OUR ENVIRONMENT : Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
To construct the ag-industry campus necessary to its integrated SymbiosysTM process, Belmont BioAg must acquire permits, including those required by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). The permitting process began in late 2005.
In 2008, BBA received the high-capacity wells permit and air quality control permit necessary to constructing the project. Project financing remains ongoing.
This page provides an overview history of the permitting process, which began with the WDNR request that BBA file an Evnironmental Impact Report (EIR) along with its permit applications. An Environmental Impact Report documents a project's managers' answers to questions the Department of Natural Resources has posed to ascertain possible impact the project may have on the environment. For the BBA project, topics included air quality control; surface, ground, and storm water protection; manure handling; facility layout; traffic; etc.
Belmont BioAg filed its initial EIR with the WDNR on February 21, 2006, and provided copies to seven area repositories: the Community Center and John Turgeson Public Library, both in Belmont; the Johnson Public Library and Lafayette County Clerk's office, both in Darlington; the Platteville Public Library and UW-P Karrmann Library, both in Platteville; and Elk Grove Township, where the BBA site is located. The Township, for its residents' convenience, elected to have its copy placed at the more accessible Ag Tech Center of the UW-Platteville Pioneer Farm, also located the Township.
On March 27, 2006, the WDNR staged an EIR Public Information and EA/EIS Scoping meeting at Belmont. The EIR, which the WDNR noticed at that meeting would become the basis for its planned Environmental Impact Statement on the project, has three distinct topics: Project Description and Need, Affected Environment, and Environmental Impacts.
Due to complaints about the BBA project being too complicated, in early 2007 a decision was made to stage the project in three phases. First phase: construct and operate ethanol plant, digesters, solids separation, and water treatment. Second phase: introduce the cattle with up to two barns. Third phase: buildout of full project, possibly including eight barns. The greenhouse could develop during any of the phases, and a rotary kiln dryer for the digested solids could come online during any of the phases.
Because the project had changed, a second EIR was prepared and delivered to the WDNR in March 2007, with copies provided to the same repositories. Due to the EIR being a temporary document, BBA elected not to place it on the web site, but encourages those interested to review a copy. Readers can realize a somewhat detailed overview of the project even though changes were made after the 2007 EIR was released.
Further changes to BBA resulted from continued pressure from the financial markets to reduce the project's capital costs and eliminate the cattle element, little understood by financiers. BBA originally included the cattle component knowing it showed little financial return but envisioning it as providing cattle producers of Wisconsin-born calves a facility incorporating humane handling, thus, less animal stress than current standard practices, and an opportunity to raise high-quality meat that could bring producers top market dollar. Eliminating the cattle component eliminated its manure by-product, which allowed eliminating the high-temperature combustion unit, a high-cost component.
Eliminating the cattle component also eliminated the need for WDNR to prepare an environmental impact statement. The remaining project components remain integrated, using what would ordinarily be "waste" as fuel, thus providing positive environmental impact. Due to changes in DNR regulations, the WDNR decided in July 2007 that an environmental assessment of the project was also not needed. WDNR continued its review of BBA's air permit and high capacity well permit applications, and in 2008 determined both applications complete.
BBA now has the high-capacity well permit and the air quality control permit necessary to begin the project construction. WDNR will determine the air quality control operation permit based on testing conducted during and following construction of the BBA project.
To provide a visual idea of the proposed project, BBA is providing some of the figures included in the EIR. You, the reader, can mentally eliminate the barns.
The project location is in Elk Grove Township of Lafayette County, Wisconsin.
The facility layout is an engineered perspective of the campus components over geographical topography.
This site rendering is a conceptual view of the components in the SymbiosysTM process, on the BBA campus site.
The full site is 280 acres, of which BBA will now use about 100 to construct the campus. The remaining land is crop ground and protection for a spring, small creek, and three wetlands, as shown in this land use map.
The BBA campus will include two high-capacity wells, each 1,000 feet in depth, deeper than most wells in the area and designed to protect the water supply to other wells. Here is a cross view detailing the types of water supply wells in the area. Overall, current BBA design projects the campus will recycle more than 47% of the water it draws, recycling almost 66% at the ethanol plant.
Odor from the ethanol production process is mitigated by there being no need for a distillers grain dryer and including scrubbers to remove fermentation odor. Expert odor consultants modeled projected odor from the campus operation using receptors placed in the vicinity, as noted in the odor receptor map. The modeling, which included the eight cattle barns, showed the operation having limited impact on air quality.
Traffic is another issue of concern, as on average many trucks will access the campus daily. Concern about trucks blocking traffic on local roads has been mitigated through campus planning that provides truck queuing within the campus itself. Projected truck traffic has been reduced with elimination of the barns.
Last Update: December 2008.