Long Beach : Trash Incinerator to Be Run by French Company

Long Beach’s new trash incinerator will be operated by a French company that runs six waste-to-energy plants in the United States and Canada.

The City Council has authorized a subsidiary of Montenay S.A. to assume the operating contract for the Terminal Island plant, which is undergoing final tests in preparation for opening. The $105-million incinerator, which will burn 1,170 tons of garbage a day to produce electricity, was to be operated by the same company that is building it, the Pittsburgh-based Dravo Corp. But Dravo announced that it wants to get out of the trash incineration business, requesting that Montenay be allowed to run the plant instead.

After visiting four of the North American incinerators run by Montenay subsidiaries, members of the city staff concluded that the company would do a capable job of operating the Long Beach facility. Plants in Dade County and Key West, Fla., and in Quebec City and Vancouver, Canada, were all operated in a “professional manner,” with a “high degree of client satisfaction,” according to a staff report presented to the council.

Although the city is scheduled to take over the plant next week, repairs of a defective concrete wall could substantially delay the project’s completion.