The public peppered the prospective buyer of the Coastal Maine Resources LLC recycling and waste-to-energy plant in Hampden with many questions Wednesday at a meeting of the Municipal Review Committee.

The committee, which represents the solid waste interests of 115 Maine municipalities, has been working on negotiations with the bondholders of the plant and Robert Van Naarden, founder and CEO of Delta Thermo Energy Inc., who plans to buy it in June.

People attending the virtual meeting wanted to know whether the plant will take out-of-state sewage sludge, if it will process and incinerate sewage sludge in the future, what other plants Van Naarden owns and operates, and whether the plant will use local, unionized labor.

Jon Pottle, the committee’s legal counsel, assured them that out-of-state sludge will not be brought into the plant.

“That’s not within the scope of the current licenses for the facility,” he said.

Van Naarden said that possibly down the road, in a year or two, taking sludge might be a consideration, but that is not his focus. In response to a question from Bill Lippincott, chairman of the group Don’t Waste ME, Van Naarden was adamant that the facility will not incinerate sludge and that there would be “no burning type of emissions, whatsoever.”

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“There’s going to be no burning of anything today, tomorrow, in the future,” he said. “That’s not what we do.”

Committee president Karen Fussell, who also is finance director for the city of Brewer, said for the plant to take sludge, a full environmental review would be required and vetting by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The sale of the Hampden Fiberight waste recovery plant to a Pennsylvania-based company could close by June, officials report. Courtesy of Fiberight/Coastal Resources of Maine

Jim Vallette, a member of Southwest Harbor’s warrant committee, asked who, exactly, owns Delta Thermo, and what other plants the company owns and operates.

Van Naarden said it is a privately-owned company, he is the major shareholder, and he has funded it for more than 11 years. Other shareholders are members of his team, he said. Delta owns and operates a facility outside Atlantic City in southern New Jersey and another in Williamsport in north central Pennsylvania, he said. He said the New Jersey operation has been temporarily moved to Pennsylvania because its New Jersey building had to be torn down. It is being rebuilt and the plant will move back to New Jersey.

Vallette asked about the volume of waste Delta’s Pennsylvania facility takes.

“I can’t divulge that,” Van Naarden said.

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Delta has developed facilities overseas in Dresden, Germany; Shari, Hokkaido, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Romania; Russia; South Africa; and Singapore, according to the committee’s website.

Van Naarden said Delta officials plan to operate the facility themselves, with their own people.

“If we take over, we’re responsible, period,” he said. “I have nothing against unions, but I prefer to be nonunion.”

Van Naarden said he expects 42 full-time employees will work at the plant, with 15 workers and four corporate employees expected to start at the plant June 14 and possibly before that, if all goes according to plan. Employees would work 12-hour and 8-hour shifts, depending on their jobs. He said his team is at the plant now and all the former employees interested in returning were interviewed there. He said he thinks most of them want to return. Delta has been working with an insurance broker to provide comprehensive benefits, according to Van Naarden.

A garbage truck weighs in before dropping off municipal waste on April 22, 2019, the first full day of waste processing at the Coastal Resources of Maine facility in Hampden, which closed because of financial problems, but is now being sold to a Pennsylvania-based company. Courtesy of Fiberight

“I believe deeply in my heart that you have to treat your employees like family, so we will make sure the benefits package is better than they’ve ever had before,” he said.

A former employee attending the virtual meeting noted she had not been contacted by Delta and asked if she should be concerned. Van Naarden said he would inform the human resources officer who would contact her Wednesday.

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“It’s probably just an oversight,” he said.

Central Maine communities that are members of the committee include Albion, China, Freedom, Oakland, Palmyra, St. Albans, Thorndike, Troy, Unity and Vassalboro.

Van Naarden said Delta had winterized the plant over the last couple of months, reviewed all engineering, operational and other manuals and documents and drafted a start-up plan. The plant would not be able to take as much as 100 tons of waste the first day, but would start with 20, then 50 and 100 and ramp up fairly quickly, he said.

“We believe that we will take the full intake — all the tonnage that’s required, within 12 months,” he said, adding that he hopes to do it much sooner than that.

Michael Carroll, executive director of the committee, said that after the sale, there will be no tipping fee increase to member municipalities, which will soon receive notices related to “fundamental matters, ” or items in the lease agreement. Those matters include information about rebates, the option to purchase the land on which the plant is located, and so forth. The committee owns that land.

Details of the sale, including the purchase price, will be available in the next two to three weeks once documents are submitted to the court, according to Fussell.

On April 21, the committee voted unanimously to further the sale of the plant by authorizing committee officers to adopt and execute all agreements necessary to move the sale forward. The committee does not own Coastal Maine Resources, but it is a customer, holds all the municipal waste contracts and is the permittee for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Coastal Maine, which closed its facility May 28, 2020, for financial reasons, was formed by Fiberight to finance, own and operate the facility. The bondholders’ trustee of the plant would be the one selling the facility to Delta. The facility is pledged as collateral for repayment of Coastal Maine’s loans to the bondholders trustee.

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