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February 15, 2006Plant's plan to burn construction waste has residents crying foulDebris from Katrina may have toxic wasteMANISTEE - A Filer City co-generation energy plant's proposal to burn construction waste concerns residents who worry about toxic emissions and air quality.State officials will monitor a "test burn" at the TES Filer City Station plant on Thursday. The company plans to burn debris from mobile home construction associated with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The TES plant is a coal, wood waste and tire chip-burning facility that generates electricity for Consumers Power Co. and steam energy for the Packaging Corp. of America's adjacent paper mill. "Construction debris contains a lot of chemicals," Filer Township resident Dana Schindler said. "We're concerned about breathing the air." Kurt Childs, an environmental quality analyst with the state Department of Environmental Quality, said TES Filer City already has a permit to burn a small amount of construction waste at their plant. But it has to be 95½ percent clean wood, with other materials like painted or treated wood, insulation or other debris making up no more than 4½ percent of the waste stream. "What they're authorized to burn is pretty much clean wood," Childs said. Both the air quality and waste management divisions of the DEQ office in Cadillac are monitoring the proposal, state officials said. The air quality division tracks emissions from the plant while waste management is responsible for the storage of the construction waste, although DEQ hasn't determined whether new state permits would be required. "We haven't really decided what kind of approval they need from us," said Phil Roycraft, head of the DEQ's waste management division in Cadillac. "We are interested in seeing what the material looks like before we allow it." TES would self-monitor the percent of clean wood it would burn, a fact that troubles some residents. Barbara Bernier of nearby Oak Hill said she's worried about TES burning a large amount of construction waste. Even a small percentage of items like plastic and insulation could damage air quality around Manistee, she said. "I am concerned," Bernier said. "If we're talking huge amounts of waste ... five percent of tons and tons of material could create problems." Company officials referred questions to plant manager Scott Wing, who was not available for comment Monday. Last year Tondu Corp., which owns the Filer City TES plant, proposed building a 425-megawatt coal-fired power plant on the shore of Manistee Lake. Manistee officials rejected Tondu's special use permit after months of wrangling, prompting a multi-million dollar lawsuit by Tondu. The case was eventually dismissed in federal court and settled by the city for $111,518 to end appeals. [an error occurred while processing this directive] |