Bion Promotes Cattle/Energy Proposal for Oswego County
Company official says 600 jobs could be created
By Kory Johnson
Jim Kapell has an ambitious project planned in Oswego County, one he realizes can get people worried.
“This is very large scale. It’s scary to folks that it’s so large scale,” Kapell said.
Kapell, vice president of project development/renewables for Bion Environmental Technologies, is talking about a large integrated beef cattle and renewable energy project that Bion would like to open in the county. He spoke at a press conference at Operation Oswego County Thursday in the Port City.
The sheer size of the project is one of the reasons questions are raised. The plan features 72,000 head of cattle within what Kapell calls a “closed-loop” ethanol plant. This means that corn is turned into ethanol, and the byproduct—distillers grain—is processed and fed to the cattle.
Then, the cattle’s waste is processed and used as a biofuel for the ethanol plant. There will be large cost savings realized from this resource sharing and localized production, not to mention reduced emissions, according to Kapell.
“For every dairy cow in the Bion system, there’s a reduction of about 220 pounds of nitrogen a year,” Kapell said.
There are many strategic advantages to operating in Oswego County, he noted.
He cited 50 million people living in a 300-mile radius of the area, many of whom are interested in a system that reduces waste and has easier meat “traceability.” Shipping by way of the Port of Oswego Authority would lower costs, and 250,000 acres of fallow cropland could be used for local cattle development, he said.
As for local benefits, Kapell projects a total of 600 jobs created by the project, with nearly 200 of those leading to more than $8 million in annual wages. Approximately 400 indirect jobs for cattle processing would also be created.
L. Michael Treadwell, executive director of OOC, recently said the project is in the preliminary stages of assessing a possible location in Oswego County.
He said the project will not be implemented in 2010 but ideally a determination will be made as to potential site or sites the complex could be located in.
Site selection would then be followed by structuring financing for the project, Treadwell noted.
Earlier attempts at this project in the state have had problems. According to a recent report in The Post-Standard in Syracuse, Bion’s attempt to open a similar facility in St. Lawrence County was halted after county legislators and community members felt their questions weren’t being addressed.
Kapell said the project hadn’t progressed enough by that point to provide the specifics they were looking for.
Kapell said Bion will be “transparent to the community and responsive to the press.” He said a Web site—bionoswegoproject.com—has information, news reports, and a forum for posting questions.
The project has a long way to go before it breaks ground. Discussions are under way with the Sunoco ethanol plant in Volney and with state government officials. Bion also is waiting for a multi-year study by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is making sure that Bion’s pilot project in the Chesapeake Bay area actually reduces waste emissions.
Still, Kapell says he is confident this will be a “win-win” situation.
“We’ve developed a technology to significantly reduce the environmental footprint of raising livestock,” Kapell said. “Doing well by doing good—that’s what we hope to do.”
Support for Bion’s project gained impetus late last year when it received the unanimous support of the Schroeppel Town Board for development of the project. Schroeppel is home to the Oswego County Industrial Park located off Interstate 481.
