Heat measured in thousands of degrees will be at the heart of the so-called plasma arc converter.
But backers say the plant - first of its kind in the world - isn't a garbage burner and won't emit smoke or hazardous chemicals since it will break down trash in an oxygen-starved, sealed chamber.
"This is a technology whose time has come," said Wesley Bilson, CEO of Global Energy Resources, the year-old company behind the plan. "We're not putting $50 million into it if we don't think it works."
Cochise County, which is poised to sign a letter of intent with the company, would pay only to haul trash to the dump in Whetstone, as it does now. If the process works as described, county officials say they could extend the life of the landfill and save millions of dollars. That could translate into a 25 percent cut in residents' garbage bills.
Opponents, however, describe the company as snake oil salesmen who are treating county residents like a bunch of bumpkins.
Burying trash poses its own risks to groundwater, critics say, but the waste-to-energy plan is just modern-day alchemy and will spew dioxins - cancer-causing byproducts of combustion - into the air.
"I feel kind of weird being in a position where I'm defending landfills," said Tucsonan Terry Nordbrock, co-founder of Families Against Cancer and Toxics. "But I fear incineration is far worse than a landfill in terms of taking garbage and making it more toxic."
Letter of intent is next step
Construction of the plant could take 18 months and the project may face years of government review before the building starts. The next step is for Cochise County to sign a nonbinding letter of intent with Global Energy Resources, which would allow the company to seek venture capital and develop a more detailed proposal.
County supervisors are scheduled to discuss the proposal Tuesday. Two of the three board members say they're inclined to sign the letter.
"I feel it's worth the effort to get more information," Supervisor Richard Searle said. "To close the door on it just because it's new technology is being shortsighted. On the flip side, I don't want to put the county out there as a guinea pig."
Supervisor Pat Call said, "I'm skeptical, but I'm willing to take another step to see if there's some value in this.
"Twenty years ago, we were taking sewage, letting it evaporate and burying the sludge left over. These days, we treat it, call it effluent and use it to recharge our aquifer - it's liquid gold," Call said.
"I think the same thing has to happen with the garbage we all produce. There's got to be a better use than digging up the desert and burying it."
Searle and Call said either party could walk away from the letter of intent without penalties. But Supervisor Paul Newman, a lawyer, said the letter could be construed as an implied contract.
"I'm not going to get married to these people to see what they have in store for us," he said. "We're being held out this piece of cheese as a panacea, but I'm very, very afraid that it's nothing more than a 'Clockwork Orange' experiment and we'll be left with the pieces once the experiment explodes."
Newman and other critics question why Cochise County should be the testing ground for a patent-pending process.
"If it's such a benevolent system, why aren't they going to New York City or Los Angles?" Newman said. "I feel they're trying to pick us as a sucker."
Global Energy Resources said it already has a letter of intent with the White Mountains town of Eagar and is in discussions with other municipalities that it declined to specify.
"I don't have a problem being first," Supervisor Searle said. "If this works, I guarantee you the next entity that will be looking at it will have to pay for it."
New startup raises doubts
Aside from concerns about the technology, some in Cochise County have doubts about a company that incorporated only in May and point to the legal troubles of its former CEO, Dr. Armen Kazanchian.
In June 2003, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed felony criminal charges against Kazanchian and three other doctors. The complaint alleged they used a bogus pharmacy to bilk the state's Medi-Cal system of more than $500,000 by writing fake prescriptions and laundering the money through a pseudo-caviar production company.
The charges against Kazanchian were eventually dismissed because "we just can't prove the case against him beyond a reasonable doubt," said Tony Lewis, supervising deputy attorney general.
Kazanchian didn't return calls and e-mails seeking comment.
Kazanchian was initially listed as CEO on Global Energy Resources one-page Web site, but his name was removed a few weeks ago. Company officials say he is no longer part of the venture.
"Everyone should be a little suspicious of any startup company," said Lee Basnar, a Sierra Vista Herald columnist who formed a citizens committee that endorses signing the letter of intent.
Still, Basnar said, there's no harm having the company develop a more detailed proposal. And there are perils with the status quo: Dumping garbage in landfills with plastic liners could taint aquifers that feed the San Pedro River.
"At some point - no one can predict when - those liners in the landfill will fail. Maybe one, two, three generations from now. Who knows?" Basnar said.
The new landfill in Whetstone is designed to prevent such seepage, but corrosive substances invariably get by screening and can degrade the liners, said L.H. Hamilton, Cochise County's facilities and solid waste director.
There's still plenty of room at the garbage dump, but opening new cells costs about $2 million every 2 1/2 years. Hamilton said the county has "blown off a half-dozen companies" that peddled new techniques for dealing with trash, but this one is different.
"I have no idea if this will work," he said. "But if it didn't have some promise, there wouldn't be over 40 companies in the U.S. trying to develop this technology."
Garbage fee could drop
Assuming the plant gets built, Hamilton said, the county could knock $10 off the $41.50-per-ton tipping fee it charges haulers, who in turn could pass the savings on to their customers.
The plant's potential water use is still unclear, but the process could extract moisture from the trash. County officials say the specifics about water could make or break the plan.
Even if Cochise County approves of the facility, Global Energy Resources still would need to pass muster with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
That's small consolation to David Leib, a member of Concerned Cochise County Residents, a group of about 100 that formed to oppose the converter.
"I'm not going to trust ADEQ or EPA to look out for us," said Leib, a retired engineer.
Even with safeguards in place, the plant would still generate tremendous heat and be vulnerable to an explosion or gaseous release, he said.
"Right now we could reduce our landfill input by up to 50 percent just by having a very vigorous recycling program," he said. "This isn't glitzy. It doesn't have this wonderful new technology - which will poison us. But it will work."
* Contact reporter Mitch Tobin at 573-4185 or mtobin@azstarnet.com .
