Gov. Markell vetoes effort to
tighten ban on incinerators
Gov. Jack Markell vetoed a bill Monday that would have tightened the state's decade-old ban on most new waste incinerators, saying the change could block power plants from switching fuels to cleaner-burning wood or plant wastes.
Sen. Karen E. Peterson, D-Stanton, introduced S.B. 311 after Ciba Corp.'s Newport plant sought and later dropped attempts to win approval for a "biomass" fueled steam and generator system.
The new plant would have burned wood or agricultural cast-offs, such as wood chips, corn stalks and yard wastes collected from around the region. Company officials said the system would reduce emissions, cut costs and create jobs at the pigment plant, but critics worried it would secure a loophole in the law that could be used for other such plants.
"Replacing fossil-fuel energy with certain biomass-fueled technology has the potential to provide a net positive environmental impact to Delaware," Markell said in a two-page letter that sent the bill back to the Legislature without his signature.
Lawmakers virtually banned new incinerators in 2000, after a private company proposed construction of a power plant in New Castle County that would have burned discarded wood pallets used for transportation and storage.
The change, backed by environmental groups worried about greenhouse gases and emissions from contaminated wood, prohibited new incinerators within 3 miles of any home, community, school, church, park or hospital -- restrictions that left little suitably zoned land available.
Markell said that Delaware rules for renewable energy sources include biomass-fueled systems. Although emissions from those systems vary and remain under study, "assuming that all wood-fueled biomass facilities would be harmful, as S.B. 311 does, ignores the many potential benefits of utilizing such a fuel source," the veto message noted.
Peterson said she understood Markell's concern that wood might be cleaner fuel than the coal burned in some plants. She said she plans to draft legislation after the new General Assembly begins in January that will set specific emission standards for incinerators, rather than restricting fuels used.
Sen. David B. McBride, D-Hawks Nest, who sponsored the original incinerator bill, said he also wants to review Markell's veto decision.
"They might have seen some things that weren't apparent when we had the bill," McBride said. "I'd like to give the governor the benefit of the doubt, that there are issues that we weren't aware of."
Alan Muller, who directs the environmental group Green Delaware, said that lawmakers were nearly unanimous in supporting S.B. 311. In a statement released late Monday, he termed Markell's rejection "inexcusable."
Markell vetoed one other bill Monday, bringing the total for his first term to four. The other vetoed bill, H.B. 92, would have created a new occupational license tax category for direct care workers, but inadvertently extended payment requirements to employees of licensed businesses who are now exempt from the $75 charge.
Markell has vetoed only two other bills, including a charter change law rejected in February because of technical flaws.
In 2009, the governor vetoed a bill that would have ended the state's 5-cent bottle deposit law, saying that he wanted a comprehensive solution to low state recycling rates. He later proposed legislation, passed this year, creating a statewide requirement for curbside recycling services.
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