SAUGUS — At a Board of Health meeting, representatives for WIN Waste Innovations updated the board on the operation of the company’s plant in town.
Since the board’s last meeting, WIN Waste Plant Manager Elliott Casey said that the facility has been operating at 97% boiler availability and has processed just more than 44,000 tons of trash and generated just less than 24,000 megawatts.
WIN began shipping ash produced at the facility to Shrewsbury on April 1 and had shipped 4,735 tons as of May 6, Casey said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) made an unscheduled visit to the facility on April 8 to witness the ash-loadout process and to verify that the vehicles were entering and exiting the facility from Route 107.
“There were no issues identified during the visit,” Casey said.
On May 1, a third-party hauler experienced a leak of hydraulic oil at the facility, Casey said. MassDEP and the Board of Health were notified of the leak. Initially, it was thought that the amount of oil leaked was greater than the reportable quantity for oil spills in the state, however, upon further investigation it was determined that it was not, as the oil that leaked was biodegradable.
Additionally, on the afternoon of May 6, the facility began its scheduled cold-iron outage, which left both boilers offline. While the boilers are offline, the company plans to replace the east refuse crane.
Board member Joseph Dorant asked if proper notification was given regarding the replacement of the crane, and WIN Waste Environmental Compliance Manager Joseph Brady answered that notification was sent through a community-update email. He said a follow-up email will be sent to the appropriate parties once the project is complete. Brady noted that the project is currently in the staging phase.
Dorant also asked if there would be problems with fugitive emissions as a result of an upcoming roof removal at the facility.
“I recall reading about the attorney general’s actions (from 2011) about a hole in the roof and fugitive emissions associated with that event,” Dorant said.
Brady said that there are three emissions units at the facility and the hole that was described in the attorney general’s investigation was in the ash house. Brady said that the roof that is slated for removal is above the crane deck, a non-combustion area of the facility, and that there would be no fugitive emissions as a result.
