Last week Ada County Commissioner Dave Case asked the county to conduct a third-party independent review of Dynamis’ garbage-fueled 22-megawatt power plant to be built at the county-owned landfill.
Case made the request after the commission-appointed county engineer reported the project was too complex to be reviewed by county staff.
Commissioner Rick Yzaguirre and outgoing Commissioner Sharon Ullman did not support Case’s motion.
Yzaguirre said the county does not need a third-party review of the Dynamis project because the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is already performing one.
“It is in the hands of DEQ,” Yzaguirre said last week.
Not true, said DEQ.
“That is not the type of review we are doing,” DEQ air quality administrator Mike Simon said. “What we are reviewing is the air quality aspect of that facility.”
“It is not our responsibility to ensure the technology works. We are not looking at the risk or safety of the equipment or the equipment’s explosive hazards or things like that. We are looking at it from an emissions source standpoint,” Simon said.
Under state law, DEQ is not tasked with reviewing Dynamis’ building and engineering plans or its garbage gasification, electricity generation and transmission technology.
DEQ’s responsibility is ensuring any air, water, solid waste or hazardous waste pollution generated by the Dynamis project complies with state and federal laws.
“We are going to make sure what comes out the stack, its emission levels, will be within the limits allowed by law,” Simon said.
DEQ is currently reviewing Dynamis’ air quality permit application. The state will hold a 30-day public comment period and a public hearing on the draft air quality permit once it is ready, likely in October or November.
The county has entered a 30-year agreement with Dynamis to build a $75 million plant at the landfill that would heat at a high temperature up to 408 tons of trash and tires daily, converting it into gas and then generating 22 megawatts of electricity. The facility would be the Eagle-based company's first waste-to-energy plant and the largest power-producing facility to be built in Ada County since Lucky Peak Dam was completed in 1988.
