Allentown's Waste To Energy Foolishness Part 1

On December 19, 2013 'Molovinsky On Allentown' brought up the subject of Allentown's waste to energy project. The post features a comment by Rich Fegley submitted to an earlier post..

In response I shall repost earlier articles I once published here, but had since removed.


Reposted From 03/08/2012According to LehighVallleyLive.com the vote, 4 to 2 came in around 1:01 AM in what was apparently a packed meeting. Attending was nearly double the capacity of council's chambers. The two dissenting votes were those of Jeanette Eichenwald and Councilman Ray O'Connell. Concannon finally did attend a council meeting, but left early w/o voting.

Those who regularly read this blog will note that Mr. Van Rainey (Director of Operations at CBES Global, LLC ) who was the competitor for this project said on this blog.."I came across the financial analysis conducted for the City of Allentown comparing Delta Thermo’s offering to what is projected for costs of operating under current conditions. I borrowed the values for current projected costing and compared that to what we have to offer. Making all of the same assumptions as the most conservative estimate and allowing for the City to share the same level of income for processing outside sources of MSW (even though the profits would be greater with us). Over a twenty year period we would save the City of Allentown nearly $94,000,000 vs DTE which would save at most a little over $4,000,000 in the same period.

I simply don’t understand why the administration has chosen to take such an inferior deal. When you also take into account that they offer an unproven technology while we have proven on a commercial scale to have cleaner and more financially viable technology. We don’t need $6,000,000 in grants to make our program work. We can generate as many jobs but still save the City substantial sums."

About the project itself.. "This test project is barely at proof of concept and is permitted only at that level and cold not qualify for permit to construct because they are not measuring emissions from the autoclave chamber, the effluent from the microbial water treatment system and they have no version of the combustion chamber with scrubber to test. To jump from there to a full scale commercial facility is in the least imprudent and very questionable on so many fronts to mention, and to tie the city to a 35 year agreement is patently foolish.

Any other City would be demanding that they prove at a commercial scale the viability of such a project before making commitments to go forward. To say they are at no risk defies tort and civil law stipulating reasonable reliance on those commitments that would subject the City to litigation if they did not do everything to assure the "success" of the project.

There are better and more proven technologies available and this project should be tabled until they can better demonstrate its viability or until some technology is found that is."

See Also:11/04/2011
"Waste-to-energy plant talks resume"

02/14/2012
"A bidder for Allentown's waste-to-energy plant says his company overlooked"


Ok, something stinks here.* First off I agree with Van Rainey's point that the city would not left off legal hook for anything that happens. He said, that it "defies tort and civil law". This is much like a homeowner who has a contractor build a incinerator in your backyard. It doesn't matter at the state and federal level what agreements you have with your contractor or the city. State and federal laws and regulations trump all agreements. You as a property owner are ultimately held accountable. Even if the city were trying to be slick and sold the land to this developer, the city is still a partner in it.

* We have a competitor that neither the council nor the public was allowed to present his alternate proposals in a public forum.

* Nobody commented on any of online sites. Apathy was abound. All in a sudden tons and tons of union workers members show up for the council meeting supporting this. How many of these "union" members were from Allentown? Where they brought in from elsewhere? Why should the council chambers be overfilled beyond capacity with people from outside the city who pay no city taxes or are not vested in Allentown's future. People who have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Why wasn't this put on a non binding referendum in the upcoming elections? In the manner only genuine certified eligible bona fide residents would have a say on this matter. Instead what we had last night where a bunch of people whom we have no idea as to who they were.

* Questionable phone calls were made to council members or one of their acquaintances who voted against this.

* The mayor's friend and supporter coincidentally is the same attorney for the energy company.In ShortOnce again the public's input was negated. Only one proposal was accepted without doing due diligence to alternative proven trash to energy successes elsewhere. The financial aspects are highly speculative. Most of the background going into this project was already done far from public and council's scrutiny.

All in all, politics in Allentown has one again triumphed over careful scientific and sound financial methodology and public review.


To those folks who say, "well you voted for them".
Neither the incinerator project, the sale of Queen City Airport or the arena project was ever brought up as part of the discussion in the election campaigns. How in the world is anybody supposed to base a vote on anything and everything imaginable when voters were told of such things in the first place? This whole thing is like getting on a plane where you have no idea where's it's going.. and you can't get off!

Does anyone still wonder why people in Allentown get (a) frustrated. (b) Angry. (c) Feel it's pointless to give a crap?Or Is it all of the above?