Maryland waste-to-energy facility in hot seat after fire

A 20-year-old resource recovery facility in Dickerson, Maryland, operated by Morristown, New Jersey-based Covanta, experienced another incident in December when a fire inside the incinerator took nearly two weeks to extinguish, a report by The Washington Post says. This is the latest in a series of incidents that kept the facility either completely or partially out of service for a third of 2016, according to the article.

The facility can burn up to 689,000 tons of commercial and residential waste per year, according to the report. Three industrial furnaces convert the waste into electricity.

The report says 2015 days of unscheduled outages occurred between March and October 2016. Shutdowns in December and July made Montgomery County find alternative destinations for 55,000 tons of waste. In September and October, the plant was in full operation for nine days.

At the time of the fire, the report says, 12,900 tons of waste were stored in the facility, which has a 12,000 ton capacity. An independent state agency issued bonds to finance the construction of disposal sites and contracts with Covanta. Covanta officials told The Washington Post that the volume did not violate its state permit and attributed the issues to high waste volumes and a shortage of spare parts.

City Council has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 2 on the fire and the plant’s operations, the report says. Montgomery County’s Department of Environmental Protection is conducting an investigation of the plant’s issues and will have a report done by the hearing.