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On Tuesday, June 27, The New York State Supreme Court, County of Saratoga ruled in favor of the Town of Moreau Planning Board, Raymond Apy, and Saratoga Biochar Solutions LLC., regarding an article 78 petition. In the article 78 petition, the Clean Air Action Network challenged the site plan approval for Saratoga Biochar’s $80 million Carbon Fertilizer manufacturing facility in Moreau, NY.
According to the legal rendering by NYS Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Kupferman, “Upon reviewing the record, the Court finds that the planning board conducted a thorough investigation of the problems involved. As set forth at length above, the planning board spent significant time analyzing the potential environmental impacts associated with this project…”
Company officials attribute the victory to the Saratoga County Supreme Court’s thorough review of the extensive site plan application record compiled and reviewed by the Moreau Town Planning Board over the course of the one-year application review period.
After a nine-month delay at substantial cost to taxpayers, Saratoga Biochar Solutions can now move forward with their plans to help NYS meet its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets. "We are beyond pleased to see justice prevail. The claims made against the Moreau Town Planning Board and Saratoga Biochar were completely wrong, as the record has proven and the NYS Supreme Court has fully acknowledged,” CEO Ray Apy said.
As Saratoga Biochar Solutions awaits permits from the state DEC, the company will focus on financing. “The debt market has degraded substantially under the current US administration, also due to various external factors. We had hoped to leverage reasonable cost venture debt when we started developing the Saratoga Biochar project. Today, debt terms have grown unattractive with high interest rates so we have pivoted to attracting private equity to help us fund the project. To date, we have a number of very interested parties, both individual and institutional. We have invested over $1.6MM to date in project and technology development and are fully committed to complete our plans in the Moreau Industrial Park.” said Apy.
The plant, which will be located in the Moreau Industrial Park, will be constructed in three phases over five years. At full capacity, the facility will convert 225,000 tons of treated biosolids into 25,000 tons of dry carbon fertilizer per year. The 243-acre industrial park is zoned heavy industrial and manufacturing, while the Saratoga Biochar project would qualify as light industrial use. Thus far the town has invested $2 million into the park to provide high voltage electricity, high pressure natural gas, and sewer and water infrastructure.
The current site plan, filed in 2021 with the Moreau Planning Board, entails an $83MM million-dollar state-of-the-art facility aimed toward far better than current disposal methods to address a dirty problem – treated human bio-waste (“biosolids”). The site plan was filed by Saratoga Biochar Solutions, a carbon fertilizer manufacturing company with ambitious aspirations to recycle biosolids waste into a clean and safe fertilizer product, and was conditionally approved by the Moreau Planning Board in August of 2022.
How It Works
Municipalities treat their raw sewage in wastewater treatment plants which results in the generation of biosolids, the treated and settled solids from the wastewater.
The municipalities pay waste removal companies to haul away their biosolids to dispose of the material in landfills or incinerators, or to compost the material and use as agricultural fertilizer. Biosolids are known to contain trace amounts of contaminants, some of which have been demonstrated to pose a risk to human health, especially if certain compounds (such as PFAS) enter the human food chain or drinking water sources.
The waste removal companies will deliver the biosolids to Saratoga Biochar Solutions, rather than to landfills, incinerators or direct land application.
Saratoga Biochar Solutions will use thermal treatment technologies (rotary driers and pyrolysis kilns) to dehydrate the biosolid waste, remove the contaminants from the waste and convert it into biochar – carbon fertilizer, an affordable, carbon rich granular fertilizer. (Russia has been a global leader in fertilizer production, and experts anticipate possible shortages and price hikes due to the ongoing Ukraine situation.)
According to company CEO, Raymond Apy, “Saratoga Biochar is committed to human and environmental health through the remediation of all potentially harmful pollutants in biosolids. That, in addition to building a successful business, is the driving reason for our technology and plans. We seek to address all the problems associated with biosolids waste management.”
