Construction Debris Plant Aims for WV

Morgan County Potting Soil Manufacturers, LLC is looking to build a facility in eastern West Virginia which, the company feels, is one of the few if any companies that is looking to design a combination MRF/manufacturing operation for some materials generated from construction debris.

The parent company of Morgan County is Gaithersburg Recycling. The plans call for the company to build a totally enclosed facility in Berkeley Springs, W.V. Mark Goldstein, general manager of the project, says the plans call for the new facility to handle a maximum of 10,000 tons of material a month. Initial plans call for the facility to be open and operational by the second quarter of next year.

According to Goldstein, the MRF will take in construction debris and manufacture the collected waste wood and drywall into a usable product. Other material generated through the process, including corrugated, steel, and other materials will be extracted and shipped to other handlers of the material.

The company expects to recycle the waste wood into a mulch product, while pulverizing the drywall into a landscape timber product.

The company presently is working on obtaining the proper permits for the facility.

The Morgan County Potting Soil Manufacturers will also need an air quality permit from the State Office of Air Quality since the company plans to burn particleboard in its boiler. The particleboard would be sorted from the construction debris trucked here. Plastic would also be melted for remolding into plastic timbers.

The Office of Air Quality will look at past violations to make sure they don’t "carry over to the new facility," but probably wouldn't consider them as major factors, said Chris Sergent, an engineer with the West Virginia Office of Air Quality.

While local press reports said the company had filed an air quality permit, Sergent said as of September 26th his agency has not yet received the application.

In August of last year, the Economic Development Authority agreed to sell a lot in the county-owned industrial park to Morgan County Potting Soil Manufacturers, if the company received all necessary permits.

The Morgan County Solid Waste Authority gave the go-ahead to the company's plans last February.

The firm is also expected to seek state loans to buy land in the industrial park and build the plant.