Biomass Incinerator Fined for Pollution

June 4, 2013. Source: Thomas Con­tent, The Jour­nal Sentinel

The oper­a­tor of a bio­mass pow­er plant on the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er in Cassville will pay $150,000 to set­tle air pol­lu­tion vio­la­tions at the plant in recent years.

The fine was announced by state Attor­ney Gen­er­al J.B. Van Hollen after a stip­u­la­tion to set­tle air pol­lu­tion vio­la­tions by the Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources. The oper­a­tor of the plant, DTE Stone­man LLC, and the Depart­ment of Jus­tice signed the agree­ment in Grant Coun­ty cir­cuit court.

DTE Ener­gy Ser­vices of Ann Arbor, Mich., bought the plant in 2008 and con­vert­ed it from burn­ing coal to burn­ing renew­able wood waste and oth­er forms of bio­mass. The bio­mass sources for pow­er gen­er­a­tion include green wood residue from forestry and tree trim­ming oper­a­tions, rail­road ties and demo­li­tion waste.

Accord­ing to the com­plaint, DTE Stone­man had oper­at­ed the plant in vio­la­tion of its air pol­lu­tion con­trol per­mit and failed to build the facil­i­ty into accor­dance with the appli­ca­tion that was approved by the state Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources.

The plant began oper­at­ing as a bio­mass pow­er plant in 2010, sell­ing its pow­er to Dairy­land Pow­er Coop­er­a­tive of La Crosse. The com­plaint also said the pow­er plant failed to oper­ate an air pol­lu­tion con­trol device to con­trol small par­ti­cle emis­sions dur­ing plant star­tups between Aug. 30, 2010, and Jan. 5, 2011. The com­plaint says fires took place “on mul­ti­ple occa­sions” at the pow­er plan­t’s bio­mass stor­age piles, in vio­la­tion of the state’s open burn­ing laws.

A DNR war­den saw dust from the plant at Cassville’s high school and ele­men­tary school, as well as near­by homes and busi­ness­es, accord­ing to the com­plaint. Small par­ti­cles are a pub­lic health con­cern because they can affect the heart and the lung and cause seri­ous health effects, accord­ing to the DNR.

Ran­di Berris, a spokes­woman for DTE Ener­gy, said the com­pa­ny dis­agreed with some of the DNR’s ini­tial vio­la­tions but that it was pleased with the set­tle­ment. The Stone­man plant expe­ri­enced mechan­i­cal and oth­er prob­lems dur­ing the start­up and com­mis­sion­ing of the pow­er plant, she said.

DTE has tak­en steps to improve the plan­t’s per­for­mance, includ­ing not allow­ing large stock­piles of wood to build up, hav­ing ven­dors wet down wood that’s being sup­plied, and replac­ing cer­tain sup­pli­ers that were pro­vid­ing bio­mass that was too dusty, Berris said. “The con­cerns raised by the Wis­con­sin Depart­ment of Jus­tice have all been addressed at this point, and we’re oper­at­ing in full com­pli­ance with the state’s air pol­lu­tion con­trol laws,” she said.