Groundhog Day at the incinerator

It feels like October all over again.

Just like seven months ago, the Durham York Energy Centre has, once again, exceeded its limits on dioxins and furans, and the region is left scrambling to figure out what happened.

As part of additional stack testing mandated by the region, Covanta – the site’s operator – took a look at what was coming out of its stacks early last month and found that, uh oh, those pesky dioxins and furans were just too high.

At the time, critics could not believe how the incinerator could be pumping out more than triple its limits. Now, in a twisted version of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, we’re living the same nightmare over again, and this time around, the test results are even worse – according to the recent stack test, the incinerator was putting out more than 12 times its limit for dioxins and furans.

Thankfully this time, rather than crying foul and saying the sample was contaminated, Covanta made the smart move and shut the offending boiler down until the cause of the problem can be found and fixed.

Back at the end of 2015, following acceptance testing, the incinerator was initially given a failing grade. While the F was over the amount of ash produced – the prior dioxin and furan exceedance had been tossed out of the final results – it should have been a warning sign to the region that everything was not running quite as it should at the facility.

However, rather than making Covanta run the tests again, the region caved and changed the contract so that, suddenly, the New Jersey-based operator had actually passed the acceptance testing and could put the incinerator into commercial operation.

Back at that fateful meeting, critics expressed concern that the project, already more than a year behind schedule, was being rushed ahead into commercial operation.

Well now, just a few short months later, the first wrinkles are already beginning to show. We can only hope that the region and the other parties responsible for ensuring safe emissions from the incinerator hold Covanta to task and ensure that what is coming out of that stack is safe.

After all, it is residents that have to breath in those emissions.