Skagway, Alaska - Municipal/Cruise Ship Waste

PROBLEM

Skagway, Alaska with a population of 800 faced a rapidly filling landfill with no solution in sight. Skagway, is one of the tourist destinations for numerous cruise ships on their way along the coast of Alaska each summer. Up to five ships a day stop at Skagway to let passengers stretch their legs and to unload a weeks worth of garbage. More than 5000 passengers and crew members come to the city everyday.

The level ground is an extremely scare commodity in this mountainous area, and as a result, the only place to put garbage was in the only flat land remaining. The exisiting landfill was only two years away from capacity.

SOLUTION

A common alternative to landfill in Alaska is to transport garbage via barge and then rail to vast tracts in eastern Washington state or Oregon. This process can take up to weeks, so the residents of Skagway sought to find their own solution.

In January of 1997, Skagway, through the engineering firm of Carson Dorn Inc., started a search for a company that could build a safe and reliable incinerator unit before the landfill option became exhausted. Six companies were identified, five of which responded to the RFP, with questions from residents about where the capital would come from and environmental concerns still unanswered.

In order to finance the project, the City Council had to ask the citizens to vote on the incinerator solution and to approach the state of Alaska for a loan. The citizens voted yes to both and were pleased to get a loan of $2 million to go towards site engineering, the 78 ft. x 80 ft. building, the incinerator, waste loading, ash removal equipment and other sundry costs.

The winning proposal came from Eco Waste Solutions Inc. of Burlington, Ontario. A delegation from Skagway visited the Burlington head office and demo site in April of 1997. Tenders were requested for July and the contract was awarded in August. Time, after all, was running out for the community.

Tom Carson of Carson Dorn, said: "We devised a ratings system with the City to compare the proposals, not necessarily to find the cheapest system but one that could handle all the requirements in a manner that everyone would be comfortable with.

Carson explained that criteria such as design, life cycle, process performance and company experience were used to evaluate the systems. A summary of performance was also requested to show that the company could indeed build a system to fit Skagway's unique conditions.

Available land was still a question. The site chosen to house the building and incinerator was six miles up the Klondike Highway on the edge of a gulley. This forced the overall design to become a four-level vertical plan with loading from the top and the ash removal at the bottom.

Delivery took place in July of 1998, with the unit fully operational by October. Today, the incinerator easily handles the winter demand of a full load each week. Also, garbage from the landfill is trucked to the incinerator to be burned.

The City was recently presented with the ‘1998 Southeast Alaska Engineering Project of the Year' Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Alaska Society of Professional Engineers Juneau Chapter for its use of the Oxidizer Unit.

SYSTEM CAPABILITIES

The Eco Waste unit can handle up to eight tons per day with a 90% reduction rate which means the land available will be able to handle the town's garbage for another 20-30 years.

The operation of the unit will be adjusted in the spring to accommodate the anticipated five loads per week at peak tourist season. Each eight ton cycle takes only 24 hours from loading and firing (8-10 hours), to cooling and emptying.

The Eco Waste Oxidizer, as the unit is called, is a batch-mode, two-stage thermal oxidation system for incinerating solid waste.

In the first stage, waste is ignited in the combustion chamber by means of a gas or oil fired burner. In the Skagway model, diesel fuel is used. Off-gases from the first stage are combusted in the second stage (afterburner) and then emitted via a stack.

Eco Waste Solutions Inc., 5195 Harvester Road, Unit 6, Burlington, ON L7L 6E9. Tel: 905-634-7022; Fax: 905-634-0831.