Claremont
In a letter sent last month, DES informed Wheelabrator, which sold the plant in December, that the five-year permit was being terminated effective immediately. The permit, which had been renewed by DES in May 2014, verifies compliance with air emissions standards under the federal Clean Air Act.
The DES’ Solid Waste Management Bureau is considering a separate request from Wheelabrator to cancel the plant’s solid waste permit.
DES canceled the five-year permit in response to a request from John LaRiviere, general manager of Wheelabrator Environmental Systems in Penacook, N.H.
“This is pretty simple: since we no longer own the plant, it didn’t make sense to maintain the permit in our name,” LaRiviere said on Thursday.
When the plant, which operated from 1987 to 2013, was sold to Power Investments LLC, of Farmington, N.H., DES officials said the permit to burn trash was transferable and that Wheelabrator had been complying by regularly filing reports.
Gary Milbury, administrator of the Air Resources Division’s Permitting and Environmental Health Bureau at DES, said in December the permit can be transferred through an administrative process but that was not the only hurdle to restarting the plant.
“We would need a review of the permit (after not operating for two years) based on what the reports say,” Milbury said shortly after the plant was sold.
Todd Moore, administrator of the Solid Waste Management Bureau, said on Thursday he has not acted on the request in March from Wheelebrator to cancel the plant’s solid waste management permit.
“We want to be sure all the conditions of the permit have been met and there is nothing left to do before we release the permit,” Moore said, adding that officials likely will visit the plant to complete the review.
Neither Milbury nor LaRiviere would speculate on what Power Investments might do with the incinerator, which had been the subject of intense controversy during it 26 years of operation.
Attempts to reach Power Investments officials have been unsuccessful.
The plant and surrounding property were sold for $37,000, which was less than 2 percent of the plant’s 2016 assessed value of $2 million.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
