RE Sources and others are finding new approaches to shut down incineration in Bellingham as officials move forward with plans to upgrade.
As Bellingham moves forward with plans to upgrade the Post Point Wastewater Treatment Plant incinerators, local organizations and community members against the upgrade are escalating their response.
RE Sources, a nonprofit organization focused on protecting the environment and local communities, launched a petition demanding that Bellingham stop incineration in the next year and not spend $60 million to upgrade. Instead, the petition proposes that the city begin landfilling immediately while searching for a more permanent solution to help with the costs and health concerns of incineration.
RE Sources will present its 1,200 signatures to the Bellingham City Council during its meeting today, April 27, at 7 p.m.
The petition is part of a movement made by a coalition organized by RE Sources that includes members of the Whatcom Environmental Council, community members, engineers and other professionals with expertise in recycling and climate management, among others.
Bellingham resident and founder of Recycling and Disposal Services Larry McCarter has sent a 60-day notice to the city of his intent to file citizen suits against the city under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. According to McCarter, these violations have potential penalties of up to $70,117 and $69,000 per day, respectively.
The final push that prompted McCarter to do this was hearing Bellingham Mayor Kim Lund speak on the issue during a public comment period earlier this month. According to McCarter, the mayor suggested that incineration was the cheapest, cleanest and best solution for the city. He strongly disagrees.
“The project has always been this incinerator. The whole point is to stop polluting. I want to do something in the world, and I’m getting pretty close,” McCarter said.
McCarter has suggested to the city to have RDS be involved in the transition to landfilling. He insists that his possible financial involvement in the city is not the main motivator behind his efforts to get the city to not upgrade the incinerators.
Built in the ‘70s, the incinerators at Post Point have been a focal point in discussions regarding the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the city’s violations dating back to 2019. The most recent notice of violation for the plant was resolved this past November. The settlement reached between the Northwest Clean Air Agency and the city required Post Point to install added pollution controls to bring the plant up to federal standards and improve overall air quality.
Kirsten McDade, North Sound Waterkeeper at RE Sources, has been present in multiple conversations with the city for the last year and is focused on informing the community about the city’s plan to upgrade.
“We kind of launched another campaign with the end goal being sustainable wastewater treatment,” McDade said, speaking about the petition. “Whether that’s turning the incinerators off tomorrow, or two years, or five years or 10 years. As soon as we can turn them off.”
Bellingham city officials say that upgrading the system is the best option for cost and scale of what is needed to treat wastewater in the region. Upgrading the incinerators is a reliable interim approach, according to Riley Grant, Bellingham Public Works’ communications manager.
“All options, including landfilling, come with impacts and costs. One of the challenges is that there is not yet a widely available, proven alternative at the scale we need, and the timeline for when those technologies will be ready is uncertain,” Grant wrote in an email.
According to Grant, the upgrade is not a permanent solution but does buy time for long-term solids management options to be researched and discussed with the community.
Another critic of the plan to upgrade is Rodd Pemble, president of the Whatcom Environmental Council. He believes that there is still an opportunity for the city to change its mind with the upgrade.
According to Pemble, the data used in the reports from the city were not representative of current alternatives. The Incinerator Emissions Control Upgrades Study, which the city used to determine its course of action, used statistics from 2022.
“If you went to buy a new car, why would you ask for a 2020 when the industry has clearly progressed dramatically?” Pemble said.
Members of the community and local organizations continue to push the city to shut down the incinerators and begin to use landfills, which would cause less air pollution, until an alternative plan can be made.
“We may be proving that those efforts were not strong enough or persuasive enough to convince the city to put a pause on their plans before they sink hundreds of millions of dollars into what we think is an obsolete approach to handling this waste,” Pemble said. “But for now, we’ve got the energy, we’ve got the momentum behind those efforts, and we will continue to push.”
—By Margaret Baumgartner
Margaret Baumgartner is a graduate of Western Washington University, with a bachelor of science in environmental science and bachelor of arts in journalism.