Harvey Co. moves forward with waste-to-fuel plan

The last couple years have been a roller-coaster ride for landowners near the Harvey County Landfill as project proposals have come and gone, including an ethanol plant and generating electricity by burning trash.

But if the county and Steve Racoosin, CEO of Biogold Inc., have their way, that ride will come to an end with a project designed to convert solid waste into diesel fuel the company says will not pollute ground, air or water.

“Biogold believes each municipality has the opportunity, right now, to recycle 85 percent of waste into fuels,” Racoosin said at a public meeting Monday at the Harvey County Courthouse. “There is no such thing as zero percent emission, but we are at about 99 percent clean.”

It is a project which, based on feedback at the meeting, is more palatable to area landowners than some that have come up in the past — if the company can deliver what has been promised.

“With the number of employees now and in the future, I think I’d much rather see this than the ethanol plant,” area property owner Vern Koch said. “I think this is much cleaner. I don’t think there is the ardent opposition to this we saw with that.”

But that didn’t mean there weren’t questions to be answered Monday — like what the company expects from the county, how the process works, what kind of emissions the plant will give off and if there will be an increase in truck traffic.

The project proposal, which the county signed a contract to pursue Monday night, requires Biogold to take all of the financial risks. The county will not pay for the construction of a facility or for any equipment within.

“We are paying for it all,” Racoosin said. “We know and believe in our ability to make fuel.”

Racoosin said funding for the project is not finalized. The publicly traded company has talked with potential investors and has $100 million in commitments — but no checks have been written as of yet.

What the county would pay is a tipping fee for Biogold to process trash being trucked to the Reno County Landfill.

Within the contract, that fee is set for the next five years, and it is required Bio-Gold remain more than 27 percent lower than the average tipping fee at area landfills when the fee is revisited. Also within the contract is a provision that gives the county 5 percent of company profits.

“Initially, we are looking at this as a break-even project,” county administrator Craig Simons said. “From a savings standpoint, we really don’t know yet. But we think there is a benefit to this long-term.”

With the signing of the contract Monday, the company has nine months to secure financing and state permits and begin construction of a 50,000- to 70,000-square-foot facility by the current transfer station. Biogold has 27 months to make the plant operational.

For residents who put their trash and recyclables at the curb each week, there wouldn’t be any changes. Current recycling programs will remain in place.

“People spent a lot of time — and money — creating those systems,” Racoosin said. “We’d love to have it all in one trash bin, but we are not going there right now. All we are asking for is the leftovers — the things the county site doesn’t want.”

Those things the county doesn’t want — meaning the solid waste currently trucked to Reno County —would be dumped in the Biogold facility where it would be heated with infrared light and “baked” in a closed container to create gasses that are converted to diesel fuel and cellulose blocks.

The plant also would employ thermal oxidizers to deal with gasses removed from the process through a scrubbing process.

“We want to employ the best technologies here,” Racoosin said. “You will not see smokestacks or steam stacks in this plant. We actually do not burn anything. There is no flame in the process.”

The county took cues from last year’s discussion with area landowners regarding an ethanol plant to ask questions of Biogold about issues like traffic, water, smell and noise during negotiations with the company.

And those concerns were right up front during the Monday meeting. Racoosin addressed those early in his presentation.

“We know that water is a sensitive issue in this area,” Racoosin said. “That is why initially we will use infrared light for heat, rather than a steam boiler system, to process the waste. ... The traffic increase we anticipate will be four to five years out and can be planned for.”

And, he said, when it comes to smell and noise, the plant could actually reduce both over what residents deal with now.

Initially, the plant only will deal with solid waste — but construction and demolition waste, medical waste, plastics and papers are all waste streams the company can covert to fuel products.

“We have several plants that deal with one waste stream, but what we don’t have is one plant that deals with all of them under one roof,” Racoosin said. “That is the goal here, to do something that hasn’t been done yet.”

When asked why the company chose Harvey County for that kind of project, he responded it was because the area has people who care about the environment and leaders who have been wanting to find an alternative to burying trash.

“If this comes together, we are going to blaze a trail here,” said commissioner Chip Westfall. “I don’t think we can make the air, or environment, any cleaner (that with this project).”