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Show Burn plant fires up second boiler By GARY R. BLODGETT . LAYTON Davis County's ..controversial waste-to-energy garbage gar-bage burn plant recently fired up a second boiler and is now burning v 400 tons instead of 200 tons of garbage gar-bage per day. Jim Young, manager of the Davis .; County Solid Waste Management , and Energy Recovery Service Dis-j Dis-j trict, said the plant is back in full .operation with both boilers operat-., operat-., ing at near-capacity. The plant which has been pla-.. pla-.. gued with cost overruns and delays in construction for the past two I,'. years has also had problems Jr meeting minimum nitrogen oxide - pollution levels set by the National Environmental Protection Agency i.'.and the State Bureau of Air Quality Control. Utah Air Conservation Commit tee allowed the burn plant to have a variance of pollution released from the garbage burns. The variance allowed the plant to discharge up to 84 pounds per hour of nitrogen dioxides rather than the former maximum of 30. 1 pounds per hour, according to Mr. Young. The variance was allowed on Aug. 17 when state clean air officials offi-cials said they were willing to compromise com-promise the variance because of erroneous projections that were given to the contractor (Katy-Seghers) (Katy-Seghers) on which the original permit per-mit was based. Construction officials complained com-plained to state clean air officials that the permit was too stringent, and because of a contract agreement agree-ment with Hill Air Force Base officials offi-cials to serve steam to the northern Utah air base which is located just west of the burn plant. Mr. Young said that a permanent permit with the higher allowed pollution pol-lution levels was to be approved last week and that the plant should be involved in sustained operation "within the next few weeks." The burn plant, located east of Hill Air Force Base on the north side of State Highway 193, is contracted con-tracted to burn garbage from all Davis County except Bountiful. Bountiful residents have their garbage gar-bage buried in a landfill in West Bountiful on the east shore of the Great Salt Lake. Garbage is also hauled to the burn plant from parts of south Weber We-ber County and from Morgan and communities in Morgan County. The plant, built at a cost of $54 million, including interest, has met with considerable controversy. During construction and while the plant was going through an environmental environ-mental and burn "shakedown" the garbage collected from Davis County communities has been hauled to the North Area Refuse Disposal (NARD), landfill dump in Layton. When in full operation, the plant will burn all garbage except dirt, rocks, metal and other unbumable items, according to Mr. Young. He emphasized that even with the higher level of pollution being allowed, the total of nitrogen oxide pollution being discharged is still far less than most burn plants of this type in operation anywhere in the United States. "We are conducting a clean plant and providing a vital service to Hill Air Force Base with a garbage-generated garbage-generated energy source," said Mr. Young. |