Council considers recycle facility

Company seeks permit to build near landfill

By Janet Jacobs

Daily Sun

The Corsicana City Council will consider permitting a new recycling company during the council’s regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the government center, 200 N. 12th St. A work session to discuss the plant’s permit is scheduled at 5 p.m. Tuesday before the council’s regular agenda.

Effective Environmental Inc., a company out of Balch Springs, wants to build a multi-functional center in Corsicana that would transfer recyclables, clean industrial solvents, and even create electricity from trash, according to Chris Ewing, company president.

The company chose Corsicana because of the ready workforce, available property next to the landfill and sewage plant, and the nearness of Interstate 45, which offers easy access to Dallas and Houston. The company is considering building at Jester Road and Texas Highway 31, next to the landfill.

The company met with a Corsicana Daily Sun editorial board Thursday morning to discuss the project.

The proposal includes up to six different potential businesses, the first three of which the company already does in Balch Springs. Those are:

• Transportation hub for the company’s hazardous materials shipping business.

• Transfer site for hazardous materials being shipped to other locations for disposal. It would be sorted and shipped out again within 10 days.

• Solvent cleaning, which takes dirty paint solvents and thinners and distills it into wash solvent useful for paint and chemical manufacturers.

The company also intends to go into some new lines, including:

• Fuel creation by taking industrial by-products, such as old tires, old oil filters from cars, and like materials, chipping it into tiny bits and blending it into a man-made burnable fuel which could be sold to other companies, such as the concrete kilns in Ellis County.

• Electricity generation by burning its own man-made fuel. The electricity created would power the plant, and any leftover could be sold to the electrical grid. The generator could also make electricity off the methane from the Corsicana landfill or even the sewage plant.

Two other possibilities are treating industrial wastewater to the point where it’s safe to put into the sewage treatment plant, and building a pilot plant to create synthetic gas from waste.

The company, abbreviated as E2, is leaving Balch Springs because it can’t expand where it is, Ewing said.

“It’s just not an area as large as in Corsicana,” Ewing said. “The other thing is this light industrial district doesn’t exist in that community.”

The company is also considering moving its Houston facility to Pasadena, said Doug Riley, director of engineering for E2. “This is an opportunity to position ourselves so that when the economy turns around we’re in an area where the community wants us to be.”

Currently, the company employs 58 employees, with an average salary of $44,000. The lowest-level employees make about $35,000, Ewing said. All the employees have full benefits, he said.

“We pay well,” Ewing said.

If the Corsicana plant is approved, the company will start by hiring between 20 and 30 new employees. It could eventually expand to 100 people, Ewing said.

The capital investment will be about $8 million to $12 million initially, and could grow to more than $80 million.

What has the city asking questions is the boiler which would burn the man-made fuel. Ewing said it was crucial to the company’s moving to Corsicana.

However, both Ewing and Riley say the company will comply with state and federal regulations and the city doesn’t need to add more local regulation on top of that. Ewing compared it to the city coming between the IRS and taxpayers, and adding more taxes into the mix.

“There are already rigorous state and federal standards in place to do that (oversight),” Ewing said.

The boiler would be similar to other industrial boilers along that stretch of Texas Highway 31, including the ones at Corsicana Technologies and Lance, Ewing said.

It will generate about 10 to 15 megawatts, which is a very small power plant, although it should be enough to power the shredders and other equipment the company uses.

The company has never had an off-site spill, and doesn’t pollute, both men insisted.

“If we did, we’d lose credibility with our customers,” Riley pointed out.

“Our interest is in getting the facts out there, so everybody knows what we do,” Ewing said.

The company wants to begin building in January or February and open by mid-year. Receiving the state air permit to operate the boiler would take longer, Ewing said.

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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “Soundoff” on this story? E-mail: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com.