Shuttered Claremont, New Hampshire Incinerator to Reopen

- by Patrick O’Grady, April 15, 2015, Val­ley News

The shut­tered Whee­labra­tor incin­er­a­tor on Gris­som Lane was sold at auc­tion Tues­day for $1.63 mil­lion, with the buy­er say­ing he plans to use it to burn munic­i­pal waste.

As sev­er­al bid­ders stood out­side the plant hop­ing to pick up pieces of equip­ment at a bar­gain price, auc­tion­eer Stu­art Mill­ner explained that he would allow a bid­der to buy every­thing, includ­ing about 9 acres of land.

Mill­ner start­ed the bid­ding at $1.5 mil­lion and Ed Deely — who said he was there on behalf of Hybrid Tech Farms — quick­ly raised it to the final price of $1.63 mil­lion. Oth­er bid­ders who were not present at the site com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Mill­ner by phone, but it was unclear how many there were.

The sale price was referred to as “restrict­ed,” which Deely explained means there will be restric­tions, agreed to with Whee­labra­tor, on the munic­i­pal­i­ties from which the com­pa­ny can accept sol­id waste. Late Tues­day, Deely said it is too ear­ly to pre­dict when the sale would be final­ized or when the plant would start burn­ing trash.

Deely’s bid cov­ered the build­ing, land and equip­ment at the plant.

The land and build­ings are cur­rent­ly assessed at $7.4 million.

Deely , who has a Boston-area cell­phone num­ber, referred to the entity’s web­site, hybridtechfarms.com, which says it is a “net­work of local based farms that grow organ­ic wheat grass.” It also says it has loca­tions in New Hamp­shire, New Orleans, Nashville and Las Vegas, with anoth­er loca­tion “open­ing soon” in Belize. Domain records indi­cate Deely reg­is­tered the site, cre­at­ed on Dec. 5, 2014, to a Nashua, N.H., address.

Deely and “Hybrid Tech Farms, Hybrid Tech Homes” appeared on the Plan­ning Board agen­da for the town of Winchen­don, Mass., in Feb­ru­ary 2014 to dis­cuss a “con­cep­tu­al pro­pos­al,” accord­ing to Winchen­don Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment Ger­ald White.

But Deely “nev­er fol­lowed through or pur­chased a build­ing in town,” White said.

The incin­er­a­tor was built after a con­tro­ver­sial vote by the Clare­mont City Coun­cil in 1985 to allow con­struc­tion with­out putting the ques­tion to vot­ers. The plant came online in 1987 and coin­cid­ed with a con­tract between Whee­labra­tor and the New Hamp­shire-Ver­mont Sol­id Waste Project. Com­prised of 29 com­mu­ni­ties in both states, the project was required to send its waste to the incin­er­a­tor under a 20-year con­tract that expired in 2007, sig­nal­ing the end of the project. The con­cept was sold to project com­mu­ni­ties as an inex­pen­sive way to get rid of trash and pro­duce cheap energy.

Whee­labra­tor oper­at­ed the Clare­mont incin­er­a­tor for 27 years before clos­ing it in Sep­tem­ber 2013 for what was described as “eco­nom­ic rea­sons.” Despite the shut­down, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ued seek­ing a five-year oper­at­ing per­mit, which was issued by the Air Resources Coun­cil of the state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices last year. A group of res­i­dents appealed the deci­sion to the state Supreme Court and was denied the appeal on March 17. A motion to recon­sid­er that deci­sion was filed late last month, but no deci­sion has yet been rendered.

Incin­er­a­tor oppo­nents Katie Lajoie, of Charlestown, and Cor­nelia Sar­gent, of Clare­mont, attend­ed Tuesday’s auc­tion. Both said they were dis­ap­point­ed with the out­come and would con­tin­ue to oppose the plant’s operation.

Just before Mill­ner began bid­ding on the prop­er­ty, Sar­gent inter­rupt­ed and loud­ly said that there has always been strong com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to this “scourge upon our city.”

“This will be resist­ed,” Sar­gent said after the auc­tion. “They have to under­stand that.”

Lajoie, who was one of about 30 res­i­dents who appealed the plant’s oper­at­ing per­mit, ques­tioned Deely about the per­mit and said the appeal recon­sid­er­a­tion had not been decid­ed on by the court.

“Every­thing I need to turn this plant on now is there,” Deely replied.

Todd Moore of the Air Resources Coun­cil and Mike Guil­foy, admin­is­tra­tor of the state’s Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Bureau, both said Tues­day after­noon that trans­fer­ring the oper­at­ing per­mit to a new own­er would be a sim­ple admin­is­tra­tive task.

“As soon as they do that, they are good to go and can oper­ate the plant,” Moore said.

But Guil­foy also said that if the oper­a­tion of the plant changes sub­stan­tial­ly, includ­ing a retro­fit to cap­ture emis­sions, then it is like­ly the per­mit would have to be modified.

Deely assert­ed that if he reopens the incin­er­a­tor, it would cap­ture all emis­sions and “you could breathe the air out of that chimney.”

He told Lajoie that the process would ease any emis­sions concerns.

But Lajoie, a pro­po­nent of an aggres­sive recy­cling pro­gram for Sul­li­van Coun­ty, remained unconvinced.

“It is still incin­er­at­ing trash. It is still wast­ing resources. It is still cre­at­ing tox­ic ash,” she said while leav­ing the premis­es. “That was a dis­ap­point­ing out­come. It is a pity for Claremont.”