WEST WARWICK – Stiff opposition from local residents, lawmakers and the attorney general helped sway the R.I. Department of Environmental Management against issuing a permit on a proposed medical waste treatment plant, the agency said on Tuesday.
The DEM issued a statement explaining its denial of a license needed for MedRecycler-RI’s project here. The state agency cited “significant public comment,” as well as concerns by East Greenwich and Attorney General Peter F. Neronha.
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MedRecycler-RI in 2020 submitted its license application to the DEM, detailing plans to build a medical waste treatment plant on Division Road. Up to 70 tons of blood, needles and other medical human and animal waste would be shipped in daily, shredded, dried and treated at high heat using a process known as pyrolysis, which breaks down the waste into gas that can be burned for electricity.
The proposal drew harsh backlash. including in a multihour virtual public hearing in March in which local residents, city and state officials, doctors and environmentalists all voiced concern with what they say is unproven and untested technology with serious health, safety and environmental hazards.
Nicholas Campanella, MedRecycler CEO, billed the process as a way to avoid harmful carbon emissions and chemicals because it does not use oxygen, thereby treating the waste without burning it. But pyrolysis has primarily been used to treat plastic – only one other plant in the U.S. ever used the process for medical waste, but at a smaller scale and it’s unclear whether it still exists.
Opposition to the project was also the inspiration behind legislation passed by the General Assembly that limits where high heat waste treatment facilities can operate, preventing them from opening near schools, child care centers, residential-zoned areas and open space or water, among other areas.
The DEM in its decision cited this law, which was signed by Gov. Daniel J. McKee, as additional support for its denial.
While an attorney for MedRecycler said previously that the legislation could not apply to already submitted projects such as this, DEM said the “clear prohibitionary language of the law” applies to the project, which is located near residential areas, an elementary school, the New England Institute of Technology and a golf course.
The DEM decision also pointed to several inconsistencies and deficiencies in the application, such as how much waste will be stored at the facility and how rejected waste will be handled. The application also contained “insufficient detail and specifics” about contingency plans, which were also not submitted to the applicable town fire departments; biological testing protocols to determine if the process to store and treat waste meets state and federal regulations; closure costs and what will happen to the waste if the plant shuts down; and buffer areas between the site and neighboring properties, according to DEM.
The DEM is one of several state and local groups needed to sign off on various aspects of the project. The West Warwick Planning Board has granted preliminary approval, though a more detailed vetting was slated for after the DEM’s review. Rhode Island Industrial Facilities Corp., an arm of R.I. Commerce Corp. that acts as the local development authority for the state, also granted the project $17 million in bond funding, though the 2019 approval has since expired and would need to be reapproved.
Campanella in an emailed statement on Tuesday said, “This decision makes it perfectly clear why Rhode Island’s business climate was ranked 46 out of the 50 states earlier today,” referring to CNBC’s newly published state business rankings. He also said the company will “consider all of its legal options, of which there are many.”
State law allows the company up to 30 days to appeal the DEM’s decision to the agency’s adjudication division, according to DEM spokesman Michael Healey.
(SUBS final two paragraphs with company, state comment.)
