An environmental permit restricting the burning of explosive hazardous waste at a plant near Colfax is facing challenges by the plant’s owner as well as a citizens group that has complained about the health effects of the plant’s operation.
The permit issued by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to the Massachusetts-based Clean Harbors facility allows the practice of open burning and open detonation of materials such as rocket fuel and military mines to continue for 180 days after the permit is finalized. Beyond that time period, the facility would have to carry out such activities in a proposed contained-burn system, which dramatically reduces air pollution from the process.
“We did file an appeal of the LDEQ permit citing several reasons, which are carefully outlined in our filing that is public record,” Jim Buckley, a Clean Harbors spokesman, told the Louisiana Record in an email. Buckley declined to comment further, saying the appeal reflected the company’s position on the issue.
The 180-day limit for open burning and open detonation will result in the closing of the business and the interruption of its thermal treatment process, all to the detriment of the nation’s waste-management system, Clean Harbors’ appeal to the LDEQ says.
“This cessation of OB/OD will result in the unsafe accumulation of these energetic wastes in local communities rather than allowing a responsible disposal option that eliminates the hazards of these wastes,” the appeal says.
The planned contained-burn system will take at least two years to complete, according to the company.
Clean Harbors also takes issue with the permit’s air-quality monitoring provisions and a requirement that the contained-burn system be 99.99% efficient in removing pollutants. That level of efficiency applies to incinerators, not the thermal-oxidizer facility that the company wants to build, which will have 99% efficiency in removing particle pollution, the appeal states.
In the wake of the company’s appeal, the Central Louisiana Coalition for a Clean & Healthy Environment filed a lawsuit against the LDEQ, alleging that the agency failed to classify the proposed “contained-burn chamber system” as a hazardous waste incinerator and allowed Clean Harbors to evade incinerator requirements that would have protected human health.
The community group’s lawsuit, which was filed Aug. 11 in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge, does not take issue with the LDEQ’s position on the timeline to end open burning or open detonations.