DEQ hearing garners little interest
Saturday, March 17, 2007 11:47 PM PDT
Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
ONTARIO
The public hearing on the draft water pollution control facilities permit and the draft air quality permit for a proposed bio-refinery near Ontario ended almost as soon as it began Wednesday night.
Treasure Valley Renewable Resources is pushing the bio-refinery concept and has managed to easily coast through a number of state and county provisions on the way to making the construction of the plant a reality.
TVRR is proposing to operate a food-grade product and ethanol production facility situated south of Ontario.
The meeting Wednesday night focused on DEQ permits. The session was held in the Weese Building at Treasure Valley Community College.
Just as the hearing, scheduled for 7 p.m., was about to start, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Scott Fairley announced only one person had registered to testify.
At that point the individual, Ontario resident Steve Penn, said if no one else was going to provide oral testimony, he would just submit his statement in written a form.
Fairley then proceeded to formally open the hearing by announcing the record will remain open until July 19, and public comment can be submitted to either Thane Jennings, at the Bend DEQ office, or to Heidi Williams, at the Pendleton DEQ office or by mail, E-mail or fax.
With no one coming forward to comment Fairley closed the hearing, thanking the audience of about 20 people for their attendance.
Before the hearing Williams, who wrote the wastewater facilities permit, and Jennings, who wrote the wastewater permit, discussed the draft documents and took questions from the small audience.
Specific points made by Williams at the hearing were the site is in the North Malheur Groundwater Monitoring area because of the nitrates in the water.
“Nitrates will have to be managed,” she said.
Commenting that according to TVRR’s plan, process wastewater can be recycled within the plant, Williams said the facility also has the option to land apply the recycled water. TVRR will be able to land apply up to 500 gallons per minute, Williams said.
She said the wastewater sources authorized through the membrane filtration unit are the cooling tower blowdown, water from cleaning floors and equipment, CO2 recovery process wastewater, chiller wastewater from the gasification process and condensate from ethanol conversion process.
TVRR plans to produce ethanol through its gasification process.
Giving a synopsis about the air quality permit regulations, Jennings said the permittee must not cause or allow air contaminants from any source to cause a nuisance.
However, Jennings said, odors are difficult to deal with.
Jennings said because he and Williams work in offices distant from Malheur County, neither he nor Williams would be able to respond immediately to any and every compliant.
People in the community and people at the county level need work together to help deal with any problems, Jennings said.
“There has to be a community consensus that there is a problem,” he said.
Under special conditions, Jennings noted the permittee will not be allowed to vent any gas or emission from the gasification units directly to the atmosphere. He also showed a graph that compared TVRR’s estimated emissions with the reported emissions of Heinz Frozen Foods and Holy Rosary Medical Center in 2004. Those figures, he commented, were less than, or comparable with, TVRR’s estimates.
Asked from the audience whether he accepted TVRR’s figures, Jennings said he checked and rechecked the numbers and is happy with those estimates.
Asked if there were any other ethanol plants using the proposed process and had he compared them, Jennings asserted, “Other people are doing what they are doing, but not in the same combination. It’s not new technology.”
Regarding testimony, Jennings said comments are welcome, but should also offer constructive suggestions.
“Tell us what you want us to do,” he said.
