Ogden Burner Test Safely Destroyed Wastes, EPA Says

A controversial test run of Ogden Environmental Services’ experimental hazardous-waste incinerator successfully destroyed potentially carcinogenic organic compounds in petroleum-contaminated soil, according to preliminary results released this week by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ogden’s incinerator successfully destroyed the compounds from Fullerton’s McColl waste dump, exceeding the required 99.99% destruction of certain compounds during the four-day test that began March 27.

“No significant levels of hazardous organic compounds left the system in the stack gas or remained in the bed and fly ash material,” according to an EPA report.

“We’re very happy with the preliminary results,” said Terry Wilson, spokesman for the EPA’s Western regional office. “They met (requirements for) everything or exceeded them.”

The results, although still incomplete, are a significant step forward for the company, which is attempting to win a lucrative Superfund contract to incinerate all 265,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil at the 8-acre waste dump.

2-Year Battle With Environmentalists

The company, whose plan to conduct the experiment in a populated section of La Jolla sparked a two-year battle with environmentalists and the San Diego City Council, hopes to win permission to conduct a similar test burn in a mobile incinerator at the McColl site later this year. If successful, that test would allow Ogden to compete with other companies for the McColl cleanup contract.

Still to be determined by the EPA is whether the combustion process created highly carcinogenic dioxins, PCBs or furans.

“We’re delighted with it,” said Robert Wilbourn, Ogden’s director of operations and technical support. “We feel that it proves the technology. It doesn’t come as a surprise to us.”

Betty Porras, chairwoman of a citizens group that has been lobbying for the cleanup of McColl for 10 years, was equally pleased.

“That gives the community a lot of hope that McColl can be cleaned up, “ said Porras, chairwoman of the McColl Community Action Group.

Diane Takvorian, executive director of the Environmental Health Coalition, which opposed the test burn, said Friday that she could not comment on the results because she had not seen the report. The county’s Air Pollution Control District also had no information on the analysis, and was not ready to release the results of its own air-quality tests.

Ogden and the city this week settled their 17-month legal battle over the test burn when the city agreed to drop its appeal of a U. S. District Court judge’s order allowing the March test burn. The city also agreed to pay Ogden $1.25 million in attorneys’ fees and damages for delaying the test burn.

The settlement is conditional on a federal court magistrate verifying that the emissions were not harmful to the public.

According to the EPA “fact sheet,” mailed this week to Ogden, Porras and others, the experimental hazardous-waste incinerator successfully destroyed a chemical tracer added to the 7,500 pounds of McColl waste and clean soil burned during the 31-hour test of the incinerator.

Required Efficiency Was Exceeded

The incinerator, which reached temperatures as high as 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, achieved a “destruction and removal efficiency” of 99.992%, exceeding the required 99.99% for the compound “carbon tetrachloride” inserted into the waste stream by evaluators. Wilbourn claimed that the incinerator could have destroyed even more of the chemical if technicians had not adjusted its operation to test other variables.

The report showed that the incinerator dramatically reduced the quantities of benzene, toluene, naphthalene and four other compounds in stack gas emissions. In ash trapped in the incinerator’s bed and “baghouse” filter, the compounds were reduced to the point that they were undetectable.

By adding limestone to the waste mix as it was burned, the process more than neutralized the highly acidic waste, making it possible to bury the ash left behind.

Wilbourn said the incinerator also succeeded in limiting emissions of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and hydrochloric acid.

The report claimed that the incinerator process “was able to minimize” sulfur oxide emissions, but it also noted that the sulfur dioxide analyzer was not operating well enough to detect those emissions.

Wilbourn said a private contractor’s analysis of those emissions showed that the incinerator was successful, but said that the EPA will not accept those results.

A second EPA report is due in June and a final evaluation in August.