Garbage-burning steam plant may reopen

By ERICA HALL

The Mirror

Tacoma's Department of Public Works is considering reopening the sporadically run, sometimes controversial Tacoma tideflats steam plant to provide another local source of power for Tacoma residents.

The department has issued a request for proposals from companies interested in operating the steam plant, an incineration waste-to-energy facility where wood, coal and municipal garbage are burned to provide power to Tacoma utility customers. According to city officials, up to 30 percent of the plant's fuel can come from garbage, but the remainder has to be wood or coal.

The plant was built by Tacoma City Light, now Tacoma Power, in 1931 to provide coal-fueled power to the tideflats industrial area. In 1949, the plant was converted to burn oil; in the mid-1980s, an Idaho-based energy company converted it again, this time to a waste-to-energy facility.

Citing financial reasons, the Idaho firm abandoned the beleaguered plant in 1986, selling it back to City Light, which ran it sporadically until selling it in 1998 to the Public Works Department. From 1999 to 2001, the city's solid waste division ran the plant.

According to the city, the plant converted 64,000 tons of municipal garbage and other fuels into 133,758 megawatts of energy –– enough to provide energy to 10,000 homes –– in 2000.

The plant closed again –– officials cited financial reasons after the city didn't get state Department of Ecology permission to burn asphalt shingles and waste oils –– in December 2001. In November 2001, officials said the plant cost Tacoma $370,000 in 2000 and an estimated $1.8 million in 2001.

The plant has been closed since. Recently, officials decided to see if the plant could re-open under a private contractor.

Bids to run the plant are due May 24. If no one bids or none of the bids is viable, Public Works will recommend that the city abandon the project and mothball the facility, city spokeswoman Linda Elliott Farmer said.

If there are promising bids, Public Works will present them to a City Council committee on June 22 along with a recommendation for which company to pursue. During public meetings, the committee will to choose one of the companies, gather more information or abandon the project.

The possibility of reopening the plant is a source of consternation for some residents living in Northeast Tacoma near Federal Way, who say they don't want to be the recipients of pollution from incinerated garbage carried to their homes on the wind.

Farmer said the city is "committed to keeping the Northeast Tacoma Neighborhood Council informed during the entire process."

Public Works plans to have regular monthly updates and meetings with the neighborhood council, and Farmer added the permitting process has "an extensive public outreach and comment process."

If the City Council agrees in mid-July to pick a contractor, Public Works would negotiate with the chosen bidder at the same time as officials began the permitting process with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency –– a process that would involve computer modeling and detailed environmental analysis of the steam plant operation beginning this fall and going into next year.

The permitting process would probably take all of 2006, according to officials. Many of the milestones in summer and fall of 2005 require city authorization to proceed.

If one of the bidders is chosen and the city agrees to move forward, the plant wouldn't re-start until late 2007, Farmer said. Steam plant facility upgrades would be done in early to mid-2007.

Staff writer Erica Hall: 925-5565, ehall@fedwaymirror.com

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