Recycling company reaches agreement with Hill for materials center

LAYTON -- The Air Force has reached an agreement with ReCommunity, a North Carolina-based recycling company, allowing it to lease land on Hill Air Force Base to build a materials recycling center.

ReCommunity, the largest recycling company in the country, earlier this year agreed to a memorandum of understanding with the Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District to work together with the base to define an expanded set of solutions for additional steam power supply and to satisfy energy efficiency and environmental requirements imposed on the base by the Air Force.

"They know the recycling business," Nathan Rich, director of the waste management district, said of ReCommunity.

Wasatch Waste Management is a special service district that operates the Layton landfill and the waste-to-energy incinerator to handle garbage from Davis and Morgan counties.

The agreement between the Air Force and ReCommunity is a major step toward a full lease of a parcel of land on the base's southeast corner, according to Air Force officials.

With the signing of the agreement, ReCommunity will make a $50,000 payment to the U.S. Treasury, officials said.

When completed, the facility will provide for base waste to be sorted and processed at the district's incinerator, immediately east of where ReCommunity is to build a facility.

The district has agreed to work with ReCommunity, if the company can find a market for its re-engineered fuel captured from burning sorted waste, Rich said.

But there is still work to be done to prove that the re-engineered fuel can burn similar to coal, Rich said.

District officials have been working with ReCommunity for about 18 months, Rich said, since the company was selected by the Air Force to lease space at Hill under an Enhanced Use Lease agreement.

But district officials were unaware the agreement between the parties was to be publicly announced May 3, Rich said.

Wasatch Waste District board Chairman John Petroff Jr. said he was unaware of the agreement between ReCommunity and the Air Force, but the district, which is responsible for the county's waste stream flow, is willing to work with the parties.

ReCommunity building its facility on base under a EUL agreement is similar to the Falcon Hill office development on the west side of the base. Falcon Hill is a 550-acre partnership project between the Air Force and a private developer. Its intent is to create revenue enhancements by developing private office space on under-utilized federal property.

There is also talk any EUL agreements the base has with private business will work in the base's favor should there be any future Base Realignment and Closure rounds, officials said.