Posted by Guy Crittenden at 04:40 PM
I think readers might enjoy this article that appeared recently in the Edmonton Journal about the hazardous waste treatment plant in Swan Hills, Alberta. It relates the story of recent occurrences at the plant (including an explosion last year that closed the plant for 10 months) and declining waste volumes. The government is re-assessing the plant's future and potential waste streams requiring treatment (e.g., PCBs).
Half a billion tax dollars later, Swan Hills' days may be numbered; Hazardous waste plant built in '80s to meet a need that never materialized
Edmonton Journal
Sun Jul 25 2010
Page: A1, Section: News
Byline: Hanneke Brooymans
Dateline: SWAN HILLS
Source: Edmonton Journal
Alberta has long lavished tax dollars on the facility that treats hazardous waste near Swan Hills, but soaring costs in the last three years have strengthened calls to re-examine its use.
Over half a billion dollars have been spent on the facility, which opened in 1987. There are serious signs the facility is faltering now, with an explosion last year and drops in the incoming waste stream in recent years.
Then there's the fact that the facility is already "eating itself." Parts of the facility are being decommissioned and torn down, with most of the debris headed for another incinerator to deal with contamination. During a recent tour, about a dozen blue waste bins were seen directly behind the Van Rolls incinerator, some of them already full of concrete rubble.
The annual report by Earth Tech, the company that operates the government-owned plant, says two incinerators, a decant building and redundant portions of a tank farm were decommissioned during the latter half of 2009. It's a curious shrinking act for a plant that had to be expanded, at considerable taxpayer expense, in the mid-1990s.
Plant manager Don Freckleton said the Von Rolls incinerator was an older style rocking kiln that was shut down in 1992. The CE Raymond incinerator was also shut down in 2005. They were decommissioned because they don't meet the market, he added.
The Ford, Bacon and Davis incinerator installed in 1994 is a more current rotating kiln. It could burn through 40,000 tonnes of waste per year but gets about one-quarter of that these days. Freckleton said it's "oversized for the market." They only turn it on after they've collected and stockpiled enough waste to make it worthwhile.
They've also stopped taking commercial wastes that used to be stabilized and landfilled instead of incinerated.
Last year, it cost the province almost $25 million to treat less than 1,000 tonnes of toxic waste in the last fiscal year, according to figures provided by the government.
That's partly because the facility was only running for about 10 days that year, as it was shut down for 10 months following the explosion and fire in July 2009.
The fire occurred after a bolt on a strainer broke, spraying toxic liquid into a burner room. One employee whose coveralls were saturated with the waste managed to leave the room before the explosion that caused the fire, according to an incident report obtained by a citizen under Freedom of Information legislation.
The amount of waste treated doesn't seem to have a huge impact on the operating cost to the province, though. It still cost the government almost $22 million to operate the plant in 2008-09, when 10,500 tonnes were treated. (The government tracks data on a fiscal year basis, rather than on a calendar year basis, as in Earth Tech's annual report.)
Alberta Infrastructure, which owns the plant, says the plant has certain fixed costs regardless of whether it is treating waste or not, such as staff , utilities, monitoring and testing.
The decommissioning of portions of the plant seems to suggest that the facility is narrowing its operations, said Guy Crittenden, longtime editor of HazMat Management magazine, a trade publication.
"Based on that, it sounds like they realized that PCBs and any other really high-strength hazardous wastes are the only business for them to be in and they're just not competitive for the other waste streams, so they're getting out of that business, which probably makes sense," he said.
But it also reinforces questions about the facility's future. The federal government amended its PCB disposal regulations last year, allowing some PCB owners to dispose of their stockpiles on-site by the end of 2011. Those who wanted to send their PCBs off -site for destruction were supposed to do so by the end of 2009, though.
In 2007, 6,036 tonnes of PCBs were estimated to be in use and 1,373 tonnes were estimated to be stored, according to Environment Canada. The department could not immediately clarify what the more up-to-date figures were. There are some PCBs that could legally be in use until 2025. Other PCBs are exempted from an end-of-use date, such as those in cables, capacitors in communication, electronic control equipment, and pipeline equipment. They could potentially be sent to facilities such as the Swan Hills Treatment Centre anytime between now and the regulated end-of-use date, or whenever the equipment they are currently in is removed from service, the department says.
Crittenden said he expects Swan Hills could see a big increase in its PCB destruction inventory arriving at the plant over the next three or four years. "But there will be a time at which, after that is done, where there isn't going to be much waste shipped to Swan Hills. At least not PCB waste."
At that point, Crittenden said he thinks the government could close the plant. Or they might say that because they spent so much money on it that they'd mothball it in case they need it later, he added.
"That would be something I'd question because would they be doing that because they really think there's going to be waste coming at them in the future, or would it be just a way of avoiding having to pay for it and keep the thing on ice in perpetuity, which I don't think would really be acceptable. If they decide to do that, I'd like to see a really convincing economic argument as to why they ever think waste is going to go there."
Alberta Infrastructure is currently weighing a report with recommendations on the facility's future. Minister Ray Danyluk has no intention of making a hasty decision.
"We are having discussions with the federal government in regard to what their needs are," he said. "We're assessing what the needs of Alberta are. And making sure that we don't end up in a situation where we have a site, a very workable site, and then try to decommission the whole thing and then all of a sudden we need a site. No. We're doing a very clear assessment."
Alberta Liberal Leader David Swann said the government needs to let the public see the assessment without further delay.
"That's all Albertans ask of the government, is that they do a careful business analysis of what they're doing on behalf of the public and make it transparent so that the average citizen can also know that their money is being wisely spent and decisions are in the public interest."
As it stands, Alberta taxpayers are subsidizing the disposal of waste from other parts of the country.
"The business case has not been met," Swann said. "Does that mean we should shut it down or does that mean we should be charging a fair market value for this important service? Clearly, I believe the latter. It is an important responsibility for somebody to do it, we've chosen to do it, so let's do it in a sustainable way -- economically, as well as environmentally."
Crittenden said the facility was built with another waste stream in mind.
"The story I was always told was that the plant was built in anticipation of oily waste, the kind of things that are injected in deep wells and disposed of in other methods, that these things were going to be required to be disposed of in a hazardous waste treatment plant rather than in whatever other methods they are treated with today, and that never materialized," he said.
"Swan Hills has become the poster child for: don't build a facility in the expectation of regulation. Wait until the regulation comes out."
Swan Hills Mayor Pamela Marriott questions if the government made all the correct decisions when it comes to oilfield waste disposal... She'd like to see it remain in operation. Marriott believes waste management, including proper toxic waste disposal, is a government mandate. And unless society makes some radical lifestyle changes, there will continue to be a need for facilities such as these.
"We all buy stuff," she said. "But maybe we do need to question, in the production of this product, what are the byproducts and what's happening with those byproducts? Is that hazardous waste? How is it being dealt with?"
hbrooymans@thejournal.canwest.com
http://www.edmontonjournal.com


Guy Crittenden is editor of HazMat Management magazine, Canada's quarterly magazine on everything to do with hazardous and industrial wastes, emergency preparedness, dangerous goods transportation, contaminated site cleanup and related environmental service issues. Crittenden also edits Solid Waste & Recycling magazine, a bimonthly publication on waste management, recycling, composting, processing, hauling and disposal in Canada. Both magazines are read by managers and practitioners in the industrial, commercial and institutional waste (IC&I) sectors, as well as consultants and officials from all levels of government. The focus is on practical "shop floor" solutions, technical dimensions and policy matters that affect these rapidly changing industries.