Residents question state officials on new industry

RALEIGH — Local residents and officials were able to ask questions of representatives of The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality on Monday regarding the permit application by International Tie Disposal, which hopes to open a biochar production plant on Marks Creek Church Road outside Hamlet.

This meeting will be followed by a public hearing on March 1, and the Division of Air Quality (DAQ) will then decide whether to approve or deny the company’s permit within 30 days. Whereas the meeting allows members of the public to ask questions of state officials who then answer it, the hearing only allows comments to be submitted, which will then be taken into consideration and made a part of the hearing report. (Information on how to submit comments for the public hearing and follow along are printed at the bottom of this article.)

International Tie Disposal (ITD) was not required to go through a public hearing, since they are applying for a synthetic minor permit rather than a “major” one. However, 15A NCAC 02Q .306(a)(1) allows for public hearings to be required for applicants who meet a number of criteria related to their emissions, as well as at the discretion of the director of the Department of Environmental Quality based on “public interest relevant to air quality.”

There were 23 people who signed up to speak at the meeting, including a representative from ITD, Hamlet City Manager Matthew Christian, and four individuals who are plaintiffs — along with the City of Hamlet — in the lawsuit against the county over the rezoning of the property where ITD hopes to build their plant.

Details of the permit

ITD’s plant would take in creosote treated rail ties that are at end-of-life and convert it into biochar through a process called pyrolysis, in which the ties are heated in kilns that create a low oxygen environment. This process differs from burning, which requires the presence of oxygen. Biochar, as defined by Jeff Cole, a permit engineer with DAQ, is a “carbon-rich solid derived from biomass” that can be used to improve the health of soil.

DAQ has determined that the plant has the potential to emit less than 100 tons per year of particulate matter of less than 10 microns; less than 100 tons per year of sulfur dioxide; greater than 100 tons per year of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds; less than 10 tons per year of any individual hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and less than 25 tons per year of any combination of HAPs, according to Cole.

In order to maintain their synthetic minor permit they must stay under 100 tons per year of certain pollutants. Cole said they will limit nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions by limiting the number of kilns operating at one time. The volatile organic compounds will be addressed with the use of afterburners, and by limiting the number of kilns in operation.

There are some aspects of the process which will be exempt from the because of the level of emissions they produce, though they do produce some emissions. Those include the use of the crusher and loading of kilns, the product handling and packaging line, the on-site haul roads, a diesel storage tank, maintenance welding activities and biochar storage silos.

DAQ would be required to conduct at least one test each year to verify compliance, along with periodic observations and tests done in response to complaints or to follow up on a lingering issue.

In order to determine much of the emissions factors in the draft permit, DAQ looked to Biochar Now LLC, a facility in Colorado that uses identical kilns and afterburners to the ones ITD will use. Biochar Now typically uses their kilns to perform pyrolysis on untreated wood, but they have done limited testing using treated wood.

Cole said that, while Biochar Now and ITD use different materials as part of their regular operations, the testing done was an “apples to apples” comparison.

Fugitive emissions 

One of the leading concerns for the members of the public was fugitive emissions from the plant, meaning small particulate matter dispersed into the air throughout the industrial process. This largely stems from the story of a plant in Georgia, the victims of which have been in frequent contact with the residents near ITD.

Georgia Renewable Power (GRP) was burning creosote-treated rail ties, as opposed to performing pyrolysis, and the nearby residents reported extreme health impacts within a year. In August 2020, the Georgia legislature unanimously voted to ban the burning of creosote. While ITD has a different process at its core, the Georgians warn that Richmond County residents could see similar impacts due to the fugitive emissions.

In an email to the Daily Journal, Ruth Ann Tesanovich, a retired medical laboratory scientist at the University of Georgia and now the secretary, treasurer, and historian for the Madison County Clean Power Coalition, which was formed in response to the GRP plant, argued that the chipping process will “create carcinogenic creosote dust clouds that you will breathe into your lungs, it will settle on your fields, and creosote dust will wash into your waterways polluting your water.”

Lonnie Norton, who lives adjacent to the proposed site of the plant and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit along with his wife, Hope, and the Gardners, asked about the health risks of particulate matter from creosote treated rail ties. Cole said that DAQ brought this up to ITD as a concern they had as well, and ITD has since changed their plan to enclose the “chomper” that shreds the ties in a container.

“We do not see a big issue with fine particulates from that operation directly,” Cole said. He added that the ties will not be shredded and wind up in large piles where the wind could take it into the air, rather it will be shredded and fed directly into the kilns which will be covered.

The permit application shows that the efficiency of capture of particulate matter created during the chomping process is 90%. Hope Norton inquired as to how that high efficiency rate was determined. Cole responded that they looked back at permits that had already been written and how those facilities performed with various levels of enclosure for their chompers. ITD’s will be completely enclosed.

“We’ve seen similar emissions sources in that kind of control scenario which reduce emissions by in the neighborhood of 90%,” Cole said.

Risks of rail ties themselves

ITD plans to store up to 500,000 rail ties on site, and the residents nearby have raised concern that rain could cause the creosote to run off into Hamlet’s water source, which is within 2,500 feet of the proposed facility at 174 Marks Creek Church Rd. and serves more than 10,000 residents. Additionally, the residents are concerned that the summer months could cause the pile of rail ties to make the area stink.

Chad Gardner, who operates a chicken farm adjacent to the proposed site and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the county’s rezoning, cited the self-promotion of a railroad tie company which claimed that their rail ties could hold up for 30 years, which is longer than what ITD is considering “end of life” for the ties is 20 to 30 years old. According to Gardner’s research, the rail ties start out with 20 pounds of creosote and only lose about 1% of that per year, leaving them with about 14 pounds (70% of their starting content) of creosote after 30 years which adds up to 7,000,000 pounds when you consider the potential 500,000 ties that could be stored at ITD.

The state officials said they had not heard this claim of ties only losing 1% of their creosote per year. Cole explained that creosote is not just painted onto the ties, but it is pressure-injected into the wood to “infuse” it with creosote. The state’s research found that after 15 or 25 years, ties would have 10-15% of their original creosote content.

Heather Carter, the regional supervisor for DEQ based out of Fayetteville, said there is limited research on this topic, but they focused on a small study out of the University of Toronto which indicated that the volatilization, or evaporation, of these harmful chemicals is “very minimal.” Carter added, as the other state representatives did on multiple occasions, that they would take Gardner’s research into consideration.

Carter also described a site visit at a facility in North Carolina that is storing more than 2.5 million rail ties. She said that, after driving by and walking among the ties, she was “quite surprised” at the lack of smell. She noted, per Gardner’s point that the smell would be worse during the summer, that she visited during the winter.

On the risk to the water supply, Michael Pjetraj, deputy director of DEQ, said that the expected creosote content of the rail ties that will be stored at the ITD facility will have been out in the environment long enough to significantly reduce the amount of creosote in them, and thus leave little risk associated with runoff.

“Our understanding is that there would be minimal amounts of any kind of additional impact on the environment right by the facility,” Pjetraj said.

Cumulative impacts of other industries in the area

Multiple speakers asked for DAQ to take the cumulative impact of emissions from the other facilities that have been permitted in the area, namely CSX and Enviva, into consideration when deciding the future of the ITD plant. This isn’t required for a facility of ITD’s size, but residents wanted to see modelling done which would show the emissions in the area once ITD is added to the mix.

Pjetraj said that the permitting process for these larger facilities involves more extensive emissions modelling and takes into account the emissions from other facilities in the area. The most recent larger facility complied with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards “by a pretty large margin,” according to Pjetraj.

Still, he said he would take into consideration the request to perform this modelling on the ITD facility as well, even though it’s not required based on the size of their permit.

Outreach to affected communities

Christian said that, while ITD did reach out to the City of Hamlet as required in order to obtain a zoning consistency statement and met with Dobbins Heights officials, ITD has made no attempt to meet with officials with the City of Hamlet. Basil Polivka Jr., who is in charge of pyrolysis implementation for ITD, spoke at the meeting and said that a request for a meeting with Hamlet officials was made but received no response.

Christian said this was “patently false.” When he emailed Polivka during the public meeting to ask if he could resend the request, Polivka sent an email from October from Richmond County Economic Developer Martie Butler asking if Christian would be interested in meeting with her and some county commissioners, not ITD. The city manager has expressed frustration that Hamlet was “excluded” from these early conversations.

The environmental justice report completed by DEQ in January listed off several areas within a 1-mile radius of the facility and just beyond that that could potentially be affected by any harmful emissions. Those included:

• Marks Creek Church

• Bethel Hill Church

• Approximately 126 households

• Richmond Early College High School

• Monroe Avenue Elementary School

• Hamlet Middle School

• Fairview Heights Elementary School

• Richmond 9th Grade Academy

• Sandhills Regional Medical Center

• Zion Church

• Fellowship Church

• Church of God

• Hopewell Church

• Hamlet Housing Authority

A woman who described herself as an educator with one of the schools on this list said she was “very concerned” about the risks associated with ITD’s potential facility. Renee Kramer, environmental justice coordinator for DEQ, said that she had reached out to schools individually, but the speaker told her that reaching out to Superintendent Jeff Maples directly.

Takeaways

Christian said that the meeting was informative and that he was impressed by the engagement from the community on this issue.

“My main takeaway really had nothing to do with ITD or anything like that but I was so proud of our community for really getting engaged and really asking thoughtful questions,” Christian said.

Richmond County Economic Developer Martie Butler said she is confident that DAQ’s process will create a reliable “fail safe” for the plant.

“This is merely another step in the process to ensure all scientific evidence is reviewed and considered,” Butler said. “We are pleased that DEQ takes measures to ensure any company that locates operations in North Carolina will be a good steward of the environment. ITD is going through the proper channels in order to obtain any permits & we appreciate their willingness to engage and work with DEQ and the community.”

Jeff Smart, chair of the Richmond County Board of Commissioners, said the county is awaiting the results of the permit application process.

“Hopefully, the results of this process will be exact and informative so that everyone will understand more about International Tie Disposal,” Smart said.

How to participate

The public hearing will be held at 6 p.m. on March 1, 2021, also virtually. It can be accessed toll-free by calling +1 (415) 655-0003 and using the access code “178 470 3734.” The WebEx link is https://bit.ly/39golwj, and the event password is “NCDAQ.”

To speak at the public hearing, you must register by 4 p.m. on March 1. To register, visit https://bit.ly/3iJjiHU or call (919) 618-0968.

Comments will be accepted until 5 p.m. March 3, 2021.

For more information on the proposed site, the permit and the public hearing coming up on March 1, visit https://deq.nc.gov/news/events/public-hearing-international-tie-disposal-llc-project-tie.