WINDSOR, Ont. -- A Kingsville company that's burning pellets made from Toronto garbage wants to add nine boilers to heat 170 acres of greenhouses.
"I'm horrified," said Kingsville Coun. Gail Stiffler.
"I really feel we need to do some very careful investigation and testing to make sure we're not causing an environmental disaster."
Stiffler wants the pellets tested and wants to know more about the air quality and runoff around the greenhouse.
REMASCO (Renewable Energy Management and Services Company) has started an environmental screening process with the Ministry of the Environment and expects to hold public meetings in midFebruary.
Stiffler wants more study done and is calling for a full environmental assessment instead.
REMASCO is heating 100 acres of greenhouses at Southshore Greenhouses on Seacliff Drive in Kingsville with two of what it calls "gasifiers."
The pilot project started in 2008. The company is seeking to add five more units at Southshore and put four units at Agriville Farms, a Road 2 greenhouse complex that is also part of the Mucci Group.
If the $12-million project is allowed, it could be done over five or six years and would heat about 70 more acres of greenhouses, project manager Jim Gallant said Monday.
"We're to the point where we've demonstrated we can comply with all the emission standards," Gallant said.
While the project meets guidelines for municipal solid waste incinerators, Gallant stressed the units are not incinerators but gasifiers. He said they could also be called pellet-fired boilers. He said the pellets are heated up to produce a gas of carbon monoxide and hydrogen which is burned in two stages so it can be used to heat water which is circulated through pipes to heat greenhouses.
Gallant said a health risk assessment has been done and will be available later on the company's website at www. remasco.ca. He said the emissions don't smell, aren't black like emissions from other greenhouse stacks and are more environmentally friendly than greenhouses which use coal or bunker oil.
The company is also working with the University of Guelph on a fuel crop such as willow and poplar trees that could grow on marginal farmland.
The greenish, grey pellets are made at the Dongara Pellet Plant. Gallant said the garbage is sifted and sorted so it doesn't include food waste, ferrous metals, glass, electronic waste or PVC plastic.
"The pellet isn't really the same as saying I'm going to take a green garbage bag and throw it into a fire," he said.
Derek Coronado of the Citizens Environment Alliance, who toured the facility in December, said it's not like the Detroit incinerator. The emissions coming out of the Kingsville gasifiers may meet the provincial guidelines and be less toxic than burning coal and bunker oil, but is that good enough? he asked. Coronado said there should be better regulations on what the other greenhouses burn and wonders about the cumulative effect. If the project is approved, more greenhouses may add the systems which means more emissions and more trucks delivering the pellets, he said.
Coronado also questioned the idea of using garbage as fuel since it doesn't encourage recycling.
Kingsville Coun. Gord Queen said the former council allowed the pilot project and approached it with caution. He said it will be interesting to see what the newly elected council thinks. "It's the fear of the unknown," Queen said. "Show us the proof that it's safe."
shill@windsorstar.com
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I am not all that familiar with this process (so maybe a few of you could fill me in or correct me if I make any erroneous statements) but it seems to me as though these councilors should be more concerned with what other greenhouses are burning to heat their farms, coal and bunker oil. Personally I do not see how this proposal could not be greeted with open arms by the councilors in this city? Thoughts?
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