The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) wants to increase the reimbursement rates to ambulance service providers by 10 percent. This would match prevailing fees identified by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services geographic costs index.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) wants to increase the reimbursement rates to ambulance service providers by 10 percent. This would match prevailing fees identified by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services geographic costs index.
“This is important for West Virginia’s Medicaid Program to ensure continued access to essential health care services,” said Cindy Beane, commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Medical Services.
The fuel cost for Cabell County EMS increased more than $100,000 this past year alone.
“We’re struggling with the fuel costs and everything; that’s going to be greatly appreciated,” said Cabell County EMS Director Gordon Merry.
According to the West Virginia Bureau for Medical Services, the rate increase is anticipated to go into effect on July 1.
The West Virginia Economic Development Authority has authorized more than $29 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds to a company planning to build a synthetic fuel plant.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports a reimbursement resolution and a cap allocation application were approved to PPD of WV One on Thursday. The newly formed company aims to start plant construction next year in Greenbrier County.
PPD of WV One says the $73 million plant will convert materials such as wood waste into diesel fuel and biochar, a charcoal used in the agriculture sector to help plant growth.
The authority has approved up to $80 million in revenue bonds for the company. Company spokesman Chris Hall says statutory limitations prevented PPD of WV One from trying to get the $80 million approved all at once.
Landfilling has been the main source of getting rid of waste for centuries. But a new technology coming to West Virginia may change how we think of waste disposal, and in the long run, help our environment.
Entsorga is an Italian resource recovery company that has been around since 1997. About four years ago, the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority was looking for ways to promote a cleaner environment and find a safer and more efficient way to dispose of waste. …Entsorgaended up finding them.
After three years of waiting, Entsorga received approval from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to begin constructing a new resource recovery facility later this year on property owned by the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority. The facility will take anywhere from 65 to 75 percent of the refuse they collect and turn it into fuel instead of putting it in the ground.
“Essentially what you take waste, and you use it as a resource or you use to make energy,” said Clint Hogbin, the chairman of the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority, “This is garbage that will be picked up on the street, no differently then it’s being picked up today. And instead of the truck going to a landfill, the truck will go to a 4 acre building, and unload its waste inside of a building, where mechanical equipment, electro-mechanical equipment will sort and process that waste and prepare it to be used for fuel.”
The Berkeley County facility will be the first Entsorga plant in the country and the first resource recovery facility in West Virginia using a technology called HeBIOT.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Acreage just behind the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority’s main office. The Entsorga facility will be built just beyond this fence.
“HeBIOT is an acronym. It stands for high-efficiency biological treatment, and it’s a patented technology, patent by Entsorga,” Hogbin said, “It uses the biology of waste if you will, the decomposition of waste, to prepare the waste to be used for a fuel.”
Hogbin says while there are other resource recovery facilities in the United States, this facility is the only one that will use the HeBIOT technology. The waste is turned into a confetti-like material by use of high-tech machines operated by humans within a clean room. The material is then dried and can be burned for fuel and used as a replacement for some non-renewable resources like coal. And that’s what Hogbin says may keep the state from embracing the new fueling system.
“We were worried about there being some concern, particularly from downstate, about the impact on coal, because this would be competing with coal,” Hogbin noted.
With the push from the federal government to reduce carbon emission, however, Hogbin says recycling refuse is a viable option for not just West Virginia, but the entire country.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Clint Hogbin, chairman of the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority, stands in the field soon to be under construction.
“Emissions from burning of this material has been studied. It’s been studied by Entsorga. It’s also been studied by the United States Environmental Protection Agency who literally sent this board a letter, advising us their opinion of burning this material was significantly lower or equal to the emissions of burning coal.”
Entsorga has an agreement with another Italian company called Essroc, also located in Berkeley County. The confetti-like material produced at the Entsorga plant, will be sent to Essroc, where this fuel will be used to power the plant that makes cement.
Apple Valley Waste Services will also play a role by providing Entsorga with the garbage it will use to make the fuel.
Hogbin says once the Entsorga facility is up-and-running, it would employ around 12 people, with salaries ranging from forty to sixty-thousand dollars a year.
A European method for converting garbage to fuel is coming to West Virginia. The Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority has signed an agreement to lease part of its property to the Italian company Entsorga. The company will build a $19 million facility there.
The mixed waste resource recovery facility will sit on 12 acres next to the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority’s Grapevine Rd. recycling center.
“Entsorga has a patented technology where waste that’s picked up at the curb and normally would be taken to the landfill is redirected to a building,” Clint Hogbin, BCSWA chairman, said.
The garbage is then sorted and processed into a product that can be burned like coal and natural gas to create BTU’s. According to Entsorga’s web site the product is a clean-burning alternative that large energy consumers like steel mills, power plants and cement plants can use in place of or with fossil fuels.
Hogbin estimates the mixed waste resource recovery facility will reduce the amount of trash from Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties sent to the landfill by 65 to 75 percent.
Hogbin said the facility will separate out recyclables and items that won’t generate high BTU’s, things like glass bottles and aluminum cans.
“What are left after those items that are pulled out are the items that are cleaned, dried and shredded and ready to be used as a substitute to coal,” he said.
Hogbin said Entsorga is coming to Berkeley County because there are several locations within a couple hundred miles where the fuel can be sold, including the Italian-owned ESSROC cement plant in Martinsburg, which already burns coal.
Hogbin said the Entsorga facility will employ up to nine people and there will be additional spinoff jobs once it’s open.
Hogbin hopes the new facility will demonstrate it’s possible to find new ways to deal with garbage and everything doesn’t have to go to a landfill. Entsorga plans to begin building sometime in the spring or summer.
