Pilot Plant

As a respected, veteran research chemist for SmithKline Beecham PLC during the late 1980s, Michael F. Smith had access to the pharmaceutical giant's state-of-the-art Conshohocken research factory known as the "pilot plant. " The product of Smith's weekend work at the lab, however, never showed up on the shelves of your neighborhood pharmacy. Instead, as he later admitted to federal prosecutors, Smith was busy boosting his income by producing more than 335 pounds of 98 percent-pure methamphetamine and selling it for $12,000 a pound.

Residents and city officials turned out this week to question the president of Compost America about repeated delays and broken promises on a composting project that could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the city. At a meeting Thursday, Roger Tuttle, president of the Englewood-based company, assured the city that he planned to move ahead with the project but said situations beyond his control had prevented the company from starting construction. "We're going to do it. We want to do it," Tuttle said.

Rohm & Haas Co. will spend $150 million during the next five years to modernize and expand its chemical plant and related facilities in Bristol Township. The extensive capital-improvement program, announced yesterday at a meeting of 120 government and civic leaders, will provide a short-term boost to the economy in Lower Bucks County. More important, the decision ensures that Rohm & Haas will continue to be a large employer in the area for years to come. The Bristol plant, which includes 125 buildings, is on 800 acres along Route 413 just south of Bristol Pike.

Compost America, an Englewood company, has given the city a "guaranteed" date for work to begin on a proposed pilot composting facility, Gloucester City Administrator John Holman said yesterday. Holman said Compost America president Roger Tuttle told him at a meeting Wednesday that a construction plan and schedule would be submitted by Oct. 10 and that construction would begin by Oct. 15. City officials have pushed for a firm starting date since early summer, when they began to worry about the project's lack of progress.

The city bought a brand new shovel for the ceremonial groundbreaking of its long-anticipated composting plant. Six public officials, a citizen's representative and two reporters scuffed their heels in the dirt at the site of a former sewage treatment plant, where the composting plant is set to be built. They were waiting for Roger Tuttle, president of Compost America, the Englewood company overseeing the project. Tuttle had promised a "groundbreaking event" for yesterday as a way to assure the city that the project - already months behind schedule - was underway.

Michael Smith, who was sentenced yesterday to 7 years in prison, had a big advantage over other "cooks" who make methamphetamine, or "speed. " A trained chemist and trusted employee, Smith worked for SmithKline Beecham, the pharmaceutical giant, and had the run of the company's state-of-the-art pilot plant in Conshohocken. It was there, on nights and weekends between 1989 and 1992, using stolen SmithKline chemicals, that Smith and three other trusted employees, including the plant manager, made 335 pounds of the drug.

Against a backdrop of sharply rising demand for corn, DuPont Co. said yesterday that it had formed a $140 million joint venture that aims to make ethanol from corncobs and other nonfood materials, leaving the kernels for food production. Federal mandates have caused demand for ethanol to soar in recent years. In turn, the price of corn has more than doubled, contributing in April to the sharpest 12-month gain in food prices in the United States since 1990. "Clearly there is an urgent need for renewable energy alternatives and management of rising food prices," DuPont's chairman and chief executive officer, Charles O. Holliday Jr., said in a conference call.

Attention, Middle East oil barons! Some scientists toiling away in a South Philadelphia warehouse say they can give you fits. Their secret: Turkey guts and old tires. Those unwanted items, as well as plastics and anything else made of carbon and hydrogen, can be turned into oil. The scientists claim that the stuff is generally cleaner than what comes out of the ground, and that it would sharply reduce our dependence on foreign oil producers. Don't believe it? Neither does anyone else - at first.

The plan revealed by Orfa Corp. of America last year for transforming mounds of Philadelphia trash into valuable materials had all the allure of the medieval alchemists' quest to turn base metals into gold. The city was rapidly running out of ways to dispose of the approximately 6,000 tons of waste its residents discard each day. Rural communities, fed up with being dumping grounds for city trash, were closing landfills and refusing to allow new ones to open. Plans to burn the trash, in the city or in a rural area, had provoked backlashes from those living near proposed burning sites who feared the health consequences of smoke, odors and toxic gases.

Three years ago, Gloucester City officials got an offer they couldn't resist. A composting company, shopping for a place to put a $25 million sludge facility, settled on the city. With no money down, the city could earn $500,000 a year - or 5 percent of its $9.8 million budget - from tipping fees and tax payments. Now, city officials wonder whether it was all too good to be true. In March, after an approval process that included input from a citizens advisory group, Compost America Holding Co. and the city signed a lease for a pilot facility and, pending community approval, a full-scale plant at the site of a former sewage plant near the Brooklawn border.

Against a backdrop of sharply rising demand for corn, DuPont Co. said yesterday that it had formed a $140 million joint venture that aims to make ethanol from corncobs and other nonfood materials, leaving the kernels for food production. Federal mandates have caused demand for ethanol to soar in recent years. In turn, the price of corn has more than doubled, contributing in April to the sharpest 12-month gain in food prices in the United States since 1990. "Clearly there is an urgent need for renewable energy alternatives and management of rising food prices," DuPont's chairman and chief executive officer, Charles O. Holliday Jr., said in a conference call.

Attention, Middle East oil barons! Some scientists toiling away in a South Philadelphia warehouse say they can give you fits. Their secret: Turkey guts and old tires. Those unwanted items, as well as plastics and anything else made of carbon and hydrogen, can be turned into oil. The scientists claim that the stuff is generally cleaner than what comes out of the ground, and that it would sharply reduce our dependence on foreign oil producers. Don't believe it? Neither does anyone else - at first.

Michael Smith, who was sentenced yesterday to 7 years in prison, had a big advantage over other "cooks" who make methamphetamine, or "speed. " A trained chemist and trusted employee, Smith worked for SmithKline Beecham, the pharmaceutical giant, and had the run of the company's state-of-the-art pilot plant in Conshohocken. It was there, on nights and weekends between 1989 and 1992, using stolen SmithKline chemicals, that Smith and three other trusted employees, including the plant manager, made 335 pounds of the drug.

As a respected, veteran research chemist for SmithKline Beecham PLC during the late 1980s, Michael F. Smith had access to the pharmaceutical giant's state-of-the-art Conshohocken research factory known as the "pilot plant. " The product of Smith's weekend work at the lab, however, never showed up on the shelves of your neighborhood pharmacy. Instead, as he later admitted to federal prosecutors, Smith was busy boosting his income by producing more than 335 pounds of 98 percent-pure methamphetamine and selling it for $12,000 a pound.

Residents and city officials turned out this week to question the president of Compost America about repeated delays and broken promises on a composting project that could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the city. At a meeting Thursday, Roger Tuttle, president of the Englewood-based company, assured the city that he planned to move ahead with the project but said situations beyond his control had prevented the company from starting construction. "We're going to do it. We want to do it," Tuttle said.

The city bought a brand new shovel for the ceremonial groundbreaking of its long-anticipated composting plant. Six public officials, a citizen's representative and two reporters scuffed their heels in the dirt at the site of a former sewage treatment plant, where the composting plant is set to be built. They were waiting for Roger Tuttle, president of Compost America, the Englewood company overseeing the project. Tuttle had promised a "groundbreaking event" for yesterday as a way to assure the city that the project - already months behind schedule - was underway.

Compost America, an Englewood company, has given the city a "guaranteed" date for work to begin on a proposed pilot composting facility, Gloucester City Administrator John Holman said yesterday. Holman said Compost America president Roger Tuttle told him at a meeting Wednesday that a construction plan and schedule would be submitted by Oct. 10 and that construction would begin by Oct. 15. City officials have pushed for a firm starting date since early summer, when they began to worry about the project's lack of progress.

Three years ago, Gloucester City officials got an offer they couldn't resist. A composting company, shopping for a place to put a $25 million sludge facility, settled on the city. With no money down, the city could earn $500,000 a year - or 5 percent of its $9.8 million budget - from tipping fees and tax payments. Now, city officials wonder whether it was all too good to be true. In March, after an approval process that included input from a citizens advisory group, Compost America Holding Co. and the city signed a lease for a pilot facility and, pending community approval, a full-scale plant at the site of a former sewage plant near the Brooklawn border.

Rohm & Haas Co. will spend $150 million during the next five years to modernize and expand its chemical plant and related facilities in Bristol Township. The extensive capital-improvement program, announced yesterday at a meeting of 120 government and civic leaders, will provide a short-term boost to the economy in Lower Bucks County. More important, the decision ensures that Rohm & Haas will continue to be a large employer in the area for years to come. The Bristol plant, which includes 125 buildings, is on 800 acres along Route 413 just south of Bristol Pike.

The plan revealed by Orfa Corp. of America last year for transforming mounds of Philadelphia trash into valuable materials had all the allure of the medieval alchemists' quest to turn base metals into gold. The city was rapidly running out of ways to dispose of the approximately 6,000 tons of waste its residents discard each day. Rural communities, fed up with being dumping grounds for city trash, were closing landfills and refusing to allow new ones to open. Plans to burn the trash, in the city or in a rural area, had provoked backlashes from those living near proposed burning sites who feared the health consequences of smoke, odors and toxic gases.