By Zach Jensen,
Pictured is a Novilla biodigester facility in West Branch (Submitted)
The Winneshiek County Planning and Zoning Commission voted July 16 against a rezoning request for a proposed biodigester near Ridgeway.
Novilla Renewable Natural Gas submitted the application, and the proposed facility would be located on land owned by Craig Bohr and Deb Storlie — specifically, the area near the intersection of 275th Street and Iowa Highway 9.
In the split vote, commission members Mary Hoffman and Donna Rasmussen voted to support the company’s rezoning request to change the land’s use from A-1 agricultural to M-2 industrial, while Commission Chair Wendy Stevens, John Berlage, Melissa O’Rourke and DJ Friest voted against it. Commissioner Dave Meyer was absent. The matter now moves to the Winneshiek County Board of Supervisors for further approval — the board of supervisors has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed biodigester for 10:30 a.m., Monday, Aug. 5 in the courthouse annex.
The primary complaint of the naysayers was that the planning and zoning commission members weren’t given enough time to research the proposal. The county’s zoning ordinance states “a decision must be made within 30 days of the application date or be automatically approved,” according to the minutes from the July 16 meeting. The application for rezoning was made on June 19, and a public hearing on the issue was held July 9, during the Planning and Zoning Commission’s next regular meeting. Discussion on the project lasted nearly three hours that night, and the decision was tabled until the special July 16 meeting. The commission “decided it couldn’t wait to take action,” the meeting’s minutes said.
The commission was instructed by Planning and Zoning Administrator Tony Phillips to not discuss the project with anyone between the public hearing and the decision date, saying by law the commission’s decision needed to be based on information presented during the July 9 public hearing and any research the individual commission members may have conducted independently. However, Novilla co-CEO Mark Hill felt some of the reasons commission members gave for voting against the project contradicted information shared during the public hearing, and he felt some concerns seemed be misplaced.
“The purpose of rezoning to M-2 industrial was to allow the processing of digester biogas into pipeline-quality natural gas,” said Novilla co-CEO Mark Hill after the July 16 meeting. “However, the majority of questions asked by the Planning and Zoning Commission were targeting the digester, dairy farms and manure lines that are not covered under the rezoning. The Planning and Zoning Commission appeared to turn this renewable-energy project into a referendum on family-owned dairies in Winneshiek County rather than a discussion of county zoning and how the gas-upgrading facility fit within the zoning.”
Officials see potential positives, but still have concerns
The commission discussed several perceived positives of the proposed project during the July 16 meeting. Commission members noted methane gas would typically cause odor and contribute to climate change, but would instead be transformed into a renewable energy source if the project became a reality. The commission also noted the above ground facility would make potential leaks more immediately visible. They also said the fertilizer byproduct created during the biodigester’s processes is more efficient than other fertilizers which contain higher levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, and the commission said there are other facilities in Iowa with the same design as the proposed Novilla facility which they said have proven to work well.
However, commission members also felt they had too little time to conduct research and consult with potential experts. They said questions of safety also lingered regarding potential truck traffic for the transporting of manure and other materials. First responders would need specialized training to deal with emergencies at the facility, the commission said, and commission members felt it was unclear how natural disasters like a tornado might affect the proposed facility.
Commission Chair Wendy Stevens raised the concern that building the facility might encourage the establishment of more large corporate farm operations, which she felt could accelerate the loss of small, family-owned farms. Stevens also cited the county comprehensive plan, which calls for Winneshiek County to reduce its reliance on petroleum products, and Stevens said renewable natural gas is a petroleum product.
The U.S. Energy Information Association defines petroleum products as “fuels made from crude oil and the hydrocarbons contained in natural gas.” Renewable natural gas does not contain crude oil. Rather, the Environmental Protection agency said “the biogas used to produce RNG comes from a variety of sources, including municipal solid waste landfills, digesters at water resource recovery facilities (wastewater treatment plants), livestock farms, food production facilities and organic waste management operations.”
Commission member John Berlage also questioned whether the facility would truly contain no hazardous waste. Representatives of Novilla Renewable Natural Gas had previously told the commission “there is no hazardous waste” onsite, but Berlage said he considers manure to be hazardous waste.
“It kind of threw me off, because I’ve been around manure my entire life, and I know what it can do and how quickly it can kill somebody,” he said. “If you look up what a hazardous waste is online, it’s ‘waste that muse be handled properly before damaging human health or the environment.’ That’s the definition of hazardous waste. That bothers me. And, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the public to have that.”
Berlage also questioned plans for the 3-foot concrete slab on which the digester would be built, saying there are two types of cement — cement that has cracked and cement that’s going to crack.
“That’s something we weren’t able to identify — what kind of testing the cement has to go through,” he said. “Is it guaranteed not to crack? That’s the kind of crack that scares me, because that’s the crack you don’t see.”
Hill said after the meeting that Novilla takes multiple steps to prevent leaks.
“To ensure there are no leaks, we perform a leak test on the digester prior to filling it with manure and do daily checks of the concrete to look for leaks,” the Novilla co-CEO said. “The steel digester ring is embedded in the concrete, so the improbable leak would have to be under the digester ring and follow a crack such that we would see it in the external 3-foot ring of concrete outside the digester walls.”
Commission members also questioned whether the Iowa Department of Natural Resources provides adequate protection in such matters.
Following last week’s meeting, Hill said he and his colleagues take exception to that sentiment.
“The Iowa DNR has been very diligent in regulation of digester projects in Iowa and has created a series of permit conditions a dairy digester operator must meet prior to filling a digester,” he said.
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