Nearly 10,000 tonnes of wood remains piled on Appspond Lane in St Albans, where Wood Recycling Services Ltd (WRSL) was forced to close its site following a large fire in November 2012.
Since that time, the wood has caught fire on two more occasions – once in July this year and again last month.
Questions are now being raised by the local MP and residents as to why the Environment Agency has not yet stepped in to enforce removal of the wood by the current site operators.
The former chipping facility was taken on by Navitas Environmental Ltd in late 2013, which was granted an environmental permit to build and operate a £60 million biomass plant to treat waste wood from the county.
The 86,000 tonnes-per-year plant was due to be built in early 2015, and according to Navitas director Andrew Beck would provide a “long term sustainable outlet for waste wood” employing 30 full time staff and generating 12MW of power for the National Grid. (see letsrecycle.com story).
Germany
Initially Navitas agreed to clear up the site. The company first began exporting the waste wood to a facility in Germany, but was forced to cease the operation when the outlet stopped taking the material.
The Environment Agency then refused to issue a second temporary licence to allow Navitas to process the wood on site.
In August this year, waste equipment provider and consultancy Amec Foster Wheeler Environment & Infrastructure UK submitted a petition to wind up Navitas. The case was however dismissed by the High Court of Justice on September 21.
Anne Main, Conservative MP for St Albans, has long campaigned for removal of the waste wood. In 2014 she passed documents to the Environment Agency showing a “clear link” between former site directors WRSL and Navitas Environmental Ltd. The accusation was dismissed by the Agency.
Minister
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mrs Main’s parliamentary assistant Connar McBain confirmed the MP remains in constant contact with the Environment Agency and has also written to Defra minister Rory Stewart about the slow speed of the removal. The minister is said to be “understanding”.
Mr McBain said: “Navitas can’t build this [biomass] plant until they remove the wood. They were transporting the wood to Germany but it was not deemed good enough to recycle.”
In a letter sent to Mrs Main following the latest fire, Caroline Douglas – the Environment Agency’s area manager for Hertfordshire and North London – wrote that the Agency was “satisfied” it could scale back its presence on the site from daily to weekly visits.
She wrote: “Environment Agency officers visited site on 28 and 29 September. The wood pile is still smouldering but no smoke or steam was seen leaving the site. There is still a burnt wood odour present. The site operator continues to break down the smouldering wood pile and damp it down as they go. Mains water from the onsite hydrant and re-circulated water continues to be used on the fire. We are still satisfied that fire water is being contained on site.
“We are not expecting an escalation at this time and therefore will scale back our daily visits to weekly ones.”
Enforcement
When contacted by letsrecycle.com, a spokesman for the Environment Agency said it was still relying on the county council to approach Navitas with a request to ‘voluntarily’ remove the wood – but did not rule out future enforcement action.
He said: “We are working with Hertfordshire county council to discuss the issues relating to the storage of wood at the Appspond Lane site and are taking legal advice. The county council will be approaching the owner to ask him to voluntarily remove the wood from the site. Should this be unsuccessful Hertfordshire county council will take legal action to enforce the removal.”
Navitas Environmental Ltd could not be reached for comment.
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