SAUGUS — On Oct. 30, multiple calls came into the Saugus Police Department about a noise coming from the WIN Waste plant. The residents who called were worried about the noise and were unsure of what it might be. Similar events have occurred in the past, though the plant has addressed the issue, and things have been relatively quiet.
However, due to an unexpected power outage, the plant was sent offline without being prepared, leading to the noise.
At Monday’s Board of Health meeting, Plant Manager Elliott Casey provided answers regarding the cause of the noise.
“The facility was temporarily knocked off the grid due to an issue National Grid was working on. It wasn’t anything to do with our plant operations, but obviously the plant was affected by this event,” Casey said.
He noted that it was a similar event to what happened a few years ago when the facility lost power, resulting in the boiler safety valves causing noise.
“A few years ago, after that event, we did generate procedures and training, which is why the team on site at the time was able to react in a timely and safe manner, reestablished the drag valve, which allowed the steam to vent out through the silencer, even without power at the time,” he said.
He noted that the safety relief valves are inspected and tested on an annual basis as a requirement from the state, and the outage didn’t cause a disruption as far as waste processing services.
The event was caused by the work National Grid was doing on high voltage lines running from Wakefield to Lynn. Due to National Grid not closing something properly, a signal on the entire line occurred, which led to WIN Waste going offline.
On Oct. 31, National Grid informed WIN Waste that they would need to make another repair to the load break that had caused the outage.
“Rather than risk anything further happening, we decided to shut the facility down, controlled, and then tell them to proceed with the repairs,” Casey said. “…Friday afternoon, we were able to restore power to the facility once they gave us the go-ahead and then started both boilers back up.”
Board member Joseph Dorant asked if the plant has auxiliary power, an additional power source in case outages occur, and Casey informed the Board that they have an emergency diesel generator for select critical components or equipment.
“It’s only 165 kilowatts, so it’s very small in size… All power went out at once. All of our high-voltage equipment shuts down. Lights go black in an instant,” Casey said.
Casey gave credit to the team that was there and able to respond quickly.
Dorant then noted that the town was told in 2021 that the drag valve would keep the loud noises from occurring again.
“It seems like when you lose electricity, we’re going to have a problem,” he said.
Casey said he understood and added that if the turbines were online right now, the noise wouldn’t have happened. However, the turbines are currently in a scheduled downtime for maintenance. With the turbines online, the plant would have continued to generate power.
Dorant said he understood but emphasized that the residents were worried and fearful when the noise occurred.
Board Chair Maria Tamagna agreed with Dorant that they were told the noise wouldn’t be an issue again, but she also understood that it was the perfect storm of National Grid having an issue and the turbines being offline, which led to the problem.
She also noted that she appreciates WIN Waste’s open communication, which has improved since they started coming to Board of Health meetings. Dorant agreed that he appreciated the communication.
Board member Joia Cicolini asked if it would be possible to create some sort of website alert to tell residents when events happened and ease any fear in the community, and Casey said he would look into it and keep them posted on the possibilities.
