Rensselaer
A proposed $35 million trash-to-fuel processing facility at the site of the former BASF chemical plant here would substitute recycled materials for dirty coal as a fuel for concrete plants, steel mills and other industrial uses.
That was the message Thursday night during a Zoom presentation by BioHiTech, the company that wants to build the fuel processing facility here.
Not everyone is convinced however, as most of the questions during a two-hour presentation and discussion came from opponents worried about traffic, odors and possible seepage into the Hudson River.
The 72,000-square-foot plant on a 10-acre lot would consist of large, deep pits under a building, where items like plastics and organic waste are separated out and turned into a papery fuel.
There’s a ready market for such fuels, said Emily Dyson, who works with the company’s existing plant in West Virginia.
“They want as much fuel as we can make,” Dyson said of their industrial customers.
Developed in Italy, the technology has been used in Europe for about a dozen years, said Dennis Soriano, the company’s director of business development. The facility would employ about 25 people locally.
Items ranging from railroad ties, to tires to unused lip gloss (the company has actually accepted a load from California), are turned into fuel in this process.
On the other hand, the facility could bring in dozens of trucks per day.
“There would be times during the day when there would be quite a few trucks coming to the site,’’ said John Montagne, a consultant for the project.
In addition to traffic and emissions worries, opponents said they feared seepage into the nearby Hudson.
Additionally, there’s a capped landfill under the site containing toxic waste from the days when BASF was operating there.
Soriano and others from BioHiTech explained that the building would have negative air pressure and mulch filters to control any fumes or odors. And they said the facility would be high enough to avoid puncturing the BASF landfill allow.
All of this back-and-forth comes as Rensselaer for several years now has been embroiled in controversy over another waste site, the Dunn construction demolition and debris landfill up the hill from the BASF site.
Neighbors of the Dunn site have bitterly complained about rotten egg odors, fumes and heavy truck traffic. That facility is adjacent to the Rensselaer K-12 school complex, further adding to the controversy.
Some said that the old BASF plant created problems when that was there and questioned whether residents want another such facility in their midst.
“People in that neighborhood have been damaged for 100 years by BASF,” remarked Peter Finn, a member of the Rensselaer Environmental Coalition, which has battled the Dunn landfill.
The ultimate fate of the BioHiTech project is unclear and it depends on which side one talks to.
“We don’t see the need to go forward with a full environmental impact study,” Soriano said, later adding that their application was in the “technical review” stage with the state.
New York State doesn’t seem to agree, however, as they have criticized a preliminary go-ahead from a prior city administration. Rensselaer city officials more than a year ago gave BioHiTech a special use permit, saying that a full State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA study, wouldn’t be needed for the project to move forward.
But the state Department of Environmental Conservation in late 2019 wrote to outgoing Rensselaer Mayor Richard Mooney, saying they believe the project will almost certainly need more environmental information to move forward.
“It is now incumbent upon the city of Rensselaer, to the fullest extent provided by applicable law, to reopen the environmental impact assessment process ... and take appropriate corrective action,” DEC Regional Director Keith Goertz wrote to Mooney in November.
The DEC letter alleged a number of lapses and shortcuts the prior Rensselaer City Council and planning officials made in saying there was no need for a full-scale review.
Mooney, a Democrat, was defeated by Republican Mike Stammel for mayor in November in a race that turned in part on anger over the prior administration’s allowing the Dunn facility to open.
rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTU
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Rensselaer waste-to-fuel developers grilled over project plans - Times Union
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