Visit to Dumfries gasifier reveals dirty truth, 9 February 2011

(go to main Dumfries Scotgen page)

Dargavel Visit January 26th, 2011

This visit was for a mixed group mostly of Perthshire and Fife councillors (both local and community) to Scotland's only operational gasification plant near Dumfries. It was organised by SITA, to show a gasification plant in action to councillors whose areas would be affected by any EfW plant at the Binn Farm site, just over a mile south-west of Abernethy. 

To be clear, before the visit we 2 from Abernethy were not in favour of incineration, and viewed the gasification option not as the great leap forward reported in some quarters but as incineration by another name, which view was candidly confirmed as fact by Martin Cracknell of SITA at a meeting with a local interest group last year. Our reasons for negativity were and are several, one of the most pertinent being not so much that Binn is close to Abernethy—the site is near enough invisible from the village—but rather the persistent failure of SITA over many years to prevent noxious odours from its landfill there from invading Abernethy (John Ferguson, prime mover in the 'Binn Eco-Park' project, has admitted publicly that landfill gas is really unhealthy stuff); yet the same company --and, it seems, any body that wants to make money out of Scotland's waste-- has no trouble at all in getting Perth and Kinross Council's blessing for its plans, as long as it keeps the development away from Perth itself. At least one well-known Perth councillor has been prominent in ensuring this is the case, a fact which is resented by many of us here in the outback---all of 8 miles from Perth.

SITA already has planning permission for an EfW plant at Binn, and the same company has also submitted plans for a gasifier version, which would be more flexible in operation and therefore more lucrative for SITA, simple as that, as was also explained last year by Mr. Cracknell. Furthermore, most recently SITA has applied for a 4-year extension to its landfill operation, as if Abernethy residents haven't suffered enough.

So, sceptical we most definitely were. It must be said, however, that we were surprised by the reality presented to us because, given that our visit was not unexpected, Dargavel gasification plant was even worse than we'd feared. 

The first impression from the outside as we arrived was of a compact main building, not an eyesore, in fact visually better than many industrial plants. 

Although the 3 SITA representatives were conspicuous at the event, the Dargavel plant is actually run by Scotgen. The aforementioned Martin Cracknell plus Annemarie Wilshaw and Jean-Claude Sartenaer of SITA contributed a fair amount to our pre-inspection presentation in an office overlooking the interior of the plant, Martin telling us that SITA was 'advising' Scotgen about boilers, since that has been a major problem at Dargavel.

A few months ago, Dargavel was reported as having had about 170 emissions breaches. Lloyd Brotherton,Technical Director of Ascot Environment Ltd. (which owns Scotgen) and leader of the presentation, was asked if that figure included all incidents—i.e. major ones as well as all the brief fluctuations outside acceptable limits, to which the answer was yes. For a more up-to-date picture with a breakdown of incidents by type, see page 3 of SEPA's Site Status Report—V4 dated 1st February, 2011. This report seems to put the total number of breaches notified in the 11 months to that date alone at over 350! 

As is so often the case, the big players (corporate bodies, politicians etc.) tend to dismiss awkward facts and criticism when their reputations or political futures or wallets are set on some development. Significantly, it was perfectly clear from the presentation at Dargavel that fears surrounding a relatively untried technology were in this case not at all irrational and could not simply be blamed on the perceived hysteria of the tree-hugging fraternity. 

We learned that among the many breaches from the plant's inaugural waste-burning in October 2009 to January 2011 were 'several' where unacceptable pressure meant that the stack filters had to be disengaged and exhaust gases vented directly to the atmosphere in order 'to avoid a much more serious incident'--i.e. an explosion. The number of these specific incidents quoted in SEPA's aforementioned report (and for the year to Feb. 2011 alone) was 37, just a few more than several in our book.

We also learned that the boilers had given trouble from the start: the 'wrong kind' of boilers resulted in fouling, overheating and corrosion. And previous press reports that no power had so far been generated for the National Grid (such a bi-product being a vital part of the justification for an EfW of any kind) were confirmed at the presentation, indeed no power could be generated until the 2nd new boiler had been installed (September 2011, we were told). Scotgen would not make any money from Dargavel till then. 

Three things: Firstly, (unlike what's planned for Binn) Dargavel deals in hazardous as well as non-hazardous waste, and we were told that the former requires treatment at a higher temperature, for which the existing boilers were inadequate. Clearly, but did no-one think of that beforehand? Did cost dictate the original choice of boilers to the exclusion of the correct boiler type? Or are waste operators content just to learn by trial and error at the risk of causing a major incident? Neither possibility is reassuring. Secondly, whether one starts with 'hazardous' or 'non-hazardous' waste, burning/gasifying results in toxic by-products. Is one end product more toxic than the other? There are many unanswered questions. Thirdly, Ascot, the owner of Scotgen, has agreed the construction of 6 such gasifiers with SITA. Problems—what problems?

Then came the tour of the plant.
The first sensation on entering the enormous open doors from the outside was of an unpleasant smell—not landfill gas or a composty smell, both of which we're sadly used to in Abernethy, but just very dirty and unhealthy—O.K., not exactly a scientific analysis, but we sure wouldn't want to work there. One of our party admitted experiencing a nasty taste and constricting of the throat. We were shown some evidence of the fouling, overheating and corrosion explained to us earlier.
Not a lot seemed to be happening during our visit, which allowed us to see an open combustion chamber, which gave the impression that during its brief existence it had taken a battering, but maybe that's par for the course. We must say however that all parts of the installation seemed very dirty, and there were puddles of an indeterminate nature and stray debris lying around. Now, waste is by definition unclean, and we tried to tell ourselves that we were being too fussy, when one of the councillors remarked that he'd visited the Isle of Man incinerator and the difference was striking; at that plant 'you could have eaten your dinner off the floor'. That reminded us of exactly the same comment made by two of Abernethy's Community Councillors after their visit to the Isle of Man facility.

Well, SITA runs the IoM plant, which should be cause for some optimism, until we remember that that small island has nowhere to put its waste economically but in its own back yard; also, with all those wealthy tax exiles breathing down its neck the IoM government is not going to allow anything like a shoddy operation—quite the opposite. Indeed, the IoM plant may well be the Rolls-Royce version of the beast. On the other hand, with Perth and Kinross councillors apparently happy to wave through any and every development at Binn, would they care how an incinerator is run? Already when any operation at Binn is criticised they refer you to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, whose powers are—conveniently—restricted. But SEPA is not responsible for approving plans affecting many Perthshire residents--around 1500 in Abernethy alone. P&K planning councillors are. 

In short, our fear is that whatever might be built at Binn would be run more like Dargavel than the IoM facility, and what would be the health implications for us in Abernethy then? Does P&K planning committee care? 

One end of the interior of the Dargavel facility is for storing hazardous waste, and as our group walked round mostly at the other end we noticed about 20 metres away at the hazardous end 2 men, fully masked-up, carefully empty the contents of a container into an open hopper. We were unmasked. Throughout this tour of the interior, the SITA representatives seemed cheerful and relaxed, so one must presume that those conditions were acceptable to them. We know we were not the only ones of our party to be glad to get out of the building.

Angus Macintyre, Ann Sangster.