Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
A contract to build a gas pipeline from an Old Town landfill to the University of Maine, which would fulfill most campus heating needs for the next 20 years, was signed with little fanfare on Dec. 21, 2010.
The contract, provided to The Maine Campus last week, dictates that Casella Waste Systems, a Vermont-based company that has operated the state-owned Juniper Ridge Landfill since 2004, will install and operate a pipeline from the Old Town site to the Steam Plant on the UMaine campus.
The deal includes a price cap for future landfill gas costs. UMaine will modify the Steam Plant to be able to burn landfill gas and Casella will reimburse the university up to $500,000 for construction.
But a quietly added “Phase Two” outlines an agreement to begin negotiations concerning the use of cogeneration — the use of an engine at a plant to produce both heat and electricity — is detailed about midway through the document.
Phase Two of the agreement states the university “may elect to participate in a subsequent project in which [Casella] proposes to build a combined heat and power plant that would burn substantially all of the Landfill Gas produced at the landfill to generate steam and electricity for sale.”
The agreement also stipulates that UMaine and Casella will begin “good faith negotiations for a Phase Two project” at the start of the December contract.
UMaine Vice President of Administration and Finance Janet Waldron and Casella Manager of Planning and Development Don Meagher both said the negotiations on Phase Two have barely started.
“At this point, we know that a co-gen facility is something that the university has been researching for as much as 10 years,” Meagher said. “All we really said in the contract was that we both have an interest in further discussion on that idea.”
John Banks of Indian Island, the director of the Penobscot Nation Department of Natural Resources and one of eight community members on a municipality-appointed landfill advisory committee, said the preliminary plans for Phase Two were not at all outlined to the committee.
The Juniper Ridge Landfill Advisory Committee was established by statute in 2004 to “act as a liaison between the public and parties involved with the operation of Juniper Ridge Landfill,” according to the city of Old Town’s website.
“We can’t do that if we’re not being kept informed, so to hear through the grapevine that this contract has been approved before we even have our very next meeting as a committee is really quite appalling to me,” Banks said. “It’s not a move to keep us in the dark, but that is certainly the result — that we are unable to carry out our statutory responsibility to keep the public informed.”
Banks said he only learned of the contract’s finalizing recently — from a member of the community.
“I was a little shocked to hear the contract had been awarded because, as a member of [the committee], at our last meeting [in November], we were told there was nothing in the works and that there was nothing to update us on,” Banks said.
The landfill has more than enough gas in it now to fulfill the initial contract at least twice over and the contract stipulates that the university only wants to purchase existing gas — two key provisions for the university, according to Waldron.
“We’re buying the existing gas that is there — they have a 50-year supply,” Waldron said Wednesday. “It’s the fact that they have the capacity to deliver this … . The gas is already there.”
Orono resident Paul Schroeder, an opponent of the Casella-operated facility since its inception, expressed concern that this deal would be a bargaining chip for a looming expansion of the landfill.
“Casella doesn’t really care about landfill gas. What they want is the sanction of their expansion,” he said. “They’re not in the energy business. They’re in the waste stream business.”
According to a Maine Department of Environmental Protection draft denial cited by the Bangor Daily News in January, Juniper Ridge was denied the opportunity to expand three times because “delaying the development of an expansion at the Juniper Ridge Landfill will not result in a gap in local, regional or state waste landfilling needs.”
In September, State Rep. Bob Duchesne, D-Hudson, told The Maine Campus another “expansion battle” is likely to happen within the next two years.
Meagher played down any possibility of the initial agreement affecting expansion plans because of all the existing gas, but said Phase Two may require the landfill to expand.
“Where it’s likely to be more of a factor on whether something is feasible or not is going to be on Phase Two because there you’re getting into not only the thermal needs of the campus, but the power needs of the campus,” he said. “The demand for fuel is larger.”
Both Waldron and Associate Executive Director of Facilities Management Stewart Harvey said the ratification of a Phase Two agreement would require an entirely new contract.
“We have talked just briefly about what the project would be in scope,” Harvey said. “It’s premature for us to talk about what Phase Two might consist of because it would be conjecture on our part.”
He said a co-generation plant must be built no farther than a mile from the point of use, which would be the university.
According to the Bangor Daily News, the city of Old Town has planned a $7.1 million “Energy and Enterprise Park” between the Hilltop section of campus and the Old Town Fuel and Fiber mill on Penny Road. The city has already permitted the construction and expects to start building this year. Meagher expects that to be a likely site for Phase Two, if implemented.
“At that location, certainly sending both steam and power to the campus, from a location standpoint, I think that is workable,” he said. “Conversely, putting a facility on campus and delivering steam and electricity to the industrial park — that’s also an option.”
The university released figures in September saying the currently finalized contract would decrease UMaine’s carbon footprint by 30,000 metric tons and its emissions by more than 40 percent by reducing the amount of natural gas used as fuel on campus. The switch may save the university up to $17 million over the 20-year span of the contract, according to the figures.
At a November meeting of the landfill advisory committee, Meagher said the university compiled the figures, taking no responsibility for their accuracy. Now Schroeder believes the university to be ducking the public by not explaining the math behind the numbers. Waldron has remained adamant about the veracity of the cost-savings and carbon reduction claims.
“On a project like this, infrastructure is forever. They have a responsibility for bringing all of their analysis forward,” Schroeder said. “Until they bring that analysis forward, I can’t see how we can be really anything but skeptical about everything that lies behind this.”
The currently signed contract also outlines a proposed map of the pipeline, a rough timetable and permitting responsibilities.
The proposed route of the pipeline leads east out of the landfill and crosses Interstate 95, running south parallel to the highway until meeting Gilman Falls Road, and goes slightly southeast, crossing a bridge over the Stillwater River. Shortly thereafter, it would then take another turn south and follow most of the length of College Avenue extended from west Old Town to the Steam Plant.
Meagher said the proposed pipeline is between five and six miles long.
The route of the pipeline, Meagher said, is not yet finalized. The map pictured is one of two proposed options; however, the route will not differ tremendously, he said.
“The map you see there — [it is] illustrative,” Meagher said. “I think it is a real good indication of the direction we are going to go in, but in terms of us going internally through the process and actually saying ‘OK, we’ve reached the conclusion that this is the route we want to use’ — we have not completed that process.”
The pipeline will have to both cross Interstate 95 and the Stillwater River. If there is a site where a bridge cannot be used to traverse the water or roadway, Meagher said a process called “directional boring” is usually used.
Pipe crossings underneath United States rivers and roadways have been done in a similar manner since the early 1970s, according to a 1997 report by the Washington D.C.-based Transportation Research Board.
The process is a trenchless method of installing underground pipes using a surface-based drilling rig with which the drill bit can be steered and tracked. That creates a small arc of space through which piping can be fed.
According to the preliminary timetable in the contract, the project design is to be completed by April 2011 and construction is expected to begin between September 2011 and March 2012, depending on regulatory approval. The pipeline could begin running between February and September 2012.
Casella, according to an exhibit in the contract, is responsible for filing 12 of 17 permits, licenses or approvals — nine of which are with state agencies. The final three are split between the city of Old Town and the town of Orono’s planning board.
Under stipulations of the federal Clean Water Act, Casella must also file for a license with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers due to possible impacts on wetland areas.
UMaine is responsible for five permits, licenses or approvals, one of which has to do with air emission licensing with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Three other permits will be filed through MDEP and one with the Orono Planning Board.
Meagher said he hopes the permitting process is completed within the year, though the contract says June 2011 is the estimated timeframe.
“Once we submit the permits, we really lose control of the project’s time frame,” he said. “You put it in and we get to the end of it when we get to the end of it.”
