Renewable gas developer Viridi is considering bringing in a major utility facility to Brunswick Landing, now a hotspot for contentious environmental issues.
The anaerobic digester facility would bring a renewable energy source to the region — a step toward the town staying on track with its emissions goals. But Brunswick residents are concerned that the facility’s presence will add to myriad issues, such as PFAS contamination, already present in the neighborhood.
Chet Benham, one of the founders of Viridi, said at a public forum on the project that averting climate impact is at the forefront of the business.
“Whether you believe in climate change — helping in the fight against climate change — or you believe in energy independence, projects like this are an important part of not just the New England energy ecosystem but nationally as well,” Benham said.
The project, which has yet to go through the formal development processes in the town but has permits submitted with agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection and Brunswick Sewer District, is proposed for 27 Bioenergy Way in Brunswick Landing. The project would expand on a facility that already exists at the address. It aims to produce renewable natural gas from biosolids, which are materials derived from sewage or wastewater facilities.
But as residents in Brunswick Landing, a neighborhood situated in a part of town that the Navy occupied for years, grapple with ongoing contamination from the disastrous Aug. 19 firefighting foam spill, many questioned at the forum whether the project was suitable for the area. Some residents expressed concern of spreading PFAS contamination and introducing other potentially hazardous materials to the neighborhood.
The environmental concerns are at odds with the intended, positive climate goal for the digestor, which could bring in 85,000 tons of biosolids per year and reduce that amount to 10,000 tons per year. Benham said that the digester would have the capacity to create enough renewable natural gas to heat half of the single-family homes in Brunswick — a renewable benefit that falls in line with the town’s recently passed Climate Action Plan.
In December, the Town Council passed the plan, starting a five-year countdown to reduce emissions 65% by 2030. The plan acts as a guideline for town decisions and includes a push for renewable energy across the board.
The proposal
Viridi said it has built more than 1o plants like the one proposed in Brunswick in the past 15 years. In its public presentation on Monday, it pointed to one particularly similar example in Ontario, Canada: a digestor facility in Southgate, which is near Toronto.
John Shortreed, a process and chemical engineer working on technical aspects of the facility, said that the Southgate plant processes 150,000 tons of the same material.
On a map, the Canadian facility is located within thousands of feet of a residential neighborhood — about 1,000 feet from a housing development and 1,400 feet from a school. The new facility in Brunswick would be in the heart of Brunswick Landing, located off Orion Street.
Shortreed said that the new development does not have a “huge smell problem.” Councilor Nathaniel Shed asked if people outside — perhaps those eating on the patio at nearby Wild Oats Bakery & Café — would smell the facility. Shortreed said that given the planned route for trucks, there should not be an “aggressive smell.” However, he said it was possible to look into how residents in Ontario were dealing with the smell.
Benham said that the facility would have economic benefits and could create five full-time jobs as well as 100 temporary jobs during the construction process. Benham noted that Viridi plans to hire from the local community. He added the resource could reduce the cost of hauling materials from the Brunswick Sewer District and redirect revenue from wastewater disposal.
Shortreed said that the digester will use 1.2 megawatts of energy to operate and export a megawatt to the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, an entity that oversees redevelopment of former Navy land in the region.
Shortreed broke down a bit of the digester process, stating that the waste goes to a liquid-solid separation process off the digesters. From there, liquids go to an evaporator to meet Sewer District specifications. Solids are then dried for disposal at Juniper Ridge in Old Town.
The digester expects to generate some additional trucking traffic around Cook’s Corner — up to 15 trucks per day during the week, according to Shortreed. Trucks will come in and back up in a fully enclosed bay, and trailers will be waterproofed with a tarp enclosing the materials at the top. Trucking will be limited on the weekend, and residual loads heading away from the facility should only be about one or two a day, Shortreed said.
The facility will export other electricity produced to the local grid and export renewable gas to Maine Natural Gas.
Brunswick Director of Planning and Development Julie Erdman said that the proposal would go through a contract zoning process. She said this application avenue allows the town to provide flexibility in zoning regulations to approve “desirable development” — or beneficial to the public — even if the project does not meet all the requirements of zoning ordinance.
In the contract zoning process, a legal agreement is struck between the developer (often referred to as the “applicant” in these processes) with conditions in place for the project and site of construction.
She said that the workshop on Monday was held to gauge interest from the Town Council.
PFAS concerns
Some councilors, including Jennifer Hicks and Nathan MacDonald, expressed concern that the project was not the right fit for the community.
This sentiment was made clear after several community members expressed concerns of biohazardous materials potentially moving through residential neighbors already impacted by the chemical spill at Brunswick Landing that spewed per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — into the nearby environment. There was also concern that PFAS-contaminated biosolids will not be handled safely or treated in the plant.
Benham said that the company is working “hand-in-hand” with the state to exceed PFAS requirements and that it will qualify biosolids to ensure compliance with Brunswick Sewer District discharge requirements. He said that before they accept new materials into the system, they will qualify each new source. If it does not meet requirements, they will not take it from that supplier.
Viridi also stated that if it cannot meet Brunswick Sewer District’s operating standards, it cannot run the facility.
Some residents expressed concerns that PFAS treated in the system could get into the air — a contamination method that sparked concern in the Aug. 19 firefighting foam spill. The Department of Environmental Protection reported this month that it found traces of low ambient air concentrations of many PFAS compounds, but it is working to better understand possible ambient air pollution from the spill.
The company confirmed that no PFAS incineration — which requires extremely high temperatures to break down the chemical family — is happening at the facility. Shortreed said that the operating temperatures are too low.
“In this facility, that PFAS is really materially going to end up in that dry solid that is transported back to Juniper Ridge,” Shortreed said at the forum. “And that is a key part of the plan and of the design.”
He also noted that the exhaust from the facility would be scrubbed through a treatment process to address the smell.
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