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County leans toward expanding burner
Published Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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Despite opposition from some groups that want to see less garbage, and not more refuse, brought to the Perham Resource Recovery Facility, the Otter Tail County Board of Commissioners is leaning in support of a proposed expansion of the refuse burner.
The expansion plan, outlined Tuesday morning when the county board held its weekly meeting in New York Mills, came from Perham City Manager Kelcey Klemm. Steam heat form the refuse burner currently is supplied to Perham industrial customers Bongards and Tuffy’s.
“Bongards is committed here for the long haul,” Klemm said. “But right now, while 60 percent of its steam heat comes from refuse boilers, another 40 percent comes from a natural gas auxiliary boiler. Expanding the refuse burner would be good for Perham, participating counties (Otter Tail, Todd and Wadena) and Bongards themselves.”
Bongards, known as Land O’ Lakes until 2003, produces 1.3 million pounds of cheddar, Monterey jack, Colby, Colby jack, reduced fat and mozzarella per week — plus 750,000 pounds of whey protein and whey powders. The plant has 95 employees, including 84 production workers.
Close to 600 farmers are either direct members, trade members or member cooperatives of Perham-based Bongards.
Tuffy’s, the other industrial customer which receives steam heat from the refuse burner, manufactures dry and moist dog and cat food and treats at its plant in Perham.
Klemm said Tuesday that the City of Perham, with the backing of counties that haul refuse to the burner, is in line to receive a $2.8 million grant for refuse burner expansion. Additional equipment would come from the Fergus Falls incinerator that closed at the RTC campus on the north side of town.
“We’d likely need more refuse than what Otter Tail, Todd and Wadena counties currently provide,” Klemm said. “We have strong possibilities in adding Becker, Hubbard, Cass and/or Clay counties.”
The Perham refuse burner currently process 118 tons per day, equivalent to 35,000 tons of refuse per year. Following the expansion, that would increase to 200 tons per day, equivalent to 55,000 tons per of refuse per year.
Bongards representatives, who also addressed the county board Tuesday in New York Mills, said demand for dairy processing will only increase. In turn, they said, will be increased demand for steam heat.
“Expansion of the refuse burner, in my estimation, is a workable situation,” county board chairperson Sydney Nelson said. “At the same time, we as a county board have to look at the ramifications of incurring more debt. And if we as a board did decide to go forward, we strongly believe a refuse burner governance board needs to be in place.”
Nelson assured Klemm, Bongards and other refuse burner expansion supporters that a final decision will be made by the county board before the end of September. That’s when Klemm and the City of Perham need support from the various counties in order to finalize the grant agreement with the State of Minnesota.
Otter Tail, Todd and Wadena counties are contractually obligated to the refuse burner through 2022. Perham currently receives $84,000 per year as an administrative fee for managing the facility. About 14 employees (part of Perham city government) work at the Resource Recovery Facility in Perham.
A fourth county, Stearns, has a contract that runs only through September 2009. At that time it’s likely they will begin disposing of refuse elsewhere. Becker County (Detroit Lakes area) and Cass County (Walker area) previously expressed interest in hauling refuse to Perham.
Refuse expansion protesters Bob Lohman and Colleen Donley carried signs outside the county board meeting Tuesday. They take issue with economic development coming at the expense of additional refuse coming into Perham. They also disagreed with slogans such as “garbage is good” and “garbage is economic development.”
Proponents, however, maintain that refuse in Perham can be burned in a safe, controlled, monitored and tested environment.
Comments
The Daily Journal is happy to host community conversations about news and life in Fergus Falls and the surrounding area. As hosts, we expect guests will show respect for each other. That means we don't threaten or defame each other, and we keep conversations free of personal attacks. Witty is great. Abusive is not. If you think a post violates these standards, don't escalate the situation. Instead, flag the comment to alert us. We'll take action if necessary. It's not hard. This should be a place where people want to read and contribute -- a place for spirited exchanges of opinion. So those who persist with racist, defamatory or abusive postings risk losing the privilege to post at all.Posted by Generally_Misunderstood (anonymous) on August 20, 2008 at 11:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Protesting something that will provide clean power/heat and reduce the cubic yardage of trash placed into a land fill that will sit for decades or centuries to come? That is just ridiculous. Unless our entire society is willing to give up modern luxuries, why is this use of garbage a bad thing? The technology exists on these burners to be very clean and minimize any pollutants exhausted from it. This type of thinking needs to be encouraged, not protested against. Brings in more garbage sure, but it will also lower the amount of fossil fuels used as a direct result. Pretty simple concept.
I wonder if this type of garbage burner could easily translate into Otter Tail Power using garbage in their existing facilities as a supplement to coal. This would help to ease the demand of coal and cost involved would mostly be in the sorting of what can and can't be burned after infrastructure to sort is built. The 'scrubbers' must be able to help clean any pollutants with what is already in place there. The recent topic of adding a new landfill in the Fergus Falls area might be addressed with this as another method to minimize what we place in the landfill. Just an idea.
Posted by Granny (anonymous) on August 20, 2008 at 10:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Isn't this the same type of burner that they closed in Fergus or not????
Posted by amother (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 2:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes it is, and I find it so interesting that in 2008 and with google people, Mothers, Fathers, Grandparents, Humanity is not searching to see what is happening around the world in communities like Perham and Fergus with their garbage burners from lawsuits-liability, to creative Eco ways to create steam not to mention the health hazards that are documented what happens to ourselves and our assets we live around.
No matter how wonderful they are enhanced they are becoming extinct and aren't you curious as to why our counties are not pushing education and funding Zero Waste? WHY? Because we need MORE GARBAGE!
Farmers taught us so much about recycling years ago, they were so concerned about the environment, now when we need them the most they come forward to support hurting our future generations on the biggest mistake your county and our town is going to make and everyone is laying down and acting like this is the best economical thing since resorts!!!
Tell that to the 37% of our USA who think the Environment is the top topic of this politic season! Way to go Perham!
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know how many violations we've had, or how old our ash liner is to know how
much risk this is to our counties or potential counties.
Just a few years back they were burning fetus's and a group stopped that along with other toxic violations and it will take us time to stop this expansion but with some of you folks going to google and getting plugged in to the world, maybe you can see beyond ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND care about our kids and what we leave behind for them. Please keep throwing out more garbage like PLASTIC AND SUCH BECAUSE PERHAM NEEDS YOU AND YOUR GARBAGE! oink oink
Posted by amother (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 3:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I want to help you out - http://noburn.live.radicaldesigns.org/ar...
My 8 year old learns this in New York Mills, Our kids are our future and what we are doing is hurting everyone. They will tell us this when we are older and I am fighting this to let him know how much I cared!
Peace
amother
Posted by jetfire63 (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 9:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I wonder why they need more countys to join when OtterTail county is shipping garbage to North Dakota? Seems that we have a surplus of garbage.
Posted by Generally_Misunderstood (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 10:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
opps "leaps and bounds" my bad
Posted by Generally_Misunderstood (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Farmers are 'so concerned about the environment' and taught us so much? Yes, great lessons they've taught us in the last 5 decades or more. Ok, so then why are they as a group one of the largest polluters in OTC when it comes to the fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides they use that run off into wet lands and water supplies just for a few more bushels per acre. How are these products affecting our environment and what type of controls are in place to minimize impact? Organic farming is growing in leaps in bounds, but no where near where it needs to be.
Zero Waste is a great concept that we definitely need to work towards, but it will not happen overnight. And waste will never be eliminated 100%. In the interim we need steps to minimize the cubic yardage placed in landfills. Be that through recycling all that can be recycled, sorting into specific types of garbage, proper incineration with control exhaust, large scale tub grinders to grind waste into drastically smaller parts, reduction in materials used in packaging among so many other steps. There is no single solution and over-simplifying it and fearing mongering with "burning fetuses" does no good.
What remains after what we can reduce, reuse or recycle in landfills can even be a good thing. Look into methane gas harvesting from old landfills that harness this gas to produce electricity purely from our waste stream. There are multiple facilities throughout this country doing just that.
Ultimately proper education for waste reduction belongs in the home. Simple steps as choosing the product with less wrapping, using a cloth bag at every purchase and recycling are huge steps. I would provide links to everything I mentioned, but as you said all of this can be easily reached in a Google search. And if it were as easily as just Googling away, we'd be not having this conversation. It gets down to personal responsibility and not always making the easy choices.
Posted by amother (anonymous) on August 21, 2008 at 12:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thank You for your comments, I agree with you and we are saying this too, http://www.zerowarming.org/article.php?l...
Thank you for your interest, we only have Sept. before they vote, please call these commissioners and voice your concerns. Perham can't see what is going to happen here and we need people like you who get it to speak up on our Perham Enterprise site. Again, thanks and I like what you are saying. There just isn't enough time to say it all. And yes organic farming is the best, and farming of many years ago taught us so much is what I meant...
Our newest violation just got posted in August and it wasn't even published locally, so we are trapped where we live with people who are only focused on Economics....so sometimes shock helps...oink oink.
peace
colleen
Posted by Betle (anonymous) on August 22, 2008 at 1:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Isn't using solid waste for energy technically considered recycling and reusing? Burning solid waste in a clean and controlled enviroment is environmentally safer than landfilling it or turning it into a compost pile that takes years (decades) to break down. Everyone would like to see zero waste but that is not realistic nor an obtainable goal, as long as there are humans on this earth there will be solid waste and not everything is recyclable or can be reused. What do you do with that stuff, throw it in a landfill? Landfilling creates more pollutants in the ground and in the air than a waste burner. As I see it burning waste in an incinerator is the safest way to get rid of the garbage, because not everyone will recycle or reuse. Heck I know people who still use burning barrels to dispose of their garbage and they throw everything away, I wonder what kind of pollutant that puts in the air.
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