AUBURN — City councilors have two major concerns when it comes to solid waste: finding an appropriate recycling program and preserving the Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp.’s Goldthwaite Road incinerator.

Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said councilors will likely be discussing both topics in depth at a December goal-setting session. On Monday, he and five councilors got a refresher course on the waste-to-energy plant’s operations at a special workshop meeting and tour.

“The numbers are still to be worked out, but we have some very interesting questions to consider,” LaBonte said. “Can we produce power and make Auburn a hub of trash-to-energy? And what role should MMWAC, the city or the state play in any of those decisions?”

Joe Kazar, MMWAC’s executive director, briefed councilors on the facility’s history, operations and financial health. MMWAC is jointly owned by 12 communities — Auburn, Bowdoin, Buckfield, Lovell, Minot, Monmouth, New Gloucester, Poland, Raymond, Sumner, Sweden and Wales.

The facility takes solid waste from its 12 communities and several others, about 73,000 tons per year. It is burned at 1,800 degrees, generating an inert ash and creating steam that generates about five megawatts of electricity, sold to Central Maine Power.

That agreement expires at the end of 2013.

“So we are looking at our options,” Kazar said. “It could be something like establishing a standalone utility, or selling steam instead of electric. Or it could be something similar to what we have with CMP.”

The ash is sent to Lewiston’s River Road landfill, part of a 1997 agreement. Under that agreement, Lewiston sends all of its municipal solid waste to the Auburn incinerator.

Kazar said MMWAC is close to paying off the debt the 12 member communities incurred when they took over in 1986. For Auburn, that amounts to about $29 million that will be retired.

Kazar said he is monitoring state issues. Biddeford and Casella Solid Waste’s plan to close the MERC plant in Biddeford could have the side effect of changing state policy, once meant to encourage incinerators.

“The promise was that waste-to-energy would be the law of the land,” Kazar said. “That never happened. The landfills are still around. They compete directly with waste-to-energy and we need the state to be more consistent and more forceful in promoting the hierarchy.”

The state hierarchy states that solid waste should be incinerated before it’s landfilled. The Biddeford-Casella deal would bypass the Auburn, Portland’s ecomaine and Penobscot Energy Recovery Company in Orrington and send about 89,400 tons of Maine solid waste to the Casella-operated Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town. The Maine DEP is currently considering if a public hearing on that amendment is needed.

But councilors had other concerns when the topic is solid waste.

“Recycling is one of the top five priorities in Ward 1,” Councilor Tizz Crowley said.

Auburn has had twice monthly recycling collections for about a year.

Councilors Leroy Walker said a more frequent program may cost more than it’s worth.

“Cost is a big factor,” Walker said. “We have MMWAC, where we can burn almost everything we bring in here. If you look a year ago, Public Works was spending $100,000 in overtime for recycling. I don’t think the city can afford that.”

LaBonte said the council needs to balance a recycling program with MMWAC’s need for solid waste to burn.

“I don’t want us to get in a scenario where increasing recycling hurts MMWAC by reducing the amount of product they have to burn,” LaBonte said. “This facility is certainly playing a role in Maine and New England, especially if the state ever implements its own policies and begins moving away from landfill.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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