Jon Lender: Problems pile up on state trash agency, from environmental roadblock to paying severance packages for its contractor’s employees

Hartford Courant (CT)

Nightmarish complications piled up on the state’s quasi-public trash agency in recent days as it faced an end-of-the-world scenario — the world, at least, as the often-controversial Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA) has known it for about half a century.

Since the 1980s, MIRA has been burning municipal trash around the clock to generate electricity at its massive plant on Maxim Road in Hartford’s South Meadows, but economic and political factors are forcing the shutdown of the venerable waste-to-energy plant on or about June 30, 2022, as now scheduled.

And, to make things worse, MIRA’s governing board was told this week by a state environmental official that it may be blocked from pursuing its alternative plan — which is to turn the Hartford plant into a big transfer station from which its 48 customer towns’ garbage would be trucked out to landfills, including big ones in rural Ohio and western New York.

Robert Isner, manager of solid and hazardous waste for the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), told the MIRA board at a Wednesday meeting that before MIRA can proceed with that plan, it would likely have to go through an application process for either an entirely new DEEP permit, or for the modification of its existing one.

Under either option, Isner said, “there is a reasonable to high likelihood of a request for a hearing, adding substantial time to the process.”

That means the application process wouldn’t take months, but maybe years — and MIRA doesn’t have years. It has 13½ months before the trash-to-energy plant shuts down. And it’s contractually obligated to dispose of the customer towns’ garbage until mid-2027.

‘It is going to die’

One MIRA board member, Scott Shanley, the general manager for the town of Manchester, assessed the situation in dire terms., saying that based on the discussion it seems it will be “years before we can get a permit to do anything at the site, if ever. “

“The challenge, of course, is that this thing is falling apart, and it is going to die — and the question is what happens when it dies” Shanley said. “So now we’re in extremis, and I feel like from this conversation, we’re pretty much being told to go through the normal process [but] that normal process isn’t going to work for us.”

And that “leads to a discussion that we’ve had before,” Shanley said, “and that is maybe it’s time for MIRA to decide that there’s no space for MIRA as an operation to continue — and allow the private sector to take over and figure out what to do from here. I don’t mean to be defeatist, but that’s kind of what I’m hearing.”

That’s a definite end-of-the-world scenario — only in this case it doesn’t end with fire, but the dousing of it.

So what happens now?

What if MIRA can’t persuade the DEEP to accept its position — which is that the current DEEP-issued permit to operate the South Meadows plant waste facility will enable MIRA to use it as a non-trash-burning transfer station, which can export as much as 680 tons of garbage per day?

MIRA ‘s president, Thomas Kirk, said Thursday he’ll be sending DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes a letter next week in hopes that MIRA and DEEP can work out their differences about whether the MIRA needs to go through a time-consuming application-and-hearing process (which would be further complicated by a new “environmental justice” law that gives municipalities a lot more say about what happens, garbage-wise, within their borders).

Kirk wrote a “draft” letter Dyke about a week ago in an effort to begin to resolve the dispute over permit requirements, or at least establish for the record where MIRA stands and what actions it needs to take.

Isner’s appearance and comments at Wednesday’s meeting were an initial response to that draft letter, and now Kirk said he’ll refine the letter and submit a final version to Dykes for an authoritative answer.

In the draft, Kirk wrote: “As MIRA has previously discussed with you and other DEEP personnel, MIRA is developing plans to cease the shredding and combustion of MSW at the Facility for energy recovery, effective on or about June 30, 2022. This decision is driven by the economic reality that MIRA’s declining energy revenue combined with the operational, maintenance and capital costs associated with maintaining the waste-to-energy components of the Facility is pushing the tipping fee [per ton of garbage] charged by MIRA to a level above what the market will bear.”

Lamont unenthusiastic

There’s also a political dimension to the decision to shut down the plant, exemplified by Gov. Ned Lamont’s rejection of state funding for a proposed $330 million upgrade of the Hartford power plant. Lamont said he couldn’t see “sending hundreds of millions of state taxpayer or electric ratepayer dollars to MIRA to attempt to keep a failing, decades-old facility running, right here in Hartford, where it impacts our vulnerable residents.”

DEEP also hasn’t backed MIRA’s proposals for a solution that would keep the trash-burning plant operating, Shanley said Wednesday.

Kirk went on in his draft letter to Dykes: “MIRA is anticipating that it will still have a contractual obligation through June 30, 2027 to ensure the proper disposal of waste generated by 48 Connecticut municipalities that have signed Tier 1 Long-Term Municipal Service Agreements (MSAs) with MIRA. The annual tonnage ... is approximately 440,000 tons ... which MIRA will manage through its network of three regional transfer stations and the [Hartford] Facility. ... MIRA intends to utilize the existing authority under Solid Waste Permit No. 06401260-PO to manage the received [municipal solid waste] for off-site transfer to other properly-permitted solid waste management facilities. ... Specifically, the permitted limits [are] for the off-site transfer of up to 680 tons of [garbage] per day, seven days per week.”

Isner, the DEEP official, doubted that the existing permit would give MIRA authority to ship out that garbage without either an application for a modification or an entirely new permit.

“We understand and read the permit a little differently,” Kirk told Government Watch on Thursday. “The plain words of the permit would support a different [interpretation] that says we can transfer 680 tons a day out of the facility, and we think it clearly allows us to operate as a transfer station.”

Although the differences between the MIRA and DEEP positions may not be easily resolved, Kirk asked Dykes for a quick response. In the draft letter, to be submitted in final form in coming days, he wrote: “Given the critically short time period remaining for MIRA to execute this waste transfer plan, MIRA respectfully requests that DEEP respond to this letter confirming the DEEP position as soon as possible, but no later than June 1, 2021.

“Until MIRA receives a response from DEEP regarding this critical issue, MIRA will continue its planning with the understanding that the currently-permitted authority for the off-site transfer of up to 680 tons of [municipal waste] per day, seven days per week, remains in effect, until and upon the current permit’s expiration or surrender to DEEP.

“MIRA is making this request to the DEEP in order to see if we can collaborate and find a path forward together, which is MIRA’s goal. MIRA, however, reserves all rights and arguments it has under the Permit and/or otherwise available to it in law to exercise and does not waive or relinquish any such rights it has now or in the future relating to the Permit, available legal options, and MIRA’s authority.”

Asked Thursday what will happen if DEEP does not relent, Kirk said, “We’re going to have to find a home for about 450,000 tons” per year of municipal waste that’s now being burned but won’t be after July 1, 2022.

If MIRA isn’t allowed to use the Hartford site as a transfer station, he said there are “private sector alternatives” including “a handful of transfer stations across the state” including sites in South Windsor and Willimantic, for example. The costs of using them are uncertain, he said.

As it is, MIRA will be increasing its fee to the towns per ton on July 1, from the current $93 up to $105.

Severance for contractor’s employees

Another complication of the impending trash-to-energy plant’s shutdown will be the loss of jobs for most of the 117 workers who operate not only the plant, but also four seldom-used, auxiliary electric generators on the site that are powered by jet engines. The workers are employed by NAES Corp., an international operator of power generation facilities, under a long-term contract with MIRA.

On Wednesday, the MIRA board took the unusual step of approving a $2.4 million severance plan for the NAES employees, which Kirk said also includes funds for retaining key NAES personnel at the MIRA plant through the scheduled end of its operation in mid-2022.

Some key NAES people have skills that could easily be marketed elsewhere, and if they left in the months leading up to the scheduled shutdown, Kirk said the plant might have to cease operations early. If that happened, Kirk said, it could easily cost MIRA more to get rid of the trash buildup than to continue paying the personnel.

He admitted the move is “certainly not typical,” but said that under this arrangement, “NAES is essentially a labor broker,” and MIRA reimburses the company dollar-for-dollar for “everything it takes to run the plant — [from] salaries and diesel fuel, to paper clips.”

The severance would be six weeks’ pay, and the retention payments could last 10 weeks, Kirk said. “I think it’s a recognition of the difficulty” of the situation for the workers, as well as “their loyalty to MIRA and its customers” over the years.

Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant’s investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at [email protected], 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, P.O. Box 569, Hartford, CT 06141-0569 and find him on Twitter @jonlender.