MARTINSBURG. W.Va. — The Entsorga Waste-to-Fuel plant in Martinsburg has been idle since last April.
What’s next?
What was left in the building amounted to 512,000 cubic feet of trash, according to a post-incident report from the Baker Height’s Volunteer Fire Department.
A number of fires broke out in the ensuing months as cleanup was underway.
Clint Hogbin, chair of the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority, said unfortunately not much has changed about the status of the facility in recent months.
“Legally it’s just sort of setting in the same status it was six months ago,” Hogbin recently told The Panhandle News Network.
Enstorga shuttered its doors in April, but according to the fire company, the building was almost completely full of trash, or raw materials for its fuel. Meanwhile, the SWA has been operating at a deficit without the money promised by Entsorga’s parent company when Entsorga came to the Panhandle.
“They lease 12 acres from the Solid Waste Authority and that lease income comes directly to the county’s solid waste programs,” Hogbin said.
Renovare Environmental is the majority owner of the facility. Hogbin said he hopes to see some kind of movement in 2023.
“Renovare won’t seem to make a decision to go forward and return operation and they won’t seem to make a decision to sell it even though they have offers,” Hogbin said.
He said the Solid Waste Authority has been treading water so far, with a little help.
With losses upwards of $120,000 by the fourth quarter, Hogbin says the Berkeley County Council, has “loaned us some money and they’ve advanced us some additional money to keep solid waste programs alive until we get a clearer picture of what this is.”
Trade publication Waste Dive talked about the legal struggles of Renovare Environmental in an article earlier this year.
“In March, the publicly traded company (formerly known as BioHiTech Global) announced plans to acquire Ireland-based Harp Renewables, which sells aerobic digesters that create a fertilizer product, for $20 million. Since then, Renovare has notified local officials that its West Virginia plant will be closed indefinitely, lost representation in litigation with former technology partner Entsorga (an Italian company) and laid off multiple employees. The company has also missed the latest in a series of loan payments, seen its stock delisted from Nasdaq and bottom out below $0.05 per share, stopped servicing digester customers and largely ceased communicating with the public and certain investors,” according to Waste Dive.
Waste Dive said the three-year-old $33 million plant in Martinsburg “can process 110,000 tons per year of mixed waste into solid recovered fuel (after recovering certain recyclables) for use in facilities such as cement kilns.”