BIDDEFORD – Biddeford Mayor Joanne Twomey is talking tough.

“Enough is enough, there will be no more negotiating with Maine Energy,” she said Wednesday. “We’re not going to sit here and allow this to continue.”

Twomey and other city officials say the Maine Energy Recovery Co. trash incinerator, located downtown, has consistently violated emission and odor standards during its 25 years in operation, and they’re now looking to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to issue an emissions license “with teeth.”

Twomey’s tough talk comes as Casella Waste Systems, the Rutland, Vt.-based company that owns Maine Energy, has an application for a new air license pending before the Air Quality Bureau at the DEP.

On June 23, staffers from the bureau came to the city to hear public comment on the draft air emission license, which Twomey called “unacceptable” because, if approved, it would allow higher emissions per year and do nothing to control odors.

Twomey’s been battling Maine Energy almost since the plant first opened in 1986. As mayor, she initially agreed to participate in a task force set up in the spring of 2009 that was designed to resolve the many issues the city of Biddeford has with the trash plant.

Those issues, according to Twomey and others, include odors, heavy trash-truck traffic, consistent violations of the air emission license and a failure by the company to live up to the many promises it’s made over the years to be a better corporate citizen.

In the fall of 2009, Twomey also lent her support to a plan created by the task force that said Casella would change its burning habits at Maine Energy to reduce pollution, cut down on odor, cut trash-truck traffic in half and start selling low-cost energy to local mills and about 3,000 nearby residential homes.

Under this plan, Casella said it would shut down trash processing in Biddeford and start shipping trash to a new, $15 million plant in Westbrook instead. The idea was to compress the trash into odorless pellets, similar to wood chips, and send those pellets back to Biddeford to be burned.

Casella said its plan would cut down on odor and lead to fewer trash trucks on Biddeford’s streets. The company also said it would start recycling as part of its trash sorting process.

However, nothing has come of those plans, although Jim Bohlig, Casella’s chief development officer, said in November that his company is still “committed to moving forward on every one of the propositions.”

Sick of seeing no action and no results, Twomey abruptly quit the task force in February 2010. Since then, she’s taken the stance that Maine Energy and Biddeford have nothing to say to each other until the company begins complying with the rules designed to govern its operations.

“We’ve got to do something,” Twomey said on Wednesday. “We may appeal this license if it doesn’t have what we want to see.”

She also expressed frustration, both at last week’s meeting and in Wednesday’s interview, about lack of enforcement from the DEP when it comes to licensing violations by Maine Energy.

“I hope you take this seriously,” Twomey told the DEP staffers last week. “We will not sit back and do nothing anymore.”

Maine Energy has entered into a variety of consent agreements with Biddeford over the years designed to address the city’s complaints. In addition, it also recently settled a nuisance lawsuit brought by former Saco Mayor Mark Johnston.

Under the settlement terms, entered into this past fall, Maine Energy agreed to donate $30,000 to area nonprofits, as well as redesign its wastewater treatment facility in order to cut down on odors emitted by the trash plant. Johnston said this week that the company had made the cash donation and Ken Robbins, general manager at Maine Energy, said new treatment equipment is now being installed.

The problem with all of these agreements, however, according to both Twomey and Brian Phinney, the city’s environmental code officer, is that there has been no enforcement on the part of the state.

“Frankly, I’m baffled by the DEP not enforcing the current license,” Phinney said at last week’s public meeting. “I am hoping, going forward, that the DEP will take appropriate enforcement measures.”

What’s also frustrating, both Twomey and Phinney said, is that the burden of proof has always landed on the city in terms of Biddeford getting enforcement help.

Phinney can show, he said, that Maine Energy has failed to be under what’s called negative air pressure, which limits the release of odors from the plant, every day from last July 1 through April 30 this year.

The existing license requires the facility to be under negative air pressure. In addition, it’s also a violation of the license for the trash plant to have odor emissions of “any kind,” he said.

“Conditions are not satisfactory now,” Phinney said. “And if we don’t say that, we could end up with a license that’s the same as what we have now.”

However, on Wednesday Robbins disputed the claim that his company is violating any conditions of the license.

“Our facility is in full compliance and we would anticipate complying with any new license requirements, as well,” he said.

Twomey, not surprisingly, disagrees.

“We really feel this (license) is our last chance to make a change in how Maine Energy operates,” she said. “(Brian) told me we have to step up now and not sit by any longer. I am 150 percent behind this.”

What concerns Phinney the most, he said after last week’s meeting, is that the proposed new emission license doesn’t adequately address volatile organic compound, or VOC, emissions, which are most responsible for odor.

In addition, he said, the license as drafted would allow Maine Energy to send up to 75 tons of emissions into the air per year, whereas the federal limit is only about 60 tons.

“Any way you do the math, that’s an increase in emissions,” Phinney said.

But, Robbins said, the original license allows Maine Energy 100 tons per year of VOC emissions, so the 75-ton limit would actually be a reduction.

And, Bryce Sproul, head of the Licensing & Compliance department within the Air Quality Bureau, also said last week that the proposed new license would not increase the amount of emissions allowed from Maine Energy.

He said the new license is designed to create requirements and conditions for the proper receipt and storage of waste, to keep Maine Energy from being a “major emitter of VOCs” and to limit the length of time waste stays on the tipping floor before it gets burned.

“It’s our intention to incorporate new requirements into this license,” Sproul said. “What we are doing is asking (Maine Energy) to use the best available control technologies.”

Even so, the concerns raised by both Twomey and Phinney were backed by all of the speakers at last week’s meeting.

Chris Belanger, a businessman and property owner in Biddeford, said the trash plant “stinks” and it has negatively affected both his business and his quality of life.

John Reed, a Saco resident, agreed.

“You need to consider how the air quality impacts on business and quality of life,” he said. “This is a really great place to live and do business, but we have this white elephant hanging over us.”

“If you want to question whether Maine Energy is a nuisance,” said developer Doug Sanford, “come live within a quarter mile of the facility like I do and there will be no question.”

Richard Rhames, a longtime, outspoken opponent of Maine Energy, said he feels like DEP has been more concerned with “profit protection than environmental protection” when it comes to dealing with the trash plant.

The fact is, he said, “the gentrification process (in Biddeford) may be stillborn because of a regional trash burner that stinks.”

No one from Maine Energy spoke at the meeting.