Dive Brief:

• Renovare Environmental’s shuttered mixed waste processing facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia, recently entered a new phase after the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority terminated its lease. Chairman Clint Hogbin said the authority is looking for ways to reopen the site with a new partner more than a year after it closed.
• This comes after the subsidiary responsible for this site, Entsorga West Virginia, unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy in February. Trustees for $33 million worth of state authority bonds that financed the project, including U.S. Bank, opposed the move. The case was dismissed in March. 
• Hogbin said the county sheriff’s department recently posted a notice that certain assets could be put up for auction due to unpaid property taxes. Apple Valley Waste is still helping to manage waste left at the property, which has caused serious fire and rodent issues.

Dive Insight:

Renovare once pitched its business model as innovative, and the 110,000-ton-per-year facility attracted ample attention when it opened, but the fallout from its failure has been significant. Plenty of work lies ahead before the facility could reopen, but those involved view this latest development as a key step forward.

After the company’s lease was terminated in March, and a 60-day cure period expired in late May with no further action, Hogbin said he believes the authority can now take charge. Once the authority assesses its legal and contractual options, the facility could possibly open in phases — for example, starting as a transfer station before it can once again make solid recovered fuel (SRF). 

"If the county is truly in control of the destiny of the facility our first approach will be which private entity can we partner up with to restore the operation,” said Hogbin.

The plant suspended operations last year, after opening in 2019, forcing the authority to redirect its material to a neighboring county’s landfill that is more expensive.

“We've missed out on that opportunity to save landfill space in the region and also the solid waste authority lost a very important component of its funding for our recycling and litter control programs, which are the largest in the state of West Virginia,” said Hogbin. The county has received some state funding for those programs, but also had to make service reductions and layoffs.

Renovare, formerly known as BioHiTech Global, once had plans to build multiple facilities like this in the U.S. by using technology licensed from Italian company Entsorga. Instead, the company’s financial prospects declined due to a series of operational and management issues. Renovare sold its small-scale aerobic digestion assets to a software company called TraQiQ earlier this year. Following the recent acquisition of a Michigan hauler, TraQiQ is rebranding as Titan Environmental Solutions.

Renovare essentially abandoned the West Virginia facility last year after idling operations. Sources believe a bankruptcy might have expedited the process of addressing safety concerns at the property and restarting operations. Entsorga West Virginia reported $37.8 million in liabilities at the time of its filing. Renovare’s CFO, along with the company’s bankruptcy attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.

Apple Valley, a local subsidiary of Gold Medal Environmental, has removed waste from the facility, but because of the site’s design and damaged waste cranes it’s not considered safe to access all remaining material from holding pits. Multiple fires have occurred since the site closed and local residents are said to be frustrated.

“Apple Valley/Gold Medal is proud to have helped the Berkeley County and West Virginia authorities keep this from becoming an environmental disaster. U.S. Bank behaved with reckless indifference to the needs of this community, and we’re just thankful it did not have catastrophic consequences to this facility or to the future of public-private partnerships in the area,” said CEO Darren Gruendel in a statement.

A spokesperson for U.S. Bank declined to comment. According to the bank’s court filing, the proposed bankruptcy plan proposed “highly unfavorable, insider debtor-in-possession financing that will further burden this estate with debt that it cannot pay” and could have provided an unfavorable advantage for Apple Valley in the bankruptcy process.

Even though the local offtake partner for the facility’s SRF — cement kiln operator Argos — won’t be ready to accept new fuel for the foreseeable future, Hogbin said he’s hopeful a solution can be found.

"It seems like hardly a month goes by that some company or the other doesn't call or do a Zoom meeting or tour the place. The technology worked,” he said. “The business end of it is what failed.”

The Entsorga West Virginia subsidiary also remains involved in a pending federal suit brought by the Italian company Entsorga over missed payments. The plaintiff submitted a motion for summary judgment on April 27 and has also been working to see the site revived.

“Entsorga remains actively engaged in discussions with the agencies and a variety of the stakeholders, as well as other interested parties, working towards participating in a future restart of the facility at Martinsburg,” said Christopher Maloney, CEO of Entsorga’s North American division, via email.