Jul 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Tim Hahn Erie Times-News, Pa.



Three months after announcing plans to move its proposed tires-to-energy plant south from Erie, representatives of Erie Renewable Energy brought their plan to their proposed host community.

The reception was less than warm.

A large crowd filled the Greenwood Township Municipal Building to overflowing Tuesday night as township supervisors were given an overview of a proposed plant that its builders say will be capable of generating 90 megawatts of electricity from an internal-combustion process fueled by 900 tons of scrap tires per day.

But many in the audience questioned the motives behind bringing a controversial project to a quiet, rural area of southern Crawford County after a long and bitter battle to build the plant in Erie.

 Joe May, ERE local counsel, told supervisors that the proposed plant runs on a process that involves shredding waste tires into 2-by-2-inch pieces to serve as fuel for the plant, which they propose to build on 80 acres in the Keystone Regional Industrial Park in Greenfield Township.

ERE is in the process of preparing an air-quality permit application to submit to the state Department of Environmental Protection, and they expect to submit that application within two weeks, May said.

ERE had submitted a similar permit application for a tires-to-energy plant that it spent years trying to build on a piece of the old International Paper site in Erie. The DEP had given the company "a proposed draft permit" for the site, but those plans were scrapped for Erie because the Greater Erie Industrial Development Corp. breached agreements concerning the acquisition of property on the IP site, May said.

He told supervisors that while the plant targeted for Greenwood Township is essentially the same as what was proposed for Erie, aside from modifications made to fit the new parcel's topography and the makeup of the property. But because the air quality permit is "site specific," a new application, with new modeling, has to be crafted, May said.

Many of those who attended the supervisors' meeting raised questions about the local effect of the plant, including where it will get its water and what happens to it in the industrial process.

An ERE engineer said the water, which is to come from two wells capable of producing 1.5 million gallons per day, will be used as a coolant, with the bulk lost to evaporation and a small amount sent through the industrial park's sewage-treatment system.

Mark Turner, of the Economic Progress Alliance of Crawford County, which operates the industrial park, said the sewage system has been upgraded and is only operating at a fraction of capacity. He said it was his understanding that, of the estimated 800,000 gallons of water per day that the plant will use, only about 7,500 gallons will be discharged into the sewer plant.

Several residents in the area questioned the ability of the system to handle any new sewage, noting that they have experienced occasional system backups because of the age and poor design of the collection system.

Randy Barnes, the president of Keep Erie's Environment Protected, an opposition group that fought the plant when it was proposed for Erie, presented supervisors with numbers from ERE's permit application for Erie. According to the application, the Erie plant would have lost 801 gallons a minute to evaporation, but would have sent 220.4 gallons per minute, or more than 316,000 gallons per day, into the sewer system, he said.

Barnes said that the township should be concerned that, while there might be enough water available for the proposed plant, "what about the next company that wants to bring green jobs?" He added that there are other major concerns, including how the plant will be able to find the amount of tires it needs, and the levels of contaminants that will come from it.

Scott Hricsina, president of local opposition group Crawford Area Residents for the Environment, or C.A.R.E., asked ERE representatives how the company was going to compensate area residents for a loss in their property values. He said three studies done of communities that host power plants found a noticeable drop in property values from those plants.

Hricsina and others also questioned ERE's ability to get the tires, and demanded to know who the company's proposed suppliers are. May would not list them, but said that they would be getting tires from three states within a 50-mile radius of the proposed plant site.

The only three states within 50 miles of the site are Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

Hricsina and his group have pressed Greenwood Township supervisors to enforce a 1981 township ordinance that regulates solid-waste processing or disposal facilities in the township. Its requirements include that such facilities be municipally owned and operated, and be permitted annually.

Township Solicitor Bill Walker said it appears that the ordinance would not apply to the proposed tires-to-energy plant. The ordinance relates to facilities that process solid waste to create a product that is used off site, while the proposed plant would use the waste on site.

Amy Hricsina, of C.A.R.E., also questioned whether supervisors were ready to act on a proposed resolution supplied by the group that would require ERE to provide more detailed environmental-impact studies during the DEP permitting process. Township Supervisor Chairman Cecil Stevenson said they would not act on it.

TIM HAHN can be reached at 392-7821 or by e-mail.

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