Claremont
“We have elected, after much consideration, not to move forward on that project,” said D.B. Kazee, an officer with Recycling Solutions Technology, in a telephone message. “It was a variety of business decisions resulting from several different unrelated factors that pushed us into this position.”
Because of a confidentiality agreement, Kazee said, he could not comment further.
“We are sorry were unable to work it out. We really wanted to make a go of it, but it just wasn’t in the cards this time,” Kazee said.
Kazee told Claremont City Manager Guy Santagate of the decision in an email.
“Thank you for your consideration of my proposal and sorry we could not move forward with this opportunity,” he wrote to Santagate and Mayor Charlene Lovett.
In May, Recycling Solutions Technology of Allen, Ky., was the high bidder in an online auction for the Grissom Lane waste-to-energy plant, which closed in 2013 after 26 years. The bid was estimated to be close to $600,000. In two earlier auctions, Wheelabrator was unable to unload the plant and surrounding 9 acres.
Kazee made a presentation to the City Council in early June on their plans for the facility and the council agreed to hold a forum in August so the public could learn more about the proposed operation, ask questions and express opinions.
Kazee told the council and several members of the public on June 7 that Recycling Solutions Technology wanted to establish an industrial recycling center in the Northeast and refurbish industrial equipment for resale. They would power the facility by producing electricity through a process called gasification, Kazee said.
In order to proceed, Kazee also wanted to negotiate a five-year payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, with the city, which the new owner would pay instead of the full property tax bill of about $83,000 on the property’s $2 million assessed value. The PILOT figure mentioned at the June 7 meeting was $60,000 annually, though no negotiation had begun.
Without a tax break from the city, Kazee said, they probably would not proceed and the only options for the property would be restarting the incinerator, or completely dismantling the plant, leaving a vacant lot with not much value.
Gasification, Kazee explained to the council, is not the same as incineration, and produces emissions below state and federal standards.
He said the new company would process municipal solid waste, yard waste and biomass material at a low temperature to produce gas or steam for electrical generation. The temperature does not “alter the state of the materials” and there is nothing that has to be sent to a landfill, he added.
Kazee said called the incineration equipment “old and out of date.”
“We think it is the only viable use you are going to find for the Wheelabrator property,” Kazee said at the June 7 meeting. “We think it would benefit the city and provide new employment.”
Several residents at the meeting in early June were skeptical of Kazee’s presentation and urged the council to go on record opposing the plan and not sign a PILOT.
Former Claremont resident Jackie Elliot, who was among a group of anti-incinerator activists who for years tried to shut the plant down, said in an email Thursday night from her home in Maine that Kazee’s decision is good news for Claremont.
“Citizens have continued to strongly oppose using that property for any polluting enterprise and have called on decision makers to say no to such choices,” Elliot said. “With this latest proposal going away, it is time to work together and repurpose the property for clean economic development everyone can be proud of.”
