Claremont
“We won’t be doing any incineration,” said D.B. Kazee, an attorney and listed officer with the company, Recycling Solutions Technology. “We know for certain the incineration equipment will come out of there.”
Kazee, an investor in several different companies, said if the council approves the concept, a new company will be formed.
Kazee said they have been in negotiations with Wheelabrator to acquire the plant, which has been closed since 2013 and was put up for auction unsuccessfully twice.
“One of the reasons we have been talking to them is that we feel there is an opportunity to put in a recycling center and that would give us a presence in the Northeast,” Kazee said Tuesday night.
The business plan for the Grissom Lane property is to establish an industrial recycling center where industrial equipment, including possibly some of the equipment at the plant, is refurbished and sold, Kazee said.
He called the incinerator’s equipment “old and out of date,” but when it is recycled and refurbished, there is a market for it overseas. Additionally, the new company would look for other opportunities to buy old industrial equipment, bring it to Claremont and rehabilitate it.
The market potential for the incinerator equipment would depend on a more thorough examination of what is there and its condition, Kazee said.
“We would utilize what is of value,” he said.
The trash-to-energy incinerator went online in 1987 and for 20 years was the primary location for waste disposal for the 29-town New Hampshire-Vermont Solid Waste District, burning about 200 tons of trash a day. The district dissolved in 2007.
Rebecca MacKenzie, of Claremont, a member of the anti-incineration group Working on Waste, which tried for years to shut down the Wheelabrator plant, is urging residents to attend tonight’s council meeting.
In an email, MacKenzie said people need to ask questions about the company’s plans, which she said are “shrouded in mystery” and make known their concerns about incineration in the community.
“It is an unacceptable risk,” MacKenzie said.
Though Wheelabrator has not operated the plant for nearly three years, the company has obtained renewal of its five-year operating permit from the Department of Environmental Services.
Tonight’s meeting begins at 6:30 in City Hall.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
