Ralph Leonard, developer and limited partner in the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., told the Brewer City Council Tuesday night that Brewer had been a key element in owners’ hopes to obtain an interim $19-per-ton tipping fee increase.

Without Brewer, Leonard said, other towns would be less likely to approve the increase. The council had rejected the increase earlier this year and a poll of councilors after Leonard spoke still indicated doubt that the vote might change.

Councilors Larry Doughty and Jerry Hudson remained opposed to the increase during a poll of councilors. Hudson summed up his feelings with the statement, “Just say no.”

Tuesday’s presentation did not lead to a vote by the council, but officials said there could be more talks. Councilors Gerald Robertson and Marilyn Lavelle favored at least the interim increase to keep PERC open while Brewer considered waste disposal alternatives.

Chairman Ronald Harriman said he wanted more discussion on the issue.

Leonard’s arguments were persuasive. He compared PERC with a publicly owned plant in the Portland area, where tipping fees are far higher than those proposed in the Brewer area, and where public debt is at least $80 million.

If PERC were to close operations, Leonard said, Brewer and other towns would not benefit. Among the drawbacks of closing would be that a purchase contract with Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. would become void and would not be renegotiated on the same terms.

After the meeting, Leonard said that loss of the Bangor Hydro contract might cost PERC operators as much as $30 per ton of garbage incinerated in lost revenue. Even if district towns bought the plant at half its present value, they would not gain financially.

Hudson said that the increase in tipping fees requested was not a guarantee that there would not be more increases. Hudson said he could not see how, with $11 million from Bangor Hydro and $3 million from municipalities, PERC owners could not operate the plant.

Although Brewer councilors claimed “a deal is a deal” and demanded that PERC stand by a $10-per-ton contract with the city, Leonard said that PERC would not charge Old Town and other communities $30 a ton while Brewer paid only $10. “It’s not fair; it’s not right …” Leonard said.

At least part of the blame for increased costs Leonard placed on the state. He said that he and others had been led to believe the state supported them when Department of Environmental Protection officials testified for their project during mid-1980s hearings in Augusta. Later, DEP rulings caused expenses to soar.

“I spent seven years of my life to see the solid waste problem solved,” Leonard said. He cited “emotionalism” as a cause of delays in obtaining approval for the increased fees, and said that it was a shame to see Maine communities lose their best chance to deal with solid waste.

Leonard and his partner, Clark Young, formed Central Environmental Co. to design and develop the PERC plant, Leonard said. They were granted limited partnership in PERC, something that Leonard said is no longer of any value.

Losses experienced by the major owners, Prudential Insurance Co. and Utah Power and Light Co., could be $80 million or more, but those companies had maintained a commitment to help local communities develop alternatives through extension of PERC’s operations.

Leonard’s company had spent about $1 million and three years of its partners’ time in attempts to find a solution to PERC’s problems, Leonard said.