The Utah city of Sandy has dropped with contract with Navitus Renewable Industries, Salt Lake City, after a lack of communication in the last 18 months, a report by The Salt Lake Tribune says. Navitus was contracted to build and operate a $120 million waste-to-energy facility in the city.
The company entered into a contract with the city three years ago with plans to convert up to 250 tons per day of municipal solid waste into synthetic natural gas using pyrolysis that would be used to generate electricity on site, the report says. Navitus hasn’t met any of the provisions of the contract, despite its representatives telling lawmakers that the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) was taking too long to process its air-quality permit.
According to the report, the 20-year contract required the company to pay the city $1,667 per month in rent for the city-owned property as well as cover most of the costs of maintenance for the land. The contract also specified that Navitus reimbursed the city for site work already done by a previous contractor for a waste-transfer station project. The company has failed to meet some financial obligations in the contract.
The contract also specified that Navitus began construction on the facility within two years, which the company also failed to do, the report says.
The city of Sandy has verbally notified the company and is now in the process of giving written notice of compliance issues with a 15-day timeline to rectify the situation, the report says.
The city spoke of the project’s potential benefits in January 2015, when the DEQ held hearings on the project’s air-quality permit, but the permit was not granted to the company by the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ) more than two years after the company’s initial application, according to the report.
Navitus’ CEO Heidi Thorn and her firm’s lobbyist appeared before a legislative committee in May 2016 and provided an optimistic assessment of the project, the report says, but pointed out the state’s permitting process was blocking the project’s progress. On July 15, the DAQ issues a “minor source” permit to the company.
DAQ officials pointed out that Navitus was proposing a first-of-its-kind facility, which creates a longer permitting process, the report says.
