Westbrook residents will soon have a chance to weigh in on a plan by Sappi Fine Paper to burn recycled wood from construction and demolition debris in one of its boilers.
A hearing will be held on Thursday, Nov. 16, in room 114 at Westbrook High School, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The company has filed an application with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for a permit to burn the debris. The material, which would consist of old lumber and construction debris sorted and processed into small chips, would be used to help fuel one of its boilers.
The plan to burn waste wood has garnered criticism by residents, who are concerned burning the waste will result in air pollution or a smell. However, the company and the Department of Environmental Protection have said that burning the debris will cause no ill effects on the community.
“I have concerns,” said Westbrook City Councilor John O’Hara, who lives close by the mill on Cottage Place. “But I need more information.”
A neighbor of O’Hara’s on Cottage Place, Walter Beesley, said he would be in favor of the move by Sappi if the process were clean, because it would recycle waste that would otherwise go into a landfill. “I guess I don’t really see any harm in it,” said Beesley.
Beesley said his main concern is how well the waste is sorted to ensure that the least amount of chemicals enters the boiler as possible.
“If they sort it correctly, it’s probably a good thing,” he said.
Randy McMullin, spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said most of the wood is sorted from debris at facilities that specialize in separating waste from usable wood. The process involves workers separating the components by hand. McMullin said facilities sort through the debris, removing waste such as mattresses, rugs, concrete, wire and bricks, which is usually taken to a landfill.
Once workers get down to the wood, they separate the clean wood from wood that has been pressure treated or treated with chemicals. McMullin said they usually work in a picking line, with examples of what chemically treated wood looks like as a guide. He said it’s difficult to separate out chemicals entirely, but the state has enacted strict standards for what can be burned in boilers.
Sappi performed a burn of the waste wood in March, which the state monitored and McMullin said resulted in no smell or increased air pollution. He said stricter state standards enacted in May would require the wood to be even cleaner than that used in the burn last spring.
“You don’t get any smell from this stuff,” said McMullin. “That’s not going to happen. This stuff isn’t stinky. No smell. No real issues.”
According to state standards, Sappi would be required to hire an independent tester to monitor the fuel going into the mill and report back to both the company and the state. Sappi spokeswoman Brooke Carey said the company would be required to hire a third-party tester to monitor stack emissions. Also, she said, the company would do more visual inspections of the wood coming from the recycling facilities.
Sappi has applied for a permit to burn up to 50 percent of the biomass fuel at the mill as waste wood. Carey said this would amount to about 25 percent of the total fuel going into the boiler, with the waste wood being mixed in with virgin wood chips.
Currently, two other mills burn wood waste in Maine. Both of the mills are operated by Boralex, one in Livermore Falls and one in Stratton. Calls to a Boralex representative were not returned by the American Journal’s deadline.
However, Martin Puckett, town manager of Livermore Falls, said his community has not received complaints about the Boralex facility burning waste wood.
“I can’t say the air quality has been affected in Livermore Falls,” said Puckett.
However, he said, Livermore Falls has a population of 3,500, and the mill sits outside of town.
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