The Hamilton Spectator reports, “Hamilton’s proposal for a new sludge management system has survived the initial screening process of a federal grant program that covers up to 25 per cent of the city’s share of public-private partnerships.”
“The city is looking for a new way to deal with what we flush down the drain and last spring, council voted to pursue the federal P3 funding. …Several options were presented to council earlier this year, including building a city-run sludge incinerator, partnering with a private energy company to build a much larger one, or continuing to spread sludge on farmers’ fields as fertilizer. Once a new round of P3 funding opened up, however, staff argued it didn’t make financial sense for the city to continue to investigate building a sludge incinerator on its own.”
“Liberty Energy, a California-based energy company, has approached the city to partner on a sludge incinerator. However, to be eligible for the federal grant, the city will have to go through an open bid process.” This past May, the Spectator reported, “Liberty’s plan calls for a bigger incinerator that calls for waste to be trucked in from other cities.”
Today’s news article adds, “It will be some time before the city knows whether its application has been successful, as the feds won’t announce the successful P3 grant candidates until 2012. The city must now prepare a business case that proves a public-private partnership would be more economical than proceeding with a totally public sludge management program. The final decision will be made by a P3 Canada’s private-sector board.”
The article notes that 121 requests were sent to the P3 Canada fund, with 30 being approved to move on to the next stage, and 6-8 being approved for this round of funding. It has just been reported that Sudbury is also pursuing a P3 biosolids treatment/ storage facility, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=12756. Last month, the Council of Canadians was involved in the successful campaign against a proposed P3 water facility in Abbotsford, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=12063.
