Feb 10 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Aaron Burnett The Lamar Ledger, Colo.



A plan to dump fly ash from the Lamar Re-powering Project in the municipal landfill has been scrapped after Thursday's meeting between representatives from Prowers County, the city of Lamar, Lamar Light and Power and area residents.

At issue was a request for a special permit to dispose of fly ash that was manually removed from the inside of the boiler after it was forced to temporarily come offline due to cracks in tubing inside the boiler.

Light and Power Superintendent Rick Rigel said the majority of the estimated 20,000 tons fly ash annually produced by the plant's boiler will be sold to a dealer to be used for industrial purposes such as road base. He said only about 10 percent is not expected to be usable.

The utility superintendent said the reasoning behind the request for the special permit was that the ash in question had to be removed from the boiler by a vacuum truck and was therefore not placed in the regular storage silo where it could be easily accessed for transport. Because of this, Rigel said it was thought that it would be more cost effective to haul the fly ash to the municipal landfill using local equipment rather than to load the material into the contractor's equipment for long range transport. The utility has an agreement in place with the city to dispose of the ash in the municipal landfill.

 Rigel said on instances where the generation plant's boiler has to be taken offline, the manual removal of fly ash from the furnace will likely be required. "When we have an upset condition, this would be a relatively common occurrence," said Rigel.

The special permit would be required because the state has informed the city that it must update its certificate of design and operations plan for the landfill before it can accept coal ash.

Rigel said that because of the complexity of the issue and the corresponding increased regulations involved, the utility has at this time chosen to have the fly ash in question hauled away by the contractor who handles the facility's fly ash under regular circumstances. He added that a letter stating that the special permit is not being sought at this time has been drafted and will be sent to the parties involved.

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