Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992 TAG: 9201110111
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Long
ARMY OFFERS TO BUILD REGIONAL INCINERATOR AT ARSENAL
The U.S. Army has been making a pitch to New River Valley localities over the last few months to build a regional trash incinerator at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.The project, called "Incinerator 2000," would mix the arsenal's hazardous waste with municipal garbage - the first of its kind in the country, said the plant commander, Lt. Col. Dennis Duplantier.
It would cost about $75 million to build the incinerator, which would burn 400 tons of trash a day and employ about 50 people.
"All the communities like it. The problem is funding the doggone thing," Duplantier said. "They don't have the money and neither do we."
Landfills in the New River Valley are nearly full, and local leaders are hard pressed to meet the surging costs of building new dumps. Landfill space at the munitions plant also is running out.
The incinerator project - which likely would not be built until the turn of the century - faces regulatory as well as funding hurdles, Duplantier said.
Earlier this week, Duplantier made his pitch to Sen. Charles Robb during the senator's tour of the plant. To get it off the ground, Duplantier said that the project would take a change in federal law to allow a mixed-use incinerator, as well as federal grants.
"It is good for the arsenal and it is good for the localities," Robb, D-Va., said.
The arsenal makes rocket propellants in myriad shapes and sizes. Waste scraps, or "press heels," are reused, if possible, or burned as hazardous waste, Duplantier said.
Although the scrap propellant itself is not explosive, the federal government defines it as hazardous because it is generated in the manufacturing of explosives.
Currently, the scrap is ground up, mixed with water and burned in a small incinerator at the plant.
The ammunition plant had been planning to replace the incinerator at a cost of between $25 million and $30 million, Duplantier said.
"We thought, why not mix it in with a community effort?" he said. In October, arsenal officials began approaching local governments with the idea of building a larger incinerator for regional use.
The proposed incinerator, which Duplantier said is still "just a concept," would burn municipal waste to create enough heat to destroy the unusable propellant. Steam from the operation could generate electricity to run the arsenal, with some left over, he said.
Other hazardous waste from the arsenal, such as paint thinners, solvents and contaminated containers and clothes, also could be burned in the incinerator, saving taxpayers the cost of transporting and dumping it elsewhere.
Ash from the incinerator would be buried at a hazardous-waste landfill.
Duplantier said he has been discussing the idea with the New River Resource Authority, which handles trash from Pulaski County and Radford. He said the authority might, as part of its plans to build a landfill in Pulaski County, add a hazardous waste dump for the ash.
Incinerator 2000 could be paid for by user fees, much as counties and cities now pay for landfill operations.
The arsenal would not take outside hazardous wastes because "we know what ours is and we know what the characteristics are," Duplantier said.
The sprawling 4,000-acre compound, bordered by the New River, would be a "perfect" site for an incinerator, he said. It's isolated from the community and has an extensive network of roads and rails. The incinerator, to be off Virginia 114, would have a smokestack about 250 feet high.
Duplantier said Montgomery County, generator of half of the New River Valley's waste, is the key to the proposal.
Montgomery County Supervisor Jim Moore said he personally considers the incinerator as a serious alternative when looking at the county's trash disposal problems.
The mid-county landfill is expected to be filled in four to six years, several years before the incinerator would be built. The county would have to come up with some kind of interim disposal method, Moore said.
One possibility would be sending the county's trash to the new Roanoke County landfill in the Bradshaw Valley.
Montgomery County, to meet Roanoke County's deadline, must decide by spring whether to dump in the Bradshaw landfill.
Moore said he understood that the county could use the landfill as a customer, even if it didn't become a full partner.
The Board of Supervisors has met with officials from the arsenal in closed session to hear the proposal, but hasn't come any closer to making a decision on it, Moore said. The supervisors had several questions about the environmental impact of the incinerator on the county, he said.
One thing he likes about the proposal is that the federal government would put up the construction money. The county would help repay that money through fairly steep fees for its use, Moore said.
Duplantier said the project could save taxpayers even more money if the arsenal is forced to treat another type of waste - industrial sludge - as hazardous, under a new government definition.
The arsenal annually generates 25 tons of the sludge, which comes from treating waste water from nitrocellulose production, the main ingredient for propellants made at the plant.
"It's a considerable cost to us to get rid of it. We only expect it to get worse," Duplantier said.
It costs about $2 million a year to get rid of the sludge, which in the past has been treated as a non-hazardous waste.
But new federal guidelines classify the sludge as hazardous. The arsenal estimates it could cost $30 million a year to dispose of it under stricter rules.
Hercules Inc., which runs the plant, sued the state Department of Waste Management last year over the issue of classification.
Duplantier said the company withdrew its suit after an administrative hearing with the agency in August. Arsenal officials expected a ruling in October, Duplantier said, but have not heard anything yet.
Staff writer Greg Edwards and the Associated Press contributed information to this story.