Incinerator firm hopes to raise $400 million bond

The US firm leading the consortium to build an incinerator at Poolbeg in Dublin is attempting to raise $400 million from bond investors to part-finance the project.

Covanta, a US-quoted energy firm, is heading Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd, which has been awarded the contract to build and operate the incinerator. The consortium recently assured Dublin City Council that all funding was in place for the project.

However, Covanta has struggled to secure finance for phase one of the project, and is now seeking to raise $400 million through ‘‘cash-convertible senior notes’’. It is proposing to pay investors a return of 6.5 per cent a year on their capital. [Should read 3.25% p.a. ??]

In documents filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, Covanta said the net proceeds of the bond issue would be used for working capital, including ‘‘funding a portion of the construction cost for a 1,700 metric energy-from waste facility in Dublin’’.

It is understood that Covanta had tried to raise bank debt, but no institution was willing to act as the primary banker to the Poolbeg project, due to the lack of liquidity on the international credit markets.

However, a number of lenders have informed the consortium that they may consider part-financing latter aspects of the project. The planned incinerator is a central element of the country’s waste management strategy. If completed as planned, it will burn 600,000 tonnes of waste a year, creating electricity for 50, 000 homes and hot water heating for a further 60,000 households. However, there has been opposition both to the Poolbeg project, and to incineration in general in Ireland, with a number of projects beset by delays.

Last week, John Gormley, the Green Party Minister for the Environment, is sued a circular which stated that he would introduce a levy to be borne by companies incinerating waste and anybody selling waste for incineration.

Gormley has also instructed the director general of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),Dr Mary Kelly, and all council managers nationwide, that they must in future ‘‘refrain from exercising their powers in such a way as to direct waste to landfill or incineration’’.

Gormley told the EPA and the council heads that he was initiating a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), instructing them that government policy had taken decisive steps to encourage recycling and discourage incineration.

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=IRELAND-qqqm=news-qqqid=42318-qqqx=1.asp

EU Wonders Were Poolbeg Incinerator Hearings a Sham?

The Green-FF government does not care the Poolbeg Incinerator hearings were a political sham - they themselves and their €200,000 pensions come first. To divert the public during the elections perhaps it'd be a great idea to issue a report on 60 years of child abuse wherein the judiciary allegedly frustrated police investigations and the Pope threatened President Bertie (Parish of Boston-not-Berlin, says hello).

Guess why Ireland is ranked worse than China and Ghana for legal corruption by the World Bank. Is Poolbeg a good location to research legal corruption?

The Poolbeg Incinerator Hearings at Board Pleanala and at EPA-Ireland were apparently decided by unseen politicians above the heads of the professionals in those organisations. The boards appear to be loaded with either incinerator-industry-insiders or political-crony appointees. A fewyears ago John Gormley condemned EPA's director but now he's in charge he has done nothing about her.

Good science and the public good appear to have been ignored by the bosses of the regulators. Political cronyism at the banks, the alleged financial regulators and the building-industry have near-bankrupted the economy. Political cronyism operating on or in the other alleged regulators, EPA and Bord Pleanala, combined with an offshore-based waste-to-toxins incineration industry may shorten lives by up to two years across Dublin.

In the following diplomatic language the EU Commission seems to say the Poolbeg Incinerator Hearings were a sham:

‘Because of weaknesses in Irish legislation
splitting decision-making between planning authorities
and the
Environmental Protection Agency,
there are risks that outcomes required by the
EU directive will not always be achieved.’

With elections coming up Green-FF is spinning that the offshore operators have no money. Covanta-Poolbeg is based in Luxembourg. There are lots of offshored-banks in Luxembourg, almost nothing else. And Covanta has lots of money.

______________

EU takes legal action over planned Poolbeg incinerator (19/3/09)

http://eurolinknews.com/2009/03/19/eu-takes-legal-action-over-planned-poolbeg-incinerator-19309/.

March 19, 2009 eurolinknews.com

The proposed waste incinerator at Poolbeg is the subject of fresh controversy this week after it emerged that the EU has lodged legal proceedings against the Irish government over its handling of incinerator projects. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has confirmed that Ireland was referred to the European Court of Justice in the last few weeks after it failed to respond to a final warning over alleged breaches of EU law. A statement issued by the Commission highlights concerns that all the environmental implications of the Poolbeg plant may not have been considered before it was approved in 2007. It reads, ‘Because of weaknesses in Irish legislation splitting decision-making between planning authorities and the Environmental Protection Agency, there are risks that outcomes required by the EU directive will not always be achieved.’

It’s the latest in a saga of legal controversy dogging the planned €266 thermal treatment facility, which has nonetheless managed to secure a licence to burn 600,000 tonnes of household waste a year. But this international case could be particularly embarrassing for Environment Minister John Gormley, who has previously been vocal in his opposition to Poolbeg. The Minister has come under fire from Dublin MEP Proinsias De Rossa for failing to respond to the EU’s written warning earlier. ‘This is yet another unnecessary, costly legal battle; it’s a sad state of affairs that Europe should have to take legal action against a Green Party Minister to ensure that all the implications of incineration are considered,’ he said.

http://eurolinknews.com/2009/03/19/eu-takes-legal-action-over-planned-poolbeg-incinerator-19309/

Waste-To-Toxins Employee Of The Month

Employee Of The Month

Employee of the Month Tony Orlando, with Sam Zell.

The fines of a few thousand dollars paid by Covanta for Dioxin pollution are so derisory they don't even qualify as a normal business risk.

Sam Zell owns about $666 million in Covanta stock. Billionaire mogul Zell sold his massive residential and commercial real estate empire in 2007 for $39 billion, or $39,000,000,000. Zell's worker, CEO Tony Orlando, was paid just under three million dollars in the year after all Covanta incinerators in New Jersey were fined for dioxin pollution. Covanta has a secret contract to run the Poolbeg Waste-To-Toxins incinerator.

Honest 19th Century Solutions

Switch Your Bins To Panda

• Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council deployed 20 staff from its household waste collection unit last week in a bid to address a €10 million hole in the authority’s finances after the desertion of more than half (32,000) of its customer base in the 20 months up to October.
• Industry sources believe a recent High Court action taken by the waste companies Greenstar and Panda raises questions about the incinerator’s viability.
• Don't feed the worms at Dublin City Council.
  

__________________________________


Waste shortfall puts pressure on Poolbeg plan

07 December 2008

http://www.thepost.ie/post/text/story.asp?document_id=38107&category_name=&version=print

Penalties apply if Dun LaoghaireRathdown does not supply enough waste for the incinerator, write Niamh Connolly and John Burke.

One of the four councils expected to supply waste to the planned Poolbeg incinerator may fail to meet its commitment, raising questions over the viability of the waste-to-energy project.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLRCC) mayor, Cllr Tom Joyce, told The Sunday Business Post that the local authority might incur penalties for failing to supply enough waste to the incinerator, which was last week granted a licence by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Dublin City Council signed a contract in September 2007 with the joint US/Danish consortium - Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd - to design, build, finance and operate the Poolbeg plant. Dublin City Council coordinates the Dublin waste strategy on behalf of the capital’s four local authorities.

The four councils have under taken to supply over 300,000 tonnes of waste to the incinerator annually, as part of the deal, which is a key element of the Dublin waste management strategy. But the amount of waste being collected by DLRCC has fallen dramatically since the agreement was signed.

The authority deployed 20 staff from its household waste collection unit last week in a bid to address a €10 million hole in the authority’s finances after the desertion of more than half (32,000) of its customer base in the 20 months up to October. DLRCC’s tonnage of ‘black bin’ waste fell from 65,000 to 18,000 in the period.

In a briefing to councillors in October, Dun Laoghaire council manager Owen Keegan said the authority was likely to review its continued participation in the capital’s waste plan, due to financial concerns. A spokesman for the council said last week that no such review was under way.

‘‘The amount of waste being collected by us is considerably less now that the amount we were originally supposed to contribute, and it’s lessening by the day,” Joyce said. ‘‘We will have to take a look at whether it is in our interest to remain in the Dublin waste plan,” the Fine Gael councillor said.

A key ‘put or pay’ clause in the September 2007 deal requires the councils to guarantee the waste annually, or make loss-of-profit payments to the consortium behind the Poolbeg incinerator.

Meanwhile, British-based waste incineration company Covanta said it was prepared to start construction on the €250 million Poolbeg plant early in the new year. [galwaytent edit: Covanta is not British based. Covanta is based in New Jersey; its Irish operations at Poolbeg and at Rathcoole are firewalled in the Virgin Islands and in Luxembourg]

The company said conditions attached to the licence issued by the EPA had not yet been calculated, but ‘‘will not make the plant financially unviable’’.

Covanta is now reading through the 200 conditions to work out the implications; a spokesman said work was due to start on the plant ‘‘during the first quarter of 2009’’.

‘‘On first read, Covanta is confident it can meet all these conditions. Like the EPA, it too wants to ensure the plant operates safely and legally. We also welcome the condition to liaise extensively with the local community,” the company said.

Asked about industry speculation that the plant could be unviable due to changing economic conditions and waste management practices, he said: ‘‘There is no question of scaling down, withdrawing or slowing down - there is no hesitation with the incinerator for Poolbeg.”

Nonetheless, industry sources believe a recent High Court action taken by the waste companies Greenstar and Panda raises questions about the incinerator’s viability.

Thetwo companies are challenging Dublin City Council’s attempts to ensure that collection is carried out by the council or a collector under the council’s control.

Dublin City Council said last week that it did not anticipate work on the incinerator would start until the second half of next year.

Fianna Fail backs the incinerator, but Green Party deputy Ciaran Cuffe criticised the move by council officials to sign the contract. He accused them of pre-empting a decision on the Poolbeg incinerator by making financial commitments before approval for the plant had been granted.

The 600,000-tonne incinerator needs waste from the four regional authorities, Dublin City Council, South Dublin Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and Fingal, to ensure cost efficiency. Panda, which operates in the east from Dundalk to Dun Laoghaire, has just signed a contract to build the largest recycling facility in Ireland, in a move that raises further questions about the capacity of the incinerator.

The €3.25 million warehouse at Beauparc, Co Meath, would increase Panda’s ability to achieve up to 90 per cent recycling of all the waste it handles, according to the company’s general manager, Brian McCabe.

Minister for the Environment John Gormley came under fire last week over his failure to take action to prevent the incinerator in his own Dublin South East constituency.

The controversy could damage Gormley’s electoral prospects next time around, on the basis that he has opposed the project for the past ten years, but stands accused of being ‘‘ineffectual’’ in government.

Gormley was one of more than 2,000 individuals and environmental groups that lodged objections to the incinerator with An Bord Pleanala in October.

While Gormley insists that his ministerial powers do not allow him to interfere with the process, the Labour Party’s Ruairi Quinn said the minister had been told last summer that it was legally possible to seek a review by Dublin City Council of its waste management plan.

The Labour Party wants to pursue a judicial review of the plan.

Quinn said Labour’s legal counsel, Finbarr O’Malley, had advised that the Waste Management Act, 1996, section 24c, allowed the minister to intervene using this mechanism.

Such a review would reveal that the capacity of the incinerator ‘‘was excessive, because the evidence pointed in the direction that there would be less to incinerate than the amount and the scale of the plant in Ringsend [would allow],” said Quinn.

Gormley last week warned Dublin City Council that it would be ‘‘unwise’’ to proceed with the project, and he is taking policy steps to ensure that the incinerator is not economically viable by promoting mechanical and biological waste treatment and imposing levies on landfill and incineration.

Despite the speculation, a statement from DLRCC said: ‘‘Given the fact that Dun LaoghaireRathdown is part of the regional waste management strategy, the direct answer is that we will cooperate with our partners in Dublin City, South Dublin and Fingal County Council, as agreed, on all matters related to waste management.”

---

© Thomas Crosbie Media, 2008

Covanta Violations Lawsuits Fines Threats, Dublin Bay Incinerator, Poolbeg Incinerator, Money, Panda,

Sweden's Incinerators Forced to Import 600,000 Tonnes Waste

November 20, 2008
Sweden is an educated and advanced society without the corruption and class divisions exploited by Ireland's political class. Swedes trust "Lisbon". Guess why "Paddy" doesn't.

So its possible Sweden could run an incinerator in an honest manner. An incinerator run by Swedes is possibly not a scary thing, with just a few premature deaths a year. This acceptable level is not unlike the people riding bicycles in Dublin, otherwise known as the kidney-donors (Sweden has real bicycle paths). In starkest contrast, an incinerator run by Dublin City Council is a very scary thing indeed. DCC's level of honesty means they can not even run their 'Ringsend' schijt factory. However it seems even Sweden has slipped into the gombeen land of Abba's money.

Cynically, for its proposed Waste-To-Toxins incinerator at Poolbeg, the DCC team exploits Irish class divisions along with insular jackeen-culchie perspectives. In other words, the "republican party" Fianna-Fail seems to be continuing British tactics to exploit Ireland. The fat boys from New Jersey are laughing all the way to their Caribbean banks. And they are fat - their Vice President had to use the elevators to go up one floor at The Gresham.

"Never Misunderestimate The Stupidity of the People We Serve."

This is a common phrase in California.

Dublin City Council is building on its world-class legacy where it turned the beach at Sandymount-Irishtown-Ringsend into Dublin's rubbish dump. Can Dublin City Council and Covanta now turn Ireland into Europe's garbage dump? This would displace socialist and green Sweden from the honour of being Europe's garbage dump.

Sverige - Europas soptipp

Say it in Swedish

Celtic Tiger Johnny Logan liberated Europe from the greed of Abba's Money, Money, Money.

____________

Sweden Reduced To Importing Garbage

High profit in the Swedish Waste-To-Toxins incineration business has led to overcapacity, which now must be filled with the import of waste from other countries. According to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation Sweden is in danger of becoming Europe's garbage dump.

" Swedish incineration plants are among the best in Europe,

so we can become a YOUNG CUCKOO in other countries in that

we attract the waste and create a market for incineration, "

said Svante Axelsson, Secretary General of Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

Is there a risk that Sweden is Europe's garbage dump?

Yes, there is.

____________________________
EXTRACT
20 november 2008

Sverige tvingas importera sopor

Sedan år 2000 har antalet förbränningsanläggningar för avfall mer än fördubblats i Sverige. Och den lönsamhet som finns i förbränningsbranschen har lett till överkapacitet som nu måste fyllas ut med import av avfall från andra länder. Enligt Naturskyddsföreningen riskerar Sverige att bli Europas soptipp, men branschorganisationen håller inte med.

Svante Axelsson, Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen

Lokala kanalers rapportering

– De svenska förbränningsanläggningarna är bland de bättre i Europa, så vi kan bli en gökunge i andra länder genom att vi attraherar avfall och skapar en marknad för förbränning, säger Svante Axelsson, generalsekreterare på Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen.

Finns det en risk för att Sverige blir Europas soptipp?

– Ja, det finns det.

______________
EXTRACT

Zana Schiroyi
zana.schiroyi@sr.se

Anna Nyström, SR Örebro
anna.nystrom@sr.se

Research:

Victoria Gaunitz
victoria.gaunitz@sr.se

Magdalena Martinsson, SR Norrbotten
magdalena.martinsson@sr.se

No more incinerators should be approved - British Society for Ecological Medicine - June 2008

June 2008
The British Society for Ecological Medicine concludes
that no more incinerators should be approved.

Recent research, including that relating to fine and ultrafine particulates, the costs of incineration, together with research investigating nonstandard emissions from incinerators, has demonstrated that the hazards of incineration are greater than previously realised.

The accumulated evidence on the health risks of incinerators is simply too strong to ignore and their use cannot be justified now that better, cheaper and far less hazardous methods of waste disposal have become available.

http://www.ecomed.org.uk/content/IncineratorReport_v2.pdf

The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators
4th Report of the British Society for Ecological Medicine
Second Edition June 2008
Moderators: Dr Jeremy Thompson and Dr Honor Anthony.

_____________________________________

Executive Summary

· Large studies have shown higher rates of adult and childhood cancer and also
birth defects around municipal waste incinerators: the results are consistent
with the associations being causal. A number of smaller epidemiological
studies support this interpretation and suggest that the range of illnesses
produced by incinerators may be much wider.

· Incinerator emissions are a major source of fine particulates, of toxic metals
and of more than 200 organic chemicals, including known carcinogens,
mutagens, and hormone disrupters. Emissions also contain other unidentified
compounds whose potential for harm is as yet unknown, as was once the case
with dioxins. Since the nature of waste is continually changing, so is the
chemical nature of the incinerator emissions and therefore the potential for
adverse health effects.

· Present safety measures are designed to avoid acute toxic effects in the
immediate neighbourhood, but ignore the fact that many of the pollutants
bioaccumulate, enter the food chain and can cause chronic illnesses over time
and over a much wider geographical area. No official attempts have been
made to assess the effects of emissions on long-term health.

· Incinerators produce bottom and fly ash which amount to 30-50% by volume
of the original waste (if compacted), and require transportation to landfill
sites. Abatement equipment in modern incinerators merely transfers the toxic
load, notably that of dioxins and heavy metals, from airborne emissions to the
fly ash. This fly ash is light, readily windborne and mostly of low particle size.
It represents a considerable and poorly understood health hazard.

· Two large cohort studies in America have shown that fine (PM2.5) particulate
air pollution causes increases in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality
and mortality from lung cancer, after adjustment for other factors. A more
recent, well-designed study of morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal
women has confirmed this, showing a 76% increase in cardiovascular and
83% increase in cerebrovascular mortality in women exposed to higher levels
of fine particulates. These fine particulates are primarily produced by
combustion processes and are emitted in large quantities by incinerators.

· Higher levels of fine particulates have been associated with an increased
prevalence of asthma and COPD.

· Fine particulates formed in incinerators in the presence of toxic metals and
organic toxins (including those known to be carcinogens), adsorb these
pollutants and carry them into the blood stream and into the cells of the body.

· Toxic metals accumulate in the body and have been implicated in a range of
emotional and behavioural problems in children including autism, dyslexia,
attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning difficulties, and
delinquency, and in problems in adults including violence, dementia,
depression and Parkinson’s disease. Increased rates of autism and learning
disabilities have been noted to occur around sites that release mercury into the
environment. Toxic metals are universally present in incinerator emissions and
present in high concentrations in the fly ash.

· Susceptibility to chemical pollutants varies, depending on genetic and
acquired factors, with the maximum impact being on the foetus. Acute exposure
can lead to sensitisation of some individuals, leaving them with lifelong
low dose chemical sensitivity.

· Few chemical combinations have been tested for toxicity, even though
synergistic effects have been demonstrated in the majority of cases when this
testing has been done. This synergy could greatly increase the toxicity of the
pollutants emitted, but this danger has not been assessed.

· Both cancer and asthma have increased relentlessly along with
industrialisation, and cancer rates have been shown to correlate geographically
with both toxic waste treatment facilities and the presence of chemical
industries, pointing to an urgent need to reduce our exposure.

· In the UK, some incinerators burn radioactive material producing radioactive
particulates. Inhalation allows entry into the body of this radioactive material
which can subsequently emit alpha or beta radiation. This type of radiation has
low danger outside the body but is highly destructive within. No studies have
been done to assess the danger to health of these radioactive emissions.

· Some chemical pollutants such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and
heavy metals are known to cause genetic changes. This represents not only a
risk to present generations but to future generations.

· Monitoring of incinerators has been unsatisfactory in the lack of rigor, the
infrequency of monitoring, the small number of compounds measured, the
levels deemed acceptable, and the absence of biological monitoring. Approval
of new installations has depended on modelling data, supposed to be scientific
measures of safety, even though the method used has no more than a 30%
accuracy of predicting pollutants levels correctly and ignores the important
problems of secondary particulates and chemical interactions.

· It has been claimed that modern abatement procedures render the emissions
from incinerators safe, but this is impossible to establish and would apply only
to emissions generated under standard operating conditions. Of much more
concern are non-standard operating conditions including start-up and shutdown
when large volumes of pollutants are released within a short period of
time. Two of the most hazardous emissions – fine particulates and heavy
metals – are relatively resistant to removal.

· The safety of new incinerator installations cannot be established in advance
and, although rigorous independent health monitoring might give rise to
suspicions of adverse effects on the foetus and infant within a few years, this
type of monitoring has not been put in place, and in the short term would not
reach statistical significance for individual installations. Other effects, such as
adult cancers, could be delayed for at least ten to twenty years. It would
therefore be appropriate to apply the precautionary principle here.

· There are now alternative methods of dealing with waste which would avoid
the main health hazards of incineration, would produce more energy and
would be far cheaper in real terms, if the health costs were taken into account.

· Incinerators presently contravene basic human rights as stated by the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, in particular the Right to Life under
the European Human Rights Convention, but also the Stockholm Convention
and the Environmental Protection Act of 1990. The foetus, infant and child
are most at risk from incinerator emissions: their rights are therefore being
ignored and violated, which is not in keeping with the concept of a just society. Nor is the present policy of locating incinerators in deprived areas
where their health effects will be maximal: this needs urgent review.

· Reviewing the literature for the second edition has confirmed our earlier
conclusions. Recent research, including that relating to fine and ultrafine
particulates, the costs of incineration, together with research investigating nonstandard
emissions from incinerators, has demonstrated that the hazards of
incineration are greater than previously realised. The accumulated evidence on
the health risks of incinerators is simply too strong to ignore and their use
cannot be justified now that better, cheaper and far less hazardous methods of
waste disposal have become available. We therefore conclude that no more
incinerators should be approved.

Don't Feed The Worms At Dublin City Council!

Feeding The Worms at Dublin City Council Creates A Monopoly to Benefit Foreign Corporations.

Pat Oliphant Editorial Cartoons

Don't Feed The Worms At Dublin City Council!

Should you immediately switch your bin collection to Panda? If you do nothing are you supporting the worms promoting DCC's Waste-To-Toxins incinerator which will degrade health all across Dublin?

Should you immediately remove all your assets from Anglo-Irish Bank? This includes cash and pension plan investments. If you do nothing are you supporting the worms wrecking Sandymount Strand and Dublin Bay?

Should you immediately tell BIFFO and John Gormley not to use taxpayer assets to bail out Anglo-Irish Bank? If you do nothing the increased charges on Ireland's National Debt will exceed the supposed cost savings gouged from old people's medical cards. That's if BIFFO doesn't turn Ireland-Inc into Iceland-Under-IMF-Administration-Inc.

• Is Dublin City Council creating a monopoly of cash-flow for foreign Waste-To-Toxins corporations?

• Who benefits from the apparently legal Directorship and Consulting Doors Revolving between DCC, DDDA, Covanta, Energy Answers, EPA-Ireland and Anglo-Irish Bank?

• So far, DCC has spent in excess of €19,000,000 to promote a one-sided case benefiting foreign corporations in the Waste-To-Toxins business. Cynically, no money has been available to provide balanced public information. Who is working for the taxpayers in Dublin?

• DCC's competitor Panda said the main reason the city council wants to re-monopolise the collection system is because DCC has entered into a contract to provide 320,000 tonnes of rubbish per year for the planned municipal waste incinerator at Poolbeg in Dublin.

Monopolists Planning Dublin Bay

_________________________________________________

Council accused over waste collection services

MARY CAROLAN, Last Updated: Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 19:09

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1028/breaking72.htm

A waste collection company has claimed before the High Court that Dublin City Council is seeking to “re-monopolise” the household collection service in the capital.

The claim was made by counsel for Nurendale Ltd, trading as Panda Waste Services, Rathdrinagh, Beauparc Business Park, Navan, Co Meath.

Panda is seeking a court order to overturn the Council’s decision altering the existing waste permit regime, under which some private collectors operate in the market, to one where collection is carried out by the local authority or a single collector appointed by the council.

Panda claims moves to alter the current regime is an abuse of the Dublin local councils’ dominant market position. The company is also seeking damages.

Opening the case, Martin Hayden SC, for the company said there was a deliberate decision by the city council to “re-monopolise” the waste collection market.

Up to 1996, all household waste in Dublin had been collected by directly employed local authority workers. After 1996, a licensing system was introduced allowing private firms to operate. A number of such operators, including Panda, got involved.

Mr Hayden said the main reason the city council wants to re-monopolise the collection system is because it has entered into a contract to provide 320,000 tonnes of rubbish per year for the planned municipal waste incinerator at Poolbeg in Dublin.

The company is asking the court to judicially review a decision by the council, on behalf of all of the city’s four local authorities, to vary the Dublin waste management plan. Panda claims the decision is essentially an attempt to prohibit the collection of waste by the private sector.

Mr Hayden said comments made in correspondence by assistant city council manager, Matt Twomey, showed that it was the intended there would be no private operators in the market.

The city council says that it is its intention that collection of household waste will be by a single operator, either the local authority, or as a result of a tendering process.

Panda Waste was set up in 1990 and employs 250 people. It has an annual turnover of around €50m and some 28,000 domestic customers in Dublin. In 2005, the company implemented a business plan in which it focused on the domestic waste collection market, particularly in Dublin. It competed in Dun Laoghaire, Fingal and South Dublin Council areas and bought the Smurfit Recycling plant in Ballymount.

The case before Mr Justice Liam McKechnie continues.

© 2008 irishtimes.com

Galway Tent Pigs

Poolbeg Incinerator Finances Built On House Of Cards

Independent.ie

Legal action threatens Poolbeg incinerator plan

By Paul Melia
Monday October 06 2008

A LANDMARK court case could result in the controversial Poolbeg incinerator being shelved.

Private waste collectors Greenstar and Panda are to ask the High Court to stop Dublin City Council limiting their activities in the city, and if successful it could throw the whole financial model for the waste-to-energy plant into doubt.

The council wants to tender out household waste collection routes in the city, saying that the current free-for-all is not working and is causing pollution because of the large number of bin trucks operating.

It proposes to allow companies to compete against each other to win household collection contracts, giving city bosses control of the waste stream.

This is essential because the council has entered into a 'put and pay' arrangement with the company which will operate the incinerator.

The agreement guarantees that a set amount of waste is sent for thermal treatment every year, or the council must pay a financial penalty.

However, two of the country's biggest private operators have sought a judicial review of the new regulations, which will be held in the High Court at the end of the month.

If they win the case, the council cannot guarantee a waste stream, and the whole financial model justifying the 600,000 tonne a year plant will be thrown into doubt.

"All of the infrastructure is based on owning the waste stream," one industry source said yesterday. "Everything stems from ownership of the waste.

"Poolbeg is fraught with difficulty. It's built on a house of cards and if one falls, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Dublin City Council must own and direct the waste."

Dublin City Council were not immediately available for comment, but Greenstar said that while incineration had a role in waste disposal, there was "no flexibility" in the system.

"Incineration has a role as an end of life disposal facility," spokesman Jerry Dempsey said.

"The Poolbeg one is too big and in the wrong place. Why lock into a system that offers no flexibility for the next 30 years?" he said.

The incinerator, which is opposed by Environment Minister John Gormley, was granted planning permission last November.

- Paul Melia

©Independent.ie

Lawsuits Over "Model" UK Incinerator

(Click title for original article).

Some comparisons between the

• Operational Model UK Incinerator
  

and the

• Promotors of the Dublin Bay Incinerator on Sandymount Strand at Poolbeg.

"Soon after the £32m plant opened in 2002, neighbouring residents complained of odours coming from it. "
>>> DCC's Sewage Factory has generated best-available-technology odours since 2003 and now requires an extra €36 million of taxpayer cash. Homer would not employ this management culture.


"It was temporarily shut down for environmental breaches in 2003"
>>>2006: Covanta Repeatedly Fined for Dioxin Releases, Other Toxics http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/2006-covanta-repeatedly-fined-for.html

>>>EPA: 6,000 violations at Covanta Incinerator in 2 Years
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-epa-counted-6000-violations-at.html


"and later damaged by fire".
>>> In 2007, residents were advised to tape their windows and to venture outdoors only if necessary, following a massive fire at a Waste-To-Toxics incinerator located south of Boston, Massachusets.
Housewives or househusbands were blamed by a city official or perhaps by the incinerator's management for sending the wrong kind of thrash. Luckily there was no snow of the wrong type on the tracks nor any illegal radioactive waste. Or was there? Nobody knows says Homer.

Apparently asking the truck drivers for an ID did not work - the strategy to prevent illegal or dangerous toxins being incinerated, as outlined by Dong's Senior Engineer at The Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing.

Locals claimed explosions are fairly common at the incinerator and can shake local houses - an official dismissed this saying the explosions are fewer than once a month.

Here's another massive incinerator fire, this one is in Florida in June 2008:
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/06/inferno-at-incinerator.html


"“The council is seeking damages following the failure of the materials recycling and energy centre to achieve anything like its contracted performance levels, particularly in terms of diverting waste from landfill, recycling and the production of compost.”"
>>> Covanta, Florida: A Decade of Lawsuits. Recycling Undermined.
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/covanta-florida-decade-of-lawsuits.html



"But local authorities, who point out the incinerator has to comply with emission standards,... "
>>> The UK does not monitor deadly small particles ('PM 2.5')
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/04/uk-does-not-monitor-pm25s-increased.html

Were any environmental standards enforced at Cork shipyard? It seems to be full of deadly Chromium Six. The Director of EPA-Ireland (apparently at the time when papers were issued wrt Cork) is now a paid contractor promoting waste-to-toxics incineration for American offshore entities. This ethics issue is apparently kept quiet - by a company using different aliases, apparently. Google The Sunday Business Post and the Irish Independent to gain more background on EPA-Ireland.
http://galwaytent.blogspot.com/2008/07/environmental-enforcement-epa-300.html

_________________________________________

£54m claim turns up the heat over authority’s incinerator

Jul 12 2008 by Martin Shipton, Western Mail, Wales.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/07/12/54m-claim-turns-up-the-heat-over-authority-s-incinerator-91466-21328769/

WalesOnline, the best source for Welsh news, sport, business and entertainment. Powered by the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and Celtic Weekly Newspapers. Produced by Media Wales Ltd.

A LOCAL authority has launched a £54m lawsuit over a troubled waste plant that was once hailed as a model for the whole of the UK.

Neath Port Talbot Council has issued a High Court writ against two dormant companies in the Currie & Brown Group, which offered technical advice over the project at Crymlyn Burrows, near Neath. It is one of the largest sums ever claimed in litigation relating to the construction industry.

Soon after the £32m plant opened in 2002, neighbouring residents complained of odours coming from it. It was temporarily shut down for environmental breaches in 2003, and later damaged by fire.

The defendants in the action are Currie & Brown Project Management and Currie & Brown Consulting, both of which are dormant companies.

Currie & Brown Project Management produced a technical due diligence report on the project for investors in 2000. Currie & Brown Consulting was appointed technical adviser to the investors in 2000 and the division was also appointed technical adviser to the council in 2002.

The case is scheduled for April 2009 and will be tried in Bristol by a High Court judge.

Will Watson, corporate director for the environment at Neath Port Talbot council, said: “The council is seeking damages following the failure of the materials recycling and energy centre to achieve anything like its contracted performance levels, particularly in terms of diverting waste from landfill, recycling and the production of compost.”

A spokeswoman for Currie & Brown confirmed the two companies in the group were facing a £54m claim from the council.

“The matter is in the hands of our insurers,” she said. “We do not wish to comment further.”

In May it emerged that Neath Port Talbot Council was suing neighbouring Bridgend Council for around £5m in connection with problems relating to the plant, which is officially described as Crymlyn Burrows Materials Recovery and Energy Centre.

Domestic rubbish from both council areas is disposed of at the plant, which processes material for recycling and incinerates other waste.

It is understood that during legal arguments between the two local authorities, Neath Port Talbot threatened to ban Bridgend from sending waste to the plant.

The Crymlyn Burrows waste processing plant has been controversial since before it opened in 2002.

Residents opposed it on health grounds, claiming there was no truly safe limit for the dioxins emitted by the incinerator. Dioxins are associated with birth defects, heart disease, infertility, respiratory problems and cancers.

But local authorities, who point out the incinerator has to comply with emission standards, saw it as a way to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill in advance of targets set by the European Commission in 2010.

From the outset the plant processed around 150,000 tonnes of domestic refuse a year from Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend.

The plant was built and initially run by Portuguese operator HLC, but in 2005 Neath Port Talbot Council pulled the plug on HLC Neath Port Talbot after the firm went into administration.

Neath Port Talbot Council took over running the plant and in 2006 it was reported losses totalling more than £67m could accrue over 25 years unless a new operating partner was found. A legal tug-of-war ensued between the council and HLC’s creditor, the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was seeking to recoup some of its £40m debt with the plant’s assets. The dispute was settled out of court in November 2006, putting the plant firmly in the hands of Neath Port Talbot Council.

Early last year, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend councils said they were planning to award a new 25-year contract for operating the facility.

In late April the two authorities issued a joint statement, saying: “Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot councils are in discussions concerning a contractual matter related to waste disposal arrangements and both are hopeful that an early resolution will be possible. At this stage, neither council is prepared to make any further comment.”

Environmental Enforcement: EPA's Piece of Paper

Waves paper to the crowd- receiving loud cheers and "Hear Hears"

EPA's Piece of Paper

While the Environmental Protection Agency EPA issued an awesome piece of paper termed a draft Integrated Pollution Control licence in 2001, it was never implemented by Irish Ispat (Cork shipyard).

How many people in Cork are now dead or have compromised health from the Chromium Six and other toxins?

• Guess who directed the EPA at that time.
• Guess which incineration company has apparently hired that same Director to promote their proposed Waste-To-Toxics factories in Dublin.

An "attempt" by the EPA in 2004 to compel the liquidator, Ray Jackson (of KPMG), to fund the clean-up of the Cork site failed, leaving Irish Taxpayers to foot the clean-up bill, which at the time was estimated to be around €30 million but which the contractors claim is likely to cost taxpayers €300 million.

EPA-Ireland has already or will soon issue more valuable pieces of paper awesomely termed licences for incinerators in Meath, Cork and Poolbeg.

Guess who will pay for the 100's of stroke victims or the 50 to 300 premature deaths across Dublin each year?

• Firewalled American Special Purpose Entities in the Caribbean?
• Firewalled American Special Purpose Entities in The Grand Duchy?
• Galway Tent Insiders protected by the HSE firewall?
  
• You.

Sources: Irish Times, Irish Independent, July 2008.

Once officials, Now consultants

Once Officials, Now Consultants

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2003/12/07/story257079427.asp

Unlike the United States, Britain and Canada, the Republic has no regulations governing the movement of state officials to consultancy positions in the private sector. [Sunday, December 07, 2003].

• Kevin McDonnell, a former Dublin inspector with the EPA, works as adviser to Ray Stokes, the Dublin businessman who recently bought a dump at Whitestown in west Co Wicklow. McDonnell's company, Agritech Solutions, based in Dublin, is carrying out the work.

• Ted Nealon, another former EPA inspector,works for Dean Waste Co, which trades as A1 Waste, the waste company owned and controlled by Dublin businessmanTony Dean.

• Hubert Fitzpatrick, a former assistant manager of Wicklow County Council, was a consultant to A&L Goodbody solicitors. He works for the Construction Industry Federation.

• Frank Kavanagh, former county manager with South Dublin County Council, works as a planning consultant to multimillionaire property developer Jim Mansfield.

• Ciaran Ryan, formerly of Fingal County Council, runs a planning consultancy in Dublin with Mark Walsh, former deputy county manager and director of planning in Fingal County Council.

• Willie Murray, a former planning official in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, has been working for the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Light Rail Company, a private consortium backing a Luas extension from Sandyford to Cherrywood in south Co Dublin.

• Donough Murphy, who was a board member of An Bord Pleanala from 1989 to 1999, is an architect and planning consultant. He now works for property company Treasury Holdings.
  

• Jim Barrett, recently retired Dublin City Architect
• Jim Barrett gave evidence as part of Developer's project team (Dunne/Ballsbridge, 2008).

Covanta Alias is Energy Answers?

James Joyce ... Sandymount Strand ... Long Kesh ... The Maze ... Ogden ... Covanta ... Energy Answers ... Incinerator ... Waste-to-Toxics ... Waste-to-Energy ... DCC ... DDDA ... DCC-DDDA ... IRA ... Fianna Fail ... Sinn Fein ... World's Oldest Profession ... Consultant
___________________________________

Why does Covanta-Energy-Answers-Rathcoole have an "office" in the Caribbean's Virgin Islands?

Why does Covanta-Poolbeg have an office in Luxembourg?

• Why did Enron, also billed as an "energy" company, maintain Special Purpose Entities around the Caribbean?

In 2007, Energy Answers sold its U.S. operating company, EAC Operations, Inc., including all of its operating assets to Covanta Energy Corporation. This sale involves all of Energy Answers’ operating enterprises in the Northeast U.S.

Energy Answers International will continue to maintain offices in Albany, New York; St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands; and Dublin, Ireland; and continue to pursue new project development opportunities.

Why?

_______________________________________
NOTEs:

If true, why is Energy Answers International a separate legal entity to Energy Answers (USA) and to Covanta, and Covanta's tens of similiarly named corporations ?

The Enron scandal was a financial scandal involving Enron Corporation (NYSE ticker symbol: ENE) and its accounting firm Arthur Andersen, that was revealed in late 2001. After a series of revelations involving irregular accounting procedures bordering on fraud, perpetrated throughout the 1990s, it left Enron on the verge of undergoing the lowest bankruptcy in history by mid-November 2001.

Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, the mastermind behind Enron's complex network of offshore partnerships and questionable accounting practices, was indicted on November 1, 2002, by a federal grand jury in Houston on 78 counts including fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.

Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.



http://www.energyanswers.com/our_company/history/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

European Incinerators Import Mexican Dioxin Sources.

• The Beast Must Be Fed: Mexico now sends PCBs to Europe for incineration, exposing the compounds to loss at sea.

• "Incineration is a Dinosaur Technology." : Neil Carman, a former Texas Commission on Environmental Quality inspector who now works with the Sierra Club's Lone Star chapter. Carmen said the EPA's position is "absurd" because "incineration is a dinosaur technology."

• Carman said there are EPA-approved, non-burn technologies that could be used to dispose of the compounds in Mexico.

• Environmentalists say the Texas Incinerator released 1,933 pounds of PCBs into the air in 2006.

________________________________________
Full Article from Houston & Texas News is here:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5834705.html

June 12, 2008, 11:44PM
Port Arthur site set to burn toxic PCBs
EPA about to let Mexican imports be destroyed there

By MATTHEW TRESAUGUE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

PORT ARTHUR — The west end of this Gulf Coast refinery town is a weedy pocket of poverty, with blocks of shuttered storefronts and blue tarps still covering the rooftops of houses damaged by Hurricane Rita nearly three years ago.

Hilton Kelley, 47, sees his neighborhood's commercial activity moribund, its residents sick, its children with nothing to do, and he blames the fire-and-fume-belching cluster of oil and petrochemical plants around Port Arthur.

Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to grant a request by the operator of a Port Arthur incinerator to import up to 20,000 tons of highly toxic PCBs from Mexico for their disposal. To many people living on the city's predominantly black west end, the proposal is the ultimate affront.

"This adds insult to injury," said Kelley, who heads the Community In-Power and Development Association. "Enough is enough already."

Veolia Environmental Services' petition comes nearly 30 years after legislation that banned the manufacture of PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, also prohibited bringing them into the United States. The EPA ruled in 1996 that the chemical compounds may be brought into the country for incineration, but a federal appeals court overturned the decision.

Agency officials, echoing the reasons for reversing the ban a decade ago, argue that the destruction of PCBs in this country is safer than allowing stockpiles to fester in Mexico and other nations.

But critics contend that there are cleaner, safer disposal methods for PCBs. When burned, they produce dioxin, which is linked to cancer, brain damage, reproductive problems and other ailments in humans.

Despite precautions, incinerators emit minute quantities that enter the food chain through meat, dairy products and fish — leading some to wonder why Port Arthur residents should again shoulder such an onerous burden.

"They're getting all of the emissions and none of the prosperity," said Jim Blackburn, a Houston-based environmental attorney who represented Port Arthur residents in a recent lawsuit over Motiva Enterprises' expansion plans. "Why should we make an exception to put more pollution on a community that already has taken on more than its fair share?"

Environmentalists have dubbed the area "The Cancer Belt," but there is no proven link to the refineries and Jefferson County's cancer rate, which was 23 percent higher than the state overall, according to the Texas Cancer Registry's most recent data.

Refinery to expand

The health problem is part of the plight of Port Arthur, where the median household income is about $35,000 a year, less than half of Sugar Land. While there isn't much left of downtown, new houses, restaurants and big-box stores are sprouting along the corridor leading to Beaumont and away from the biggest plants.

Last year Motiva began an expansion that will more than double the capacity of its Port Arthur refinery to 600,000 barrels a day by 2010 and make it the largest in the country. The plant is across the street from the Carver Terrace public housing project.

The Army also began shipping 1.7 million gallons of a nerve gas byproduct called hydrolysate from Indiana to Veolia's incinerator, located about five miles west of downtown on Texas 73. The contract is worth $49 million.

Veolia applied to import PCBs in November 2006 before receiving the Army contract. Under the proposal, the company would ship the compounds by truck through Houston to Port Arthur — a distance of about 460 miles from entry points in Brownsville and Laredo.

Mexico now sends PCBs to Europe for incineration, exposing the compounds to loss at sea. The transportation cost for overseas shipment is at least three times more expensive than moving the waste from Monterrey, Mexico, to Port Arthur, according to the company.

Plant's estimate

The Veolia facility, permitted to handle up to 150,000 tons of hazardous waste per year, burns between 20 million and 30 million pounds of PCB wastes from domestic sources annually. Mitch Osborne, the plant's general manager, said smokestack tests show the incinerator destroys more than 99 percent of the material.

But environmentalists are not so sure about the plant's safety record, pointing to the 1,933 pounds of PCBs that it reported releasing into the air in 2006, the most recent data available.

The plant alone accounted for more than two-thirds of the PCB releases nationwide, according to the federal Toxics Release Inventory, which is based on industry estimates.

Osborne said the plant's estimate is wrong because of a bookkeeping error. In correspondence with the EPA last month, company officials said the amount should be less than one pound.

"If we didn't think we could do it safely, then we wouldn't bring it here," Osborne said. "We have proven our capability over 15 years. It's safer to burn here than to leave it in place."

The EPA apparently agrees.

Position called absurd

The agency is proposing a one-year exemption for Veolia to import and burn the PCBs because the company "has demonstrated that no unreasonable risk to health or the environment would result," EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith said.

The agency also contends that because the proposal poses no unreasonable health hazards to Port Arthur's residents, there is no "environmental justice" issue.

Neil Carman, a former Texas Commission on Environmental Quality inspector who now works with the Sierra Club's Lone Star chapter, said the EPA's position is "absurd" because "incineration is a dinosaur technology."

Carman said there are EPA-approved, non-burn technologies that could be used to dispose of the compounds in Mexico. A process called chemical dechlorination, for example, treats the PCB waste with a liquid agent that breaks down the toxins by removing their chlorine components.

"It's inexcusable for Veolia to burn PCBs because they don't all burn up," Carman said, adding that the Sierra Club would sue if the EPA grants the plant's request. "This could set a precedent that opens up the floodgates."

matthew.tresaugue@chron.com