A biomass gasification plant planned by the Oneida Tribe of Indians in the city of Green Bay cleared its first hurdle Monday when the Plan Commission granted a conditional use permit for the project.
The commission voted unanimously in favor of granting the permit, which still needs approval of the Green Bay City Council.
The plan still needs approval from the U.S Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The energy department expects to hold a public hearing in Green Bay on the environmental impact of the proposed site in late March or early April.
The Oneida Seven Generations Corp. hopes to build the $23 million renewable energy facility at 1230 Hurlbut St., about one-quarter mile west of the Atkinson Drive access to Interstate 43.
The corporation proposes to convert 150 to 200 tons of municipal waste a day into power to be sold to Wisconsin Public Service.
Kevin Cornelius, chief executive of the corporation, said the process of turning garbage into electricity would be clean and could divert up to 90 percent of the waste going into local landfills.
It would create 40 to 50 construction jobs and 22 to 30 full- and part-time permanent jobs, Cornelius said.
The commission listened to concerns from Brown County Executive Tom Hinz and Solid Waste Director Chuck Larscheid, who said the operation could conceivably jeopardize the agreement Brown County has with Outagamie and Winnebago counties for shared landfill use.
"We have an agreement to provide a certain amount of tonnage," Hinz said. "If all of the city tonnage goes to this, it would cause a huge impact with the tri-county agreement.
"I'm not saying it's not a good idea," Hinz said. "My suggestion would be, when there's agreements being made with waste haulers and municipalities, that Seven Generations sit at the table with us so we can come to an understanding."
The plant would have the capacity to take all of Green Bay's municipal waste, but if that were to happen, the loss of the city's tonnage would probably affect dumping rates for other municipalities, Larscheid said.
Cornelius said the plant could take its waste entirely from private haulers and wouldn't need to cut into the tonnage being supplied by Green Bay or the other municipalities.
Derek Lord, director of development for Green Bay, said issues impacting the tri-county agreement could be addressed by the City Council, and that the commission's issue dealt exclusively with land use.
The commission agreed that the proposed location was a good one for the project
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