Hampden waste plant sale now expected by the end of June

By David Marino Jr., Bangor Daily News Staff

A Pennsylvania-based company expects to finish its purchase of a shuttered Hampden waste plant by the end of June, according to the organization that represents the 115 towns and cities that send their trash to the plant.

Delta Thermo Energy has told the Municipal Review Committee to expect a deal on or before June 30, according to a document posted on the committee’s website. The company has been in negotiations to purchase the $90 million plant for several months. 

The announcement provides a more precise timetable for the transaction one week after the Municipal Review Committee said the purchase had been delayed due to “fundamental differences” that had emerged during negotiations. Those differences made it impossible for the deal to close by the end of March, when the deal was originally expected to close, Karen Fussell, the Municipal Review Committee’s board president, said during a committee meeting last Wednesday.

It is still unclear what those differences are. Municipal Review Committee board members did not reveal them in Wednesday’s meeting, and Delta Thermo CEO Rob Van Naarden declined to comment on the deal’s delay last week.

The Coastal Resources of Maine plant has been closed since it ran out of funds to pay its bills and for a series of performance upgrades last May. Delta Thermo was one of seven companies that vied to take over the shuttered plant, and it signed a tentative agreement to negotiate the purchase in late December.  

The Municipal Review Committee owns the land on which Coastal Resources sits and holds the Maine Department of Environmental Protection permits that allow the site to operate. Yet the sale’s final approval has to come from a group of bondholders who hold a majority financial stake in the plant. 

Delta Thermo Energy specializes in a waste-to-energy process in which it mixes wastewater sludge with household trash, then burns the mixture to produce electricity.

The Hampden plant is currently set up to process municipal solid waste and recyclables, but not wastewater sludge. Delta Thermo would reopen the plant using the operation’s existing technology before looking to deploy its own technology in the future, which would require new permits, Van Naarden has said.