Global Waste Recycling has rejected the state-approved plan for cleaning up the company's long-idle site on Colvintown Road, saying the cost would be prohibitive and that local restrictions on heavy trucking would prevent the operation. http://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/news.asp?ID=1388
The Department of Environmental Management recently approved, with modifications, Global's plan for removing about 150,000 cubic yards of demolition debris from the property. In doing so, the DEM rejected the company's proposal that it process the material on the site before removing it.
Company lawyer Gregory L. Benik told DEM Director Jan Reitsma, in a letter dated Friday, that the cleanup plan as approved would substantially increase the cleanup cost and said the company would seek review by a DEM administrative hearing officer.
In a separate letter, also dated Friday, to DEM's senior legal counsel, John Langlois, Benik said the traffic restrictions in both Coventry and neighboring Scituate would make it impossible for Global "to begin any closure activity."
Benik did not return a phone call seeking further comment.
The state had been trying for years to close Global's construction-debris recycling operation, which was shut by Superior Court order in November. The Colvintown Road business operated for more than three years without a license, as its owners tried unsuccessfully to persuade a DEM hearing officer to issue one.
Under the disputed cleanup plan, Global would have about eight months -- until next June 30 -- to remove the stockpiled bricks, concrete, wood and plaster on the site and to get rid of an earthen containment berm. But Global would not be allowed to process the stockpiled materials before removing them.
Global cited the stipulation as its main reason for rejecting the closure plan, because it would have to pay to dispose of the material in a landfill rather than process and sell it.
"DEM's decision will result in substantially increased closure costs, will jeopardize the $260,000 closure fund, and will increase the financial exposure of Global," Benik said in his letter to Reitsma.
Yesterday, DEM lawyers were drafting a motion to dismiss his request for an administrative hearing, saying Global never had a license to process construction and demolition debris and shouldn't be allowed to do so now.
Meanwhile, Global has filed suit in U.S. District Court challenging a new Scituate ordinance barring heavy traffic along Hope Furnace Road.
The measure was adopted when the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, early this year, appeared likely to buy the Colvintown Road site as a source of gravel for the state Central Landfill, in Johnston. (The agency later shelved the effort.) Hope Furnace is part of the most direct route between the Global site and the landfill.
Benik, in his letter to DEM's Langlois, said that the Scituate ordinance -- as well as a Coventry ban on "through trucking" on Colvintown Road -- effectively "prevent any truck movement in and out of the [Global] site. "Simply put, truck drivers will run the risk of violating these ordinances on every trip from the site."
Coventry Town Manager Francis A. Frobel commented that the through-trucking ban did not affect the Colvintown Road site, which is midway between the northern and southern ends of the road. He added, though, that Global owner Michael Picozzi had agreed to avoid using the southern stretch of Colvintown Road.
"Ideally, I'd like to minimize the truck traffic on that road," Frobel said. "But there is a business on that street, and he's got to get to and from it." Providence Journal
Following Global's rejection of the closure procedure, the Rhode Island DEM filed a motion to dismiss the appeal.