Tulsa Wrestles with its Waste-handling Options
Tulsa's overworked MSW incinerators are exceeding emission limits and each of the proposed fixes has downsides.
Recommended fixes include:
- an enhanced recycling program;
- installation on the incinerators of pollution-control equipment; and
- alternative waste diversions.
Until recently, the Oklahoma city's council was set to purchase U.S.$26.6-million worth of equipment to upgrade the air-pollution-control system on its waste-to-energy plant. The city would do this to meet federal Clean Air Requirements by December 2000.
Enter City Councilor Anna Falling. She is pushing for reconsideration of curbside recycling. Falling has suggested the city could spend less on incinerator pollution-control upgrades by recycling more materials that, by not being burned, would reduce total emissions.
Indeed, U.S. EPA environmental engineer Tracie Donaldson has said that, although the city has a good drop-off-recycling program, there is room for improvement. Nevertheless, she said that, on balance, any improvement resulting from curbside recycling would probably not be enough to reclassify the incinerator as a small combustor, thus avoiding or delaying a retrofit of the city's waste-to-steam energy plant. (A close-by Sun Oil plant purchases the steam. The incinerator's operator and the city share proceeds, if any.)
Dallas-based Donaldson explains that the year-end-2000 emissions standards might not apply were the city to achieve a recycling ratio approaching 50%. Then again, she points out that doing so would likely cause the city to violate its contract with Ogden-Martin Systems, the private company that runs the incinerator and is guaranteed a minimum amount of waste.
Clouding curbside recycling as a justifiable option, city officials disagree over residents' willingness to pay $1 to $2 more per month to implement it, thereby adding to a collection cost that reportedly is among the state's highest.
Other waste-stream diversion may be possible, however. Tulsa is on a shrinking list of major cities that pick up residential grass clippings, which can account for up to 20% of the solid-waste stream. The city currently deposits these clippings in a private sanitary landfill, which it also uses to deposit the MSW that is in excess of the incinerator's capacity.
These and other options were discussed at a January 5 meeting attended by representatives from the EPA, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, the Tulsa Authority for the Recovery of Energy, and the city.
Tulsa's current tipping fees are $67/ton at the incinerator and $17 at the landfill. The city's incinerator contract runs to 2007.
Contact: Tracie Donaldson. Tel: 214-665-6633
The previous case study was adapted from a story appearing in the January 6 edition of The Tulsa World.