'Small dust explosion' reported at South Baltimore plant
Jessica AndersonContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun
A South Baltimore plant evacuated after "small dust explosion," a city fire department spokesman said.
A dust explosion caused a South Baltimore plant to evacuate, along with the nearby wastewater treatment plant Tuesday morning, a city fire department spokesman said.
The "small dust explosion," occurred a in venting system at the plant near the Patapsco Waste Water Treatment Plant on Asiatic Avenue, said spokesman Sam Johnson.
No fire was reported and no one was injured, he said, but firefighters responded at 9:45 a.m. and were on standby while the facility's ventilation system was cleared.
The incident occurred at the Synagro facility, which converts sludge from the neighboring Patapsco Waste Water Treatment Plant into pellets for fuel and agriculture, Baltimore Department of Public Works spokesman Jeffrey Raymond said.
The waste water treatment plant was evacuated as a precaution, Raymond said.
"What we had there was a power outage," said Layne Baroldi, director of legislative and regulatory affairs at Synagro.
With the power outage, there was smoldering within the facility where the waste water residuals dry out, and it created a smoke, he said. He said there was never any danger to the community.
Peter Askew, the C.E.O. of nearby USALCO, LLC, an aluminum chemical manufacturing plant, said a health and safety employee at his facility first noticed smoke coming from Synagro and immediately called 911.
Askew said his facility did not have any issues and was not forced to evacuate. He said fire department units remained at the scene Tuesday afternoon.
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Synagro Technologies' bankruptcy will bring jobs to Baltimore
Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun
A Wednesday bankruptcy filing by Synagro Technologies Inc. means growth and new jobs for the Baltimore area as the waste recycler consolidates its headquarters in White Marsh.
The Carlyle Group LP-owned company, which had been co-headquartered in Baltimore and Houston, said Wednesday that it would use bankruptcy to restructure debt and sell its assets to EQT Infrastructure in a $455 million deal. The company filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its debts in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and said it expects the sale to be completed in two to three months.
As part of a plan to strengthen the balance sheet and position the company for growth, Synagro decided in early April to close the Houston co-headquarters and make White Marsh its corporate home, a spokesman said. The company plans to increase its employment from 41 to nearly 100.
"We are going to be creating about 50 jobs here in Baltimore over the next three months," including positions in finance, legal, human resources and technical departments, said Jamie Kinder, the company spokeswoman.
Synagro calls itself the largest recycler of industrial and municipal organic waste in the United States. It has a contract with Baltimore to operate and provide equipment at Patapsco Wastewater Treatment Plant on Asiatic Avenue and Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant on Eastern Avenue.
The plants treat wastewater for the city, and Synagro recycles the byproducts for use as fertilizer and as an energy source, said Tom Becker, a company spokesman. The plants' assets, and wastewater treatment plants in Philadelphia and Sacramento, will be included in the sale to EQT but not in the Chapter 11 filing, the company said.
The Carlyle Group's infrastructure fund borrowed heavily to take Synagro private in 2007 in a $772 million deal.
That deal left Synagro vulnerable when municipalities cut spending on wastewater treatment and other environmental projects in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The company also lost major contracts in New York City and Detroit.
Carlyle, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm, brought in Evercore Partners earlier this year to find buyers for Synagro, Reuters reported in January.
Moody's said the company defaulted on its debt earlier this month. It said Synagro had a $290 million first-lien term loan due in April 2014 and a $150 million second-lien term loan due in October 2014.
As part of the bankruptcy filing, Synagro said Wednesday that some of its existing lenders have committed to providing $30 million of debtor-in-possession financing, subject to court approval, to allow the company to operate through the completion of the sale. The buyer EQT Infrastructure is a fund operated by a Stockholm, Sweden-based private equity firm. It invests in companies in the United States, Asia, and Northern and Eastern Europe.
EQT "believes both in our business and in the future of Synagro," Synagro CEO Eric Zimmer said in a statement.
Founded in 1986, Synagro employs 800 people in 34 states, according to its website. The company serves more than 600 municipal and industrial water and wastewater facilities throughout the U.S.
Reuters contributed to this article
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CASE STUDIES
Baltimore – Back River Pelletech Facility
The Challenge
During the 1980’s, the biosolids management program for the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Baltimore, Maryland consisted of seasonal land application and lagoon storage of dewatered anaerobically digested biosolids. This program remained until 1987 when composting was added for diversification purposes.In 1989, a new treatment facility was commissioned that resulted in increased biosolids production. However, mechanical problems encountered with the compost facility, coupled with an abnormally wet spring, resulted in an increase in the amount of biosolids stored in inventory as well as an increase in the number of odor complaints. Consequently, the City of Baltimore was served with an assessment that required the removal of more than 200,000 tons of biosolids within five months.
As part of the biosolids removal plan, the compost facility contractor sought to dispose of dewatered biosolids through utilization on a Louisiana farm. More than 5,000 tons of biosolids were loaded onto 61 railcars, but only a portion of the biosolids were actually off-loaded and utilized in Louisiana. From there, the train traveled the country looking for an appropriate and acceptable disposal site before returning to Baltimore, creating negative attention across the nation.
The Solution
To address its odor complaints and disposal challenges, the City of Baltimore turned to Synagro for its heat drying and pelletization facility solution. This facility would assist the City in managing the large quantity of biosolids generated by the wastewater treatment process by transforming anaerobically digested material into a usable fertilizer product.At that time, indirect heat drying and pelletization was considered a cutting-edge technology and so was thought by some to be a risky option. Yet, Synagro’s design, build, own, operate (DBO/O) proposal — which included full financing of the project — promised the processing of up to 110 dry tons of biosolids per day and the management of all disposal operations,
making it an offer the City could not refuse.
The Facility
The Baltimore Back River Pelletech? Facility is an indirect vertical drying system that runs continuously all year. The versatile design allows for the facility to receive and process liquid and semi-liquid forms of biosolids.Additionally, a state-of-the-art, five-stage air quality control process removes particulate matter and eliminates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odor components of the exhaust stream from the dryer. Once in operation, the Back River Facility became home to the world’s largest indirect dryer at that time and paved the way for this technology to become widely adopted.
The Success
The innovative design for the Baltimore Back River Pelletech? Facility enabled the City to better manage its biosolids program and resulted in significantbenefits for the City and its residents since the facility’s start-up in 1994:
- The pelletized fertilizer product is clean, odorless, easy to handle and store, and can be sold as a fertilizer or soil conditioner.
- The facility minimizes environmental impact by controlling noise and odor to surrounding areas.
- The City was able to reduce the number of trucks on the roads, further minimizing the facility’s environmental footprint and the costs associated with transportation.
- Since Synagro is the owner and operator of the facility, the City eliminated the need for up-front capital to fund the project and minimized its responsibility and risk for managing the biosolids program.