From August 2007.....An Ontario government decision last month forced Liberty Energy to re-start the environmental assessment of the company’s proposed Strathearne Avenue incinerator, leading the company to issue a formal “notice of commencement” for the new environmental process last week, and bitterly note the Ontario government’s requirement that “the entire environmental screening process must be performed again”.

In 2005, the provincial environment ministry had allowed the company to define its incinerator as an electricity project because Liberty expects up to 10 megawatts will be produced for sale to the Ontario grid. This classification was hotly disputed by opponents who argued that the real purpose of the project is to collect lucrative fees from municipalities trying to dispose of their sewage sludge.

Numerous demands were filed in early 2006 demanding a more stringent environmental review process apparently convincing the ministry that the incinerator should be examined under waste management rules. Opponents included the city.

A key part of Liberty’s sales pitch in Hamilton has been its experience in California, a state noted for its stringent environmental rules. Liberty noted in its first newspaper advertisement in January 2005 that a sister company was “developing a 15 megawatt renewable energy biosolids and biomass fired facility in California”.

And a report prepared by its consultant said the company had been incinerating sludge there since 1994, although that was later clarified by Liberty who explained that some sludge collected by their parent company had been burned in a cement kiln.

That 15 megawatt facility, designated as Liberty X and supposed to be running four years ago, appears to have been abandoned in March of last year in the face of public opposition and almost certain rejection by the Imperial County Board of Supervisors. A new proposal located in a more remote part of Imperial County, and called Liberty XX was launched soon afterwards.

That Niland, California incinerator plan has generated an organized residents group with a “sludgegate” website and a petition large enough to put the issue on the ballot this coming November. That has led the company’s CEO, Wilson Nolan, to warn that a rejection of its plans will mean moving the proposal across the border into Mexico.

Nolan told Niland area media that the Mexican plant would be called Liberty XV and that it would mean as many as 100 trucks carrying sludge would pass through Imperial County daily, leaving Niland with most of the feared negative impacts but none of the promised economic benefits.

”It’s not meant to intimidate or discourage the process with Liberty XX”, Nolan told the media. “It’s just the reality of business.”

The Niland proposal is larger than the Hamilton one – promising to produce up to fifteen megawatts of electricity instead of ten, but the job pledges are much larger.

“Liberty XX will provide up to 132 full time jobs during operation”, states the company’s October 2006 presentation to Niland residents and politicians. When the Hamilton proposal, now designated as Liberty VII, was unveiled in June 2005 by a city staff report, it promised only 8 full-time jobs.

The Niland plans also include the burning of animal manure, along with the human waste stream and biomass (wood waste) promised in Hamilton.

Despite the numerical range of designations, Liberty doesn’t appear to have been able to establish any sludge incinerators in California, Ontario or anywhere else at this point, although the company has a Liberty V facility in Los Hills, California that composts sewage sludge.