Xcel wants $12 million to upgrade incinerator

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Apr 25, 2001 | by Magney, Reid

Xcel Energy has threatened to shut down its French Island wasteto-energy plant, according to sources on the La Crosse County Board.

With a May 1 negotiation deadline looming, Xcel has said it will close the plant unless the county pays for $12 million in pollution control equipment necessary to comply with the Clean Air Act, board sources said Tuesday.

Board Chairman James Ehrsam said Tuesday the county has received a letter from Xcel but declined to discuss its contents or release a copy. La Crosse County Board members are scheduled to hear more details of the French Island situation at a special closed meeting Thursday night.

"We've been in negotiations on the pro

blem," Ehrsam said. "We're trying to resolve it. Whether that will happen, I don't know."

Mike Herro, community relations manager for Xcel, also declined to comment on the letter or to release a copy. "The negotiations are complex," he said.

"The county would be well advised not to settle with the company on those terms," said Madison attorney Melissa Scanlan, legal director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, which has become involved in the case. "Xcel is not a charity. It should pay to operate under the Clean Air Act like any other business." Scanlan said she also has not seen the letter.

La Crosse County and Xcel have been renegotiating the contract under which the county provides trash to Xcel, which incinerates most of the trash and waste wood at its French Island station. The unburnable waste and ash go to the La Crosse County landfill.

The contract, which expires in 2008, calls for La Crosse County to pay the pollution control costs necessary to burn refuse-derived fuel. The county and Xcel had set a May 1 deadline for negotiations.

Xcel needs new pollution control equipment because late last October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reclassified the French Island plant as a large municipal waste combustor. That meant Xcel had to comply with tougher new emissions rules that went into effect Dec. 19, 2000. Small combustors have another two years to meet similar emissions rules.

EPA reclassified the plant based on complaints from local environmentalists assisted by Scanlan's firm. Early this month, Wisconsin's Environmental Decade filed a 60-day notice that it plans to sue Xcel in federal court to enforce the Clean Air Act.

Scanlan said the group wants any fines Xcel pays to be returned to the La Crosse area for environmental programs. She said the Ho-Chunk Nation's legislature recently passed a resolution calling on the EPA to shut down the French Island facility until pollution control equipment can be installed. The nation also wants up to $100,000 in fines returned to the area for environmental protection.

On March 29, the EPA issued a finding that the French Island facility is in violation of the Clean Air Act. The plant exceeds new standards for particulates, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen chloride. While it was somewhat close to limits for the first two pollutants, its hydrogen chloride emissions were more than eight times higher than allowed by law.

While the EPA can levy fines against Xcel for every day of violation, the March 29 notice says nothing about fines, said Jeff Gahris, an EPA engineer in Chicago who has worked on the French Island case. EPA officials with responsibility for enforcement were unavailable Tuesday.

Gahris said Xcel has asked to meet with EPA officials about the notice.

On Tuesday, La Crosse County Corporation Counsel William Shepherd denied the Tribune's request for a copy of Xcel's letter, refusing to give a reason. The county has previously denied the Tribune's requests that meetings between county officials and Xcel representatives be open to the public.

The county's waste incineration contract with Xcel, formerly Northern States Power Co., has a history of problems. In the 1980s, the county ended up having to pay NSP $500,000 a year for failing to provide at least 73,000 tons of garbage annually as guaranteed by the contract. The county won a $2.9 million lawsuit against its engineering consultants for bad advice.

This time, the county has budgeted $200,000 for outside experts and lawyers to help with the negotiations.

While the county is obligated to pay for the cost of pollution control equipment, it could get out of the contract if that equipment increases costs by more than 25 percent.

However, if the county opts out of the contract, it must pay Xcel for the remainder of capital costs that won't be retired until 2008, according to Brian Tippetts, the county's solid waste director.

If Xcel shuts down the incinerator, the county has other alternatives for its trash, said Tippetts. The current La Crosse County landfill on state Hwy. 16 in Onalaska now has room for approximately eight years worth of unburned waste, he said. The same space will last 15 to 20 years if the French Island plant continues operation.

La Crosse County also is studying plans to redevelop its old landfill, which could add "a couple more decades" of life to the facility, Tippetts said.