New Incinerator Scheme

[amuller@dca.net]

This is my first post to these lists, so I beg pardon if not appropriate.

We are in the early stages of reacting to a scheme for a mass-burn municipal
waste incinerator in New Castle County Delaware near Wilmington.  (This, if
built, would probably supplant the burning of New Castle County waste in the
Westinghouse burner in Chester, PA.)

An incinerator operated at the proposed location from about Jan 1987 to
about late September 1990.  Design capacity was 500 t/d "refuse derived
fuel" and 100 t/d "solid waste."  The plant was run by a series of
contractors; it was regularly shut down on weekends and, apparently, desired
combustion conditions were not maintained consistently.  The combustors were
from Enercon (Elyria, OH).  Emission controls were limited to an
electrostatic precipitator and some sort of exhaust gas recirculation.

"In July 1989 an emission test program...indicated that, at times, extremely
high levels of total dioxins were emitted....The stack tests indicate that
dioxin levels are an order of magnitude ligher than the future expected
emission requirements."  An accompanying table shows dioxin levels of
"100-600 ng/dscm"). (I have not yet gotten the complete stack test report.)

Finally to my questions:  Just how high are these dioxin levels in light of
current knowledge?  Any sense of whether dioxin emissions at these levels
would likely produce measurable or observable health effects in nearby
residents?  (Of course, high levels of HCl and SOx were emitted due to
absence of acid gas scrubbers.)  Where should we go from here on this?

Thanks in advance.

Alan Muller
Green Delaware