Saratoga Biochar’s proposal to build a plant in the Moreau Industrial Park was has been rescheduled for Thursday May 12 at 7 p.m. It is designed for carbon fertilizer manufacturing. The manufacturing process consists of burning biosolids from plant, wood, agricultural waste, and wastewater treatment plants. This will create a form of charcoal to be used as fertilizer. The biosolids are expected to be regionally sourced.
However residents of Moreau have formed a grassroots campaign that is mobilizing against the project that they call “poop processing plant.”
This protest has included meeting with attorney Mike Ewall, an attorney and executive of the National Energy Justice Network; reaching out to the DEC and circulating petitions; writing to local planning board members; creating the Not Moreau Facebook page; and posting signs to bring the situation to the attention of their neighbors.
The proposed Biochar facility is a single structure measuring 50 feet high, 303 feet wide, and 2,221 feet long. It would be constructed on 5.89 acres in the Moreau Industrial Park. It would produce charcoal fertilizer by drying and superheating wastewater and agricultural waste.
Using a technique called pyrolysis, the treatment does not actually burn the waste, but the superheating in a no-oxygen environment kills harmful chemicals and bacteria, the company’s CEO Raymond Apy said in a recent interview. How well it works and whether it is safe has been a topic on the Not Moreau Facebook page.
He is a founder of Saratoga Biochar and lives in the county, he said.
“There has been misinformation,” surrounding the company’s plan, he said.
The heating process destroys pharmaceutical residue and PFAs in wastewater, and kills microbes produced by solid waste, according to Apy and the company website. The facility will filter the air, containing the dust, and controlling odors, Apy said.
The end product is a carbon fertilizer used in agricultural fields and by home gardeners, he said.
Saratoga Biochar is working closely with the DEC, but the DEC has not yet granted the necessary permits, Apy said. The company maintains that they are working toward organic certification.
Among residents is the belief that full transparency, regarding impact on the environment of Moreau, and its surrounding areas, including increased truck traffic, noise, and the potential of a hazardous waste accident, is not being offered.
Apy said the plan calls for truck deliveries to be securely wrapped to lessen odor. Trucks will run along the truck routes created 20 years ago for the Moreau Industrial Park.
Biosolids are not biohazards, Apy said.
"If a spill were to take place, there are people nearby, that will immediately dispatch to clean up spillage and repair any damage that may result,” Apy said. He said that there are people nearby to react to a spill, although LeClair said that the nearest personnel trained to manage such an incident is in Waterford, forty miles away.
Saratoga Biochar is a locally owned start up business, according to Mr. Apy, which chose to construct the facility in the Moreau Industrial Park for a variety of reasons. The property is zoned to expand its industrial setting. Basic plumbing and electrical is in place for new business. The location is on the truck route designated for Moreau Industrial Park.
The company’s suggested goal is a Carbon Fertilizer that will exceed EPA standards for a Class A biosolids product. Apy says, “They have retained specialists in the field and intend to go beyond the NYSDEC expectations for pollution control.”