Bill to scrap subsidies for incinerators, biogas facilities rehashes memories of proposed Frederick project

Mar. 10—Nearly a decade after Frederick County scrapped plans to build a trash incinerator, the state is considering a bill that would cut subsidies for existing incinerators and other waste-powered facilities.

"This issue really resonated with me because Frederick County struggled with this several years ago," bill sponsor Sen. Karen Lewis Young, D-Frederick, said in a hearing before the state Senate's Education, Energy and the Environment Committee in Annapolis last week.

The bill, called the Reclaim Renewable Energy Act of 2023, SB590, would remove trash incinerators, along with biomass and manure-derived thermal energy facilities, from the state's renewable energy portfolio.

Currently, such facilities, like the Wheelabrator trash incinerator in Baltimore City and a similar incinerator in Montgomery County, are eligible for ratepayer-funded credits that utilities must purchase to meet a mandated portion of renewable energy sources.

Their Tier 1 classification in the portfolio puts them on par with energy sources like wind and solar, which the bill's proponents say are more worthy of subsidies and better fit the title of renewable energy because they lack greenhouse gas emissions.

"The preamble of the legislation that created the [renewable portfolio] in 2004 said that it was created because the benefits of renewable energy include long-term decreased emissions and a healthier environment," Lewis Young said.

Del. Ken Kerr, D-Frederick, is a cosponsor of the House version of the bill.

Frederick and Carroll counties considered building their own $471 million incinerator in the late 2000s and early 2010s as a solution to the shrinking capacity of area landfills.

Ultimately, county commissioners voted to cancel the project's contract and permits in 2014 after Carroll County pulled out, as questions of its affordability and environmental impact mounted.

Asking those questions at the time were two prominent leaders of the "No Incinerator Alliance," Frederick residents Patrice Gallagher and Caroline Eader.

"We have been fighting [incinerators] ever since," Gallagher said Wednesday in an interview. "Every year, we do this thing of state legislation to try to get it out of the (state renewable energy portfolio)."

They say they are hopeful that the bill will fare better than previous versions of it, some of which were sponsored by former Sen. Michael Hough, R-Frederick, and were more focused on just trash incineration.

"I think making it a coalition kind of issue with the various dirty energy producers has really made a big difference," Gallagher said, referencing technologies that harvest methane from animal manure or burn woody debris. "It's expanded the number of people who are informing and talking to their legislators."

The coalition includes Baltimore City Councilwoman Phylicia Porter, whose district includes the Wheelabrator incinerator, and an environmental group from the Delmarva peninsula that opposes a planned facility in Delaware that would convert poultry manure and other organic waste into methane.

Porter and others also testified that because of the concentrated harmful health effects of trash incinerators like Wheelabrator on surrounding communities of color, the incinerators don't deserve public funds.

"It is mind blowing and quite frankly disappointing that we are here saying that burning trash and polluting the air of communities, mainly communities of color and low-income, is clean and renewable and worthy of our public resources," Shashawnda Campbell of the South Baltimore Land Trust said at last week's hearing.

One study links older waste incinerators with some cancers and preterm deliveries. Another from the Environmental Integrity Project shows that Maryland incinerators produce more pollutants like mercury and nitrogen oxide per energy unit than some fossil fuel plants, including coal.

During last week's hearing, Lisa Harris Jones, a lobbyist representing WIN Waste Innovations, the company that owns and operates the Wheelabrator facility, however, touted $40 million in improvements the company made to improve emission controls.

Opposition to the bill was mounted by other waste trade groups and representatives from the forestry products and agricultural industries, who said removing incinerators from Tier 1 would disincentivize foresters and farmers from selling their waste, whether woody debris or chicken manure, for energy production.

Opponents and proponents of the bill also debated the facilities' impacts on greenhouse gas emissions.

Along with the upgraded emissions controls, Jones said that Wheelabrator decreases the city's need to truck waste to other landfills, thereby reducing emissions.

Pamela Kasemeyer, representing the Maryland Delaware Solid Waste Association, said the methane created by landfills has a worse impact on the climate than incinerators do.

To Eader and Gallagher, the pro-incinerator arguments they heard during the hearing are the same ones they heard more than a decade ago.

Eader said methane production of landfills can be mitigated by increasing composting programs, which take organic materials out of landfills and transfer nutrients to soil instead of the air when materials decompose.

Lewis Young and bill proponents who testified last week sought to put their opposition's argument to bed by saying it's not only a question of whether one waste technology is better than the other.

"Incinerators existed long before legislation was passed in 2004. There is nothing to say moving incinerators out of Tier 1 would harm particular organizations," Lewis Young said.

Still, the organizations that testified gave Lewis Young doubts about the bill's viability.

Despite the wide-ranging support that Eader and Gallagher thought meant the bill would be viable, Lewis Young said in an interview Friday that the wide-ranging opposition made her skeptical.

Even with amendments that might appease industry representatives and remove their facilities from the bill, like woody biomass incinerators or manure-to-methane facilities, Lewis Young said, it's a tough sell.

"I haven't given up yet, but the prospects are fairly grim for this year," she said. "If I were to bring it back next year, I'd probably modify the bill somewhat and make it not quite as aggressive. Progress occurs very incrementally."