Trash-burning power plant in Fairfield fires debate

A New York company's proposal to bring 200 badly needed "green jobs" to Baltimore by building a "renewable-energy" plant in the Fairfield area is drawing heat from — of all people — environmentalists.

That's because the 120-megawatt power plant planned by Energy Answers International of Albany would burn shredded municipal waste, tire chips, auto parts and demolition debris for fuel. Company officials argue the nearly $1 billion project will generate electricity and steam from waste that otherwise would fill up landfills. And it would be one of the cleanest facilities of its type in the nation, they say, with state-of-the-art pollution controls.

But activists argue the facility is still a glorified trash incinerator that would discourage recycling and spew hazardous pollutants into the nearby Brooklyn and Curtis Bay neighborhoods, which are already afflicted with some of the least healthy air in the state because of all the industry in the area. At least one environmental group has threatened to sue if the project gets a green light.

Is this what Curtis Bay is going to be known for?" Dr. Gwen DuBois, a member of the Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, asked at a public hearing on the project in late May. "We want good union jobs, but this is not green."

The project, to be financed in part by up to $300 million in federal stimulus funds, has won the backing of union leaders eager for the hundreds of jobs the company says the facility will create. It's also been endorsed by usually industry-wary community groups, wooed by the developer's promise of scholarships and up to $100,000 a year for improvements in neighborhoods long suffering from neglect and joblessness.

The proposed plant is being reviewed by the state Public Service Commission, which must approve any facility that would generate power to the electric grid. The commission has held a pair of hearings on the project and plans another one June 28 to review the facility's air-quality impacts.

"This is a very positive economic and environmental project," Patrick Mahoney, Energy Answers president, said at the hearing in Curtis Bay. He argued it would keep thousands of tons of waste out of landfills, reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases, help the state generate more of its power from renewable sources and produce environmentally friendly jobs.

 
 
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun