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Last update: January 26, 2005 at 9:32 AM

Tire-burning plant needs more study, MPCA board says

Tom Meersman,  Star Tribune
January 26, 2005 TIREPLANT0126
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The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens Board decided Tuesday to require a thorough environmental impact study for a proposed tire-burning plant in southeastern Minnesota.

The $50 million Heartland Energy and Recycling plant, to be built in Preston, Minn., would burn the equivalent of 10 million tires a year from Minnesota and surrounding states to produce electricity.

The decision, on a 6-1 vote, was a victory for citizens who contended that more information was needed because they said the tire burner would release dioxins, heavy metals and other materials into the environment, harm public health, and jeopardize dairy farms and tourism.

The action came after a grueling seven-hour hearing attended by more than 100 people, including nearly four dozen who spoke against the project.

Bob Maust, who is proposing the plant, was tight-lipped after the decision. "You'll get no comment from me," he said. "It's late."

An environmental impact study usually takes a year or more to complete and often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Board Member Michelle Beeman cautioned citizens in the audience at MPCA headquarters in St. Paul that a more extensive environmental study does not mean the plant will not be built.

Beeman and other board members praised the MPCA staff members for their hard work, even though the board voted against the staff's recommendations. Board members said too many questions are still unanswered about the potential health effects of the project.

An Olmsted County judge had requested last year that the MPCA take a closer look at the proposed plant after the agency had approved it earlier.

Maust proposed the plant in 2002. He said that it would create about 30 jobs in the area and that it would resolve the problem of how to dispose of tires by accepting about 350 tons a day and chopping them into small pieces for incineration. Steel from tires would be recycled, and ash would be used as construction material.

The burner would use a process called "fluidized bed technology" that helps scrub away contaminants. It has been used on coal-burning plants for years, but not on a large scale in tire incinerators.

Tom Meersman is at meersman@startribune.com.

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