ORRINGTON, Maine — Penobscot Energy Recovery Company (PERC) is now in full bypass mode after the foreclosure auction that was scheduled for Sept. 27 was delayed again.
The auction will now be held on Oct. 25. PERC Plant Manager Henry Lang said the company stopped picking up waste in late September. There are about 8,000 tons of municipal solid waste piled up at the plant.
Lang said the waste is no longer being combusted to energy and is in holding. Lang added the company is still in the middle of negotiations with potential buyers ahead of the now-rescheduled auction.
"It's taking a lot longer than we anticipated," Lang said. "There's a lot of negotiations going on, and I can't tell you that I have anything solid to work from."
According to Lang, the company can no longer afford to pay its staff, and employees who are paid hourly have been furloughed. Salary employees are now working short weeks.
With the trash in holding, it naturally decompresses and loses heat value that is needed to combust the solid waste into steam and renewable energy, Lang said.
He added the trash also naturally ignites fires when it sits in large piles for too long because there are various trash components, like chemicals, batteries, and other liquids mixed in with the mountains of trash that are in holding.
The trash continued to build up before the company stopped picking up trash, and there have been several fires that employees have had to put out over the past few weeks since the waste is no longer being disposed of, Lang stated.
Orrington Town Manager Chris Backman said he believes PERC is hoping to sell before the auction takes place later this month, but finalizing negotiations with buyers is no quick turnaround.
"The process for a lot of zeros and a lot of paperwork takes a lot of time," Backman said.
Time that Backman said is costing the town money. He said PERC has always charged the town a zero-dollar tipping fee because Orrington is the company's host location.
"The cost of disposal of your trash is based on the tonnage and they call that a tipping fee," Backman said. "And depending on the size of your town the tonnage you generate is how much you pay per ton to tip your garbage."
Now that PERC is non-operational, the town is temporarily using the Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town for trash pick-up and dumping. Backman said using a new company for waste disposal creates new tipping fees that the town could potentially see by June of next year.
"I'm anticipating about $3,000 a week. It's about 25 tons the town generates a week," Backman said.
With Backman estimating spending $3,000 weekly on waste disposal, he said the line for the town's solid waste budget will be overdrafted being the budget was originally set at zero.
Backman added the new expense won't cause taxes to increase, being that taxes are already set for the year, but he said that he now has to pull money from the town's fund balance, rainy day account.
"It's the equity that the town has built up over years," Backman said. "Prior administrations before I came here did a fantastic job and put this town in a healthy fiscal spot. I need to either ask for permission to overspend it before the end of the year, and that's a process of taking the money from the undesignated fund balance--and that's a town vote. Or at the next town meeting, to ask for forgiveness. You know, 'I overspent it. Here's why. Please forgive me.'"
Backman said he hopes PERC will be up and running soon, but he is staying out of the negotiation process because he has a bias.
He is also hoping that PERC continues its renewable energy operations regardless of what company buys the business because the facility plays an essential role in his plans for developing a business park in the town.
The land for Backman's business park is adjacent to PERC, and he wants to run heat, water, and steam from the renewable resources that PERC creates from converting waste to energy.
Until PERC sorts things out, Backman said the town will continue to use Juniper Ridge Landfill for pick-up and landfill dumping. He said he doesn't have a long-term plan at this time.