Nesquehoning officials have raised some concerns regarding a company's state permit application to store shredded tires to help burn waste coal at its plant.

During borough council's meeting last week, councilman Frank Jacobs voiced his concerns about Panther Creek Power Operating's application for a municipal or residual waste general permit through the state Department of Environmental Protection.The application calls for mixing up to 20 percent of the shredded tire material with the coal waste, commonly called culm, for burning at the facility.The company already burns up to 750,000 tons of culm annually. The culm generates 6,500 to 7,500 BTUs per pound. The tire waste was expected to generate 14,000 BTUs per pound."They're looking to store 4,000 tons of tire-derived fuel," Jacobs told the board. "I think we have some concerns."He also sits on the Carbon County Planning Commission, which discussed the permit application at its monthly meeting on Dec. 15.Jacobs said that DEP does not require a public hearing on the permit unless it is requested by the borough. He then made a motion to send a notice to DEP asking for a public hearing on the proposed project."I think we need one because there are a lot of people who asked us a lot of questions about the tire burning (when Panther Creek applied for a test burn of shredded tires)," he said.Council President David Hawk, who is also employed at Panther Creek, said a lot of cement mills already burn tires as a fuel source, including one in Coplay.Colleen Connolly, DEP spokeswoman, said that DEP is currently considering the request by Nesquehoning officials to host a public meeting or hearing.At the Carbon County Planning Commission meeting, Ivan Meixell Jr., county planner, told the board that the permit application is to store already processed tire-derived fuel for blending with waste coal or culm that is burned at the plant.The tires would already arrive at the facility ready for blending and would not be processed in Nesquehoning.The extra material would result in an additional 10-15 deliveries a day to the plant.This isn't a new process for Panther Creek.In 2014, the company was approved for a four-month test burn of tire waste, which was mixed in with poor-quality coal waste that it already burns.The point of the test was to see if burning the tire waste will generate enough heat to allow the company to burn the piles of low-quality culm.Meixell said that based on what he saw in the application, the results Panther Creek submitted to DEP demonstrated that the facility is capable of burning the tire material/culm mixture to meet the emission limits provided in the company's Title V Operating permit.At the time of test burning application, Matthew J. Cochran, asset manager for Panther Creek, told the Times News that the company has pollution controls in place to make sure burning the tire material would not have any adverse effect on air quality, noting that results would be shared with DEP.Connolly confirmed that DEP's Central Air Quality Office received Panther Creek's test burn results in November and those were being reviewed.Those results will be taken into consideration with regards to this new permit.A similar plan to burn tire waste was snuffed out in 1997, when council rejected the company's plans for test burns of tire waste.At the time, then-plant manager Dan McIntyre said he gave council technical reports, data and DEP records that showed that tire waste burned cleaner than culm.An attempt to reach Cochran for comment was not successful.