WOOLWICH BIO-EN CLC MEETING

Last evening in the Woolwich Recreation Centre the Citizens Liason Committee meeting took place. Earl Brubacher, as usual chaired, and there was considerable discussion around construction and ongoing inspections. There is some remaining work to be done with painting, piping, electrical work, the water tower and the gas dome. That said nevertheless things are primarily on schedule. There was a long listing of all the various bodies involved in inspecting the new building and processes including the TSSA, CSA, the Township, MOE, Hydro 1, Waterloo North Hydro, Ontario Power Authority, and even the CFIA among more.

There was discussion in regards to the two operators who will be doing the bulk of the work when things are up and running. Their training has been quite extensive including expert instruction by other skilled operators. January 10 will be the formal commissioning day for the plant. While the digester takes two or three days to fill and fifteen days to heat it probably won't be until May that the methane content is high enough to actually begin burning it to produce electricity.

There was some discussion surrounding the committee's unsucessful attempt to get funds from the township for future possible peer reviews or other technical reviews. Chuck Martin interpreted Council's negative response as them requiring more specific dollar values for specific clearly stated technical projects. Chuck will make inquirys as well as to the mechanics of setting up a Letter of Credit. Bob (Gray?) asked about berming or trees between Woolwich Bio-En and the neighbours. Apparently our recent storms took a significant number of trees down that were assisting in that capacity. Earl suggested that there are some berms and possibly trees already included in the final grading/landscaping plans for the site.

Hindsight being 20-20 when they were discussing costs for consultants for technical reviews I should have suggested they contact Dwight Este or Jeff Merriman of Chemtura for some ballpark figures. Chemtura over the years have funded CPAC to hire the odd consultant here and there such as RWDI, air experts out of Guelph, and most recently Dr. Gail Krantzberg from McMaster University.

The next public CLC meeting is on Tuesday March 4, 2014 at 7 pm. I presume it will be back in the new (& recently repaired) Rec Centre.