodward Avenue School and to homes already subject to foul odours from the sewage plant.
It wants the city to consider contracting with Liberty Energy, which has environmental approval to build a power plant on Strathearne Avenue fuelled by sludge and wood waste.
Harnum says an environmental assessment of a $131.5-million biosolids management plan that includes the incinerator is almost ready to be filed for public comment, that there is no obligation to meet now but “as a courtesy, I said I would meet with the people who don’t want an incinerator.”
The assessment report will include findings of a human health risk assessment that’s cost the city $200,000 or more.
Harnum says he intends to get Environment Ministry approval for an incinerator, then hire a consultant to compare it to using Liberty, “to say what’s in the best interests of the city.” Money for an incinerator is in the 2012 capital budget, with completion scheduled for 2015.
Until then, the city will keep paying for sludge to be trucked to farm fields and spread as fertilizer, a practice the 2007 plan calls unsustainable for a host of reasons, including concerns about pathogens, heavy metals and drug residues in the sludge and the reluctance of many farmers to use it.
Maureen Reilly of Toronto-based SludgeWatch is also questioning the city decision to take $20 million in economic stimulus funds for a $30-million project to increase production of methane gas from sludge digesters at the Woodward plant, gas that will be used to generate electricity for sale and to fuel city trucks.
Reilly maintains the digester project should be part of the environmental assessment, and argues it would be cheaper and better environmentally to simply incinerate the sludge. She says extracting more gas will remove energy value from the sludge, making it more costly to burn. Harnum counters that the sludge will still burn by itself, without added fuel.
Incinerator watch
* Parkdale East residents say they are keeping an eye on four incinerator proposals that could affect their neighbourhood.
* Strathearne Avenue, where Liberty Energy has city zoning and Environment Ministry approval to build a power plant fuelled by sewage sludge and waste wood.
* Woodward Avenue, where the city is seeking approval to burn sludge at the sewage treatment plant.
* Undetermined location of an energy-from-waste plant fuelled by garbage and sewage sludge, subject of a joint $283,000 study by the City of Hamilton and Hamilton Utilities Corp. Results are expected early next year. Jim Harnum, senior director of water and wastewater, says it might replace the Woodward facility, but would not be built there.
* Pier 22 west of Strathearne, where Councillor Sam Merulla and Parkdale East’s Burke Austin say the Hamilton Port Authority has talked of siting an energy-from-waste plant that might burn garbage brought in by barge. Spokesperson Brent Kinnaird said yesterday, “the Hamilton Port Authority is currently in negotiations with Hamilton Utilities Corporation and we are not able to comment further at this time.”