BREAKING NEWS: MRC unable to close on sale of Hampden plant as promised; no end seen in saga of regional trash disposal nightmare
MOUNT DESERT, Nov. 29, 2022 - Lucy pulled the football again, sending Charlie Brown landing flat on his back.
Charlie Brown in this instance would be the 115 paying members of the Municipal Review Committee, the regional municipal waste management consortium which has been promising to re-open the failed plant in Hampden since June 2020.
“We are disappointed to inform you that the closing of the partnership with the investment group led by Revere Capital Advisors LLC (“Revere”) will not take place on November 30th as scheduled,” the MRC stated in a bleak announcement today after its special meeting. “Revere is still hopeful it will be able to complete the close before the end of the calendar year, but has not identified a specific date.”
The closing was to be the first of a multi-stage plan to restart the plant with Revere acquiring the physical asset for about $2 million and then raising the more than $20 million needed to restart the plant and operate it profitably.
MRC’s latest excuse was that Revere was unable to clear a regulatory hurdle with the state Department of Environmental Protection:
“While conducting due diligence, Revere learned of some conditions, including testing of the final pulp product, attached to the current beneficial use permit for the facility's sale of pulp in Maine. Since the facility received the permit just before it closed, the former owner never had the opportunity to complete the testing.”
The MRC added:
“Revere, along with their counsel and environmental consultant, has been working with Maine DEP to ensure it understands the requirements of the permit and there is a clear path forward to meeting the conditions. This step is essential before Revere can commit to its purchase of a majority share of the Municipal Waste Solutions facility.”
For the first time in a year, the MRC also indicated it would seek a lifeline other than Revere.
“Although MRC's preferred option is to have a private sector partner to share the responsibility of owning and operating the MWS facility, we have continued to work on contingency plans. Among other things, the Board has established a subcommittee, led by board members with a financial background, to identify alternative sources of financing.”
This is a replay of the dalliance the MRC had in 2020-21 with Delta Thermo Energy, another company promising to raise enough investor money to restart the plant. DTE failed in its effort and was shooed away by the creditors.
The more urgent question now is how the MRC towns may move forward with environmentally sound waste disposal solutions since the MRC has all the towns locked into onerous long-term contracts which prohibit them from acting outside the agreement.
MRC is the collective formed almost 30 years ago to safeguard the interest of member towns so they may benefit from an economy of scale and leverage to negotiate favorable deals with the incineration plant in Orrington.
About 10 years ago, MRC board members fancied the idea of breaking way from the incinerator and start its own “state-of-the-art” waste to energy plant. Five years ago, the incinerator company and the MRC vied for support among its 185 members, 115 of whom chose to stay with MRC, including every town on MDI.
Lamoine decided to stay with the incineration company but also launched a robust recycling effort with EcoMaine.
The “state-of-the-art” plant in Hampden costing between $70-$90 million was launched in late 2020 to great fanfare. It lasted six months before the operator couldn’t pay its bills and closed.
Is it time for the MRC to declare victory and return the control back to the towns so they may plot their own destiny, like decentralized “Zero Waste” disposal solutions instead of relying on a massive hulk of steel in Hampden which never worked?