The county recently approved a project by Port Arthur Navigation District Industrial Development Corporation for Cloverdale Renewables, LLC, to help Frontier Dairy turn its solid cow waste into natural gas.
The approval came after a public hearing at commissioners court Monday, March 25 where spokesperson Brian Williams answered questions and local resident Joanna Friebele called in with several questions.
Friebele asked the commissioners via the phone number provided in the public hearing who the owner of the environmental impact statement was and where it could be located. She also asked if the county was providing a tax abatement for the project, to which County Judge Brandon Huckabee answered no. Friebele also inquired if the natural gas pipeline would run across anyone else’s property and Williams responded during his presentation that rightof- way would have to be acquired by Atmos in a couple of locations.
The project, under the direction of Cloverdale Renewables, LLC owned by Dublin’s Alan Vander Horst, will consist of structures and equipment designed to aid in the collection and disposal of waste cow manure for the collection of biogas.
Upon completion, the project will consist of an anaerobic digester that will process cow manure into a fertilizer supplement and capture renewable gas that will be further processed and injected into the natural gas pipeline.
As part of the anaerobic process, gas is collected, cleaned and scrubbed and then pumped into a nearby natural gas pipeline, essentially capturing methane, a greenhouse gas that is said to affect the earth’s temperature and climate system.
The approval for the county will allow them to have access to $40 million in private activity bonds from the Port Arthur Navigation District Industrial Development Corporation.
The resolution approved by the county is simply to acknowledge that they are building in the county since therearenocountyregulations in place that must be met, however, they will be required to follow state and federal guidelines. There is no financial liability for the county, Huckabee explained.
After problems with another dairy to the north having a similar set up, but trucking in waste from other dairies, commissioners asked a wide variety of questions.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Albert Ray asked Williams if they would be utilizing roads to truck in the waste.
Williams stated they would only be using cow waste from Frontier and there would be no trucking or roadway use, other than supplies brought in to build the project.
“We are in a mess with the one to the north. Is there any way the county can be protected?” Commissioner Joe Brown asked.
“It’s our intention to make sure this works,” Williams said. He emphasized that the project would make the cow manure into almost a 100% recyclable project since the remnants would be utilized on the farm.
The complete project will be $53.5 million, he said.
After the presentation was complete, Friebele said she would like to see the environmental study put into the hands of Erath County so they can see it.
The county also moved forward approving a contract with HOK for professional services related to the Joint Dispatch Center being built between the city of Stephenville and the county.
The contract is $47,000 and both the county and the city had dedicated $1 million each to the build out of the project.
“I really feel like this is the direction we need to go,” County Emergency Manager Chris Brooks said about HOK. “We’ve met with them and we think they are a better fit than some of the others.”
Brooks also spoke about the need to hire someone soon as dispatch supervisor.
“I would like to hire someone now so they have some skin in the game,” he said.
In the same meeting, the county approved a $318,000 payment for the widening of CR 176 (Cheeseplant Road) in conjunction with TX RBF Grant No. 2002-002 associated with the Schreiber Foods expansion project.
The state will be reimbursing the county for the money within the next 30 days throughtheTexasDepartment of Agriculture.
As part of the expansion, the business was required to put in at least a 200,000 sq. ft. expansion, and they built a 300,000 sq. ft. expansion including cold storage. They increased employees from 450 to 600 at the Stephenville location.
In public comment, Erath County resident Georgia Scott urged people to vote.
“I want to make a call out to the people of this county, because that’s who we address, that we better learn. It’s time for us to get political, not just at our homes, but for us to get involved. We need to stand for the protection of Texas at our borders and we need to stop evil people from coming in. My point is I want us to stand for truth and sometimes that takes digging. I think it’s time to defend America first. I want people to get out and vote. We have a runoff election May 28 and it will probably be very poorly attended and that’s a crying shame, because these are very important positions in our county,” she said.
In other business the county:
■ approved clearing a fence row for visibility and drainage at CR 351 and CR 373 in Precinct 2
■ approved combining election precinct 35 into election precinct 33 due to congressional districts changing. Erath will now have 20 election precincts instead of 21, again.