Word expected by March 15 on landfill permit

by Richard Lamb, Advance Editor

While Wolverine Power waits on one permit, another is nearing time for a decision. According to Phil Roycraft, of the waste and hazardous materials division of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE), a decision on Wolverine?s Type III landfill permit application will be made soon. There is still no word if or when the decision will be announced on the status of the air quality permit, the major permit needed to begin construction. ?A decision has not yet been made on (the Type III landfill permit) application. The comment period is now closed, and a decision will be made before March 15,? Roycraft said Monday. The DNRE is obligated by law to make the decision by March 15, which is 120 days from the original filing of the application.

The permitted area covers 221.95 acres in sections 25, 30, and 36 of Rogers Township. The actual area used to store combustion byproducts covering is 58.5 acres. ?THE PROJECT we have applied for is a dry storage system, as contrasted with a wet slurry system. In the news over the past couple of years has been the Tennessee Valley Authority where a wet slurry system breached the impoundment and did a lot of damage. This is not that kind of system,? Wolverine?s Ken Bradstreet, director of community and government affairs, said at a public hearing in January.

The landfill would be used only for the combustion product from the power plant. Approximately 480,000 tons of material, made of roughly 50 percent limestone and 50 percent ash, will be produced each year, Bradstreet said. ?Wolverine has a strong preference for finding a beneficial use for this product. It is our preference to try to recycle that product to the fullest extent possible,? Bradstreet said. The product is used in soil stabilization, road construction and other construction products. WOLVERINE HAS spent much time on the site, with extensive surface and subsurface exploration, he said, before deciding on an area of high ground to the east of the proposed power plant. The company drilled 27 test borings and set 21 test wells for mapping and monitoring the aquifers below the site.

?We have concluded that there is no active karst geology at this proposed site. That geological data has been reviewed by Mr. Ty Black of the DNRE and the DNRE concludes with Wolverine that there is no active karst present,? Bradstreet said. Among the frequent questions Wolverine gets on the landfill are safety concerns. One of those is what would happen should the quarry one day fill with water. Bradstreet showed a drawing that indicated the lowest line of the landfill would still be some 30 feet above the waterline, should that happen. The site is approximately 3,200 feet from Lake Huron, beyond the 2,000 feet of separation required by the state. County regulations require a 1,000-foot setback from any residences or school and the site will be about one mile from the nearest residence and more than two miles from the nearest school.

WOLVERINE CONSULTING engineer Deborah Saxton said the landfill was safe, properly sited, and within the legal constraints of the law. ?One of the advantages of using pet coke as fuel is that it results in a significantly lower quantity of ash, compared to the 5-to-20 percent associated with the burning of coal,? Saxton said. She is employed by the Shaw Group, specializing in the permitting of landfills for coal and petroleum coke CFB (circulating fluidized-bed) technology power plants, including the CLECO plant in Louisiana, visited last year by several officials from Rogers City.

?The combustive byproduct is not considered toxic or a hazardous waste and will likely be regulated as a low-hazard industrial solid waste,? Saxton said. A higher sulfur level is produced using pet coke, but the use of limestone in the combustion process removes sulfur dioxide from the resulting combustion gases, she said. ?The byproduct ash contains mostly gypsum and lime and is typically collected and conditioned for subsequent beneficial use rather than (put in a) landfill,? she explained at the public hearing.

MEANWHILE, STILL no word is out on the major permit, the air quality permit application filed by Wolverine in September 2007. According to DNRE spokesman Robert McCann, the state agency still has work to do on the permit before making a decision. ?A decision has not been made. We are still working on the permit with the company. I cannot provide a specific timeline at this point as to when a decision will be ready to be made,? said McCann said last week. The agency had promised a decision by the end of 2009, but chose to grant a permit to a Consumers Energy plant in Essexville and put off a decision on Wolverine?s application.

Suggesting Wolverine still has work to do on the permit is a view strongly disagreed with by Wolverine officials. They say their work is completed and all questions posed by the regulatory ag

ency have been answered. Wolverine is simply waiting for the DNRE to say yes or no while the clock is ticking on what could be a major grant to help fund the project. ?Our final submittal of permit information to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality was completed in mid-December,? said Bradstreet. ?Wolverine sees no reason why the state of Michigan cannot approve an air quality permit for the Wolverine Clean Energy Venture by late March so as to allow us the opportunity to pursue nearly $150 million in Phase II federal grant funds for the project through the U.S. Department of Energy, ? he said.

LAST OCTOBER, Wolverine received a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for an industrial carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project to accompany the proposed Rogers Township power plant. The CCS project will allow Wolverine Power to develop innovative new technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. A second phase in the DOE evaluation process could result in an additional $147 million in federal funding for the project if DNRE issues the air quality permit to Wolverine Power by March 31. If the permit is not granted by that time, and application is not made, those funds would be lost.