Tulare Digester Gets County & California Energy Commission Support

The Tulare County Board of Supervisors acting this week has denied an appeal from Sundale Vineyards – a neighbor of Harvest Power’s facility near Tulare – to deny a permit to build a biomethane digester and expand its composting facility.

Meanwhile the same week, the California Energy Commission has approved funding of more than $5.1 million to convert organic waste to biomethane via anaerobic digestion at the Harvest Power facility. The biomethane will be cleaned, compressed, and used as transportation fuel at a compressed natural gas fueling station to be constructed on site.

The company would contribute more than $9 million toward the project as well according to the CEC application.

Sundale Vineyards also located on Rd 140 east of Tulare, filed an appeal  against the project with the county for a conditional use and special use permit to build the digester and CNG facility.

Attorney Tim Jones filed the Sundale appeal saying the EIR circulated on the project was flawed and that the vineyard owners were concerned  about contamination from manure that will be used at the site and had concerns for the school nearby as well.

The county’s response is that the project will require some mitigation  but the appeal is without merit. However the vineyard could file a challenge in court that could further delay the project.

Harvest Power notes that the digester that will accept food waste, green waste and manure and will be enclosed and manure odors should not be significant.

Harvest Power seeks to expand the capacity at its compost plant – formerly Tulare County Compost – by 156,000 tons to 216,000 tons per year, build a digester on site and supply a CNG fueling station that will offer  biomethane – a natural gas substitute for for sale.

The Tulare digester is one of three such large scale digesters to be proposed in the past year in the county. Another is next to the Tulare wastewater plant scheduled to begin construction later this year and the other next to the Calgren ethanol plant near Pixley. All the projects purport to help reduce air emissions in the Valley by taking a waste product and turning it into energy. The digesters reduce air impacts by controlling the emissions in an enclosed chamber.

All face some skepticism from neighbors however.