The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation held the first of two public comment hearings on a biochar facility proposal in Saratoga County.
The virtual hearing is the next stage of the lengthy approval process for the Saratoga Biochar Solutions facility in Moreau, which faces local resistance.
The proposed $83 million facility would ship more than 700 tons of biosolids, what critics call sewage sludge, from all over New York state to the plant per day, six days a week.
Jorge Padron is raising his children in a home that is identified on the site plan documents filed by Saratoga Biochar as the closest neighbor to the project – just 965 feet away from the proposed plant.
“A father of four children I moved to Moreau in November of 2021, I was dismayed and angered that our planning board approved this project knowing how Moreau has been impacted negatively. The history of pollution, impacts on human health, cancer rates, long-lasting impacts that have been openly talked about, discussed, felt, seen. We are a well-known superfund site. All this in our town. How ironic that this project would land here,” said Padron.
In a region that has grappled with historic pollution by giants like General Electric, many residents have shared fears over history being repeated, some drawing comparisons to PFAS contamination in Hoosick Falls.
Speaking with WAMC, Saratoga Biochar CEO Raymond Apy said the proposed facility does not pose similar risks.
“There were manufacturing facilities in Hoosick Falls that buy and use massive amounts of PFAS chemicals – PFOA, PFOS, and others –to produce the products that they make, and they spilled it all over the place, and it got into the groundwater and people got sick. But that's not even apples and oranges. That's the earth versus the moon,” explained Apy.
Biochar is a carbon-based fertilizer created from the heating of biosolids to more than 1,000 degrees – which Saratoga Biochar officials have said eliminates most of the pernicious chemicals present in the biosolids. The facility is also going to implement a negative-pressure system, further reducing the risk of contamination.
Bradley Toohill served as a Naval Nuclear Operator for a decade and owns a home near the proposed facility – he expressed concern over Saratoga Biochar’s profit margin cutting into future safety guarantees.
“Somebody stated earlier that PFAS eliminated by this pyrolysis situation is 99.99% effective, that’s great. I’m glad to hear it. Unfortunately, in my own experience I cannot have something that is not 100% safe in eliminating something if I was planning on processing it. It’s not allowed. If I could make a system that was 100% effective, I would. 99.9% effective is not good enough when you’re considering the future of a community, when you’re considering the children, when you’re considering just the overall health of the environment,” said Toohill.
Miles Gray is the program director at the United States Biochar Initiative, and called the proposed facility a “climate solution” because it would be keeping biosolids out of landfills and reducing methane emissions.
“Now, biochar as an alternative, converts those biosolids into a permanent form of carbon in biochar. In the process, PFAS and other organic compounds, micropollutants, are destroyed in the production process, particularly at higher temperature pyrolysis, which will be employed by Saratoga Biochar,” said Gray.
The DEC issued a “notice of complete application” in January regarding Saratoga Biochar’s Air and Solid Waste Management Facility Permits. In a statement, the DEC says the public hearings are important to the approval process and that it will “consider all of these comments during the decision-making process.”
Local opposition groups filed a lawsuit claiming Moreau’s planning board was unreasonable in its assessment that the facility would have a negligible impact on the environment. A judge sided with the planning board and Saratoga Biochar, but activists are appealing the decision.
A second, in-person hearing is today at 6 at South Glens Falls Senior High School Auditorium.
