The Diacarbon pellet plant is looking to gain public support as its owners inch closer to operating their Priest Avenue location.
Once up and running, the facility in Merritt will produce wood pellets and biocoal, which is a type of charcoal produced from the same material as wood pellets.
On Friday, the company held an open house where people got to meet Diacarbon employees, ask questions and learn a little more about the facility.
Ministry of Environment meteorologist Ralph Adams attended the open house and told the Herald the number one concern he heard raised from people there was in regards to fugitive dust — airborne particles that could be stirred up directly or indirectly from human activity.
Diacarbon president Jerry Ericsson said although there will be an impact on Merritt’s air quality from the plant, that impact will be a small one.
“We are going to be the cleanest pellet plant in the province,” he said, noting Diacarbon has spent millions to do so.
He said their low-temperature dryer is the first of its kind in Canada and is 16 times cleaner than a typical pellet plant dryer.
“We’re trying to do everything possible that we can to make this the lowest impact processing plant in British Columbia,” Ericsson said.
“We understand this is a sensitive airshed and we’ve addressed that with technology,” he said.
The company stated the Merritt facility is designed with the community’s air quality in mind. Owners say they plan to mitigate the amount of dust that enters the atmosphere by having pellet pressing and biocoal production done indoors.
Storage of the wood fibre and mixing will be done in an enclosed area to separate dust from the atmosphere as well.
City of Merritt air quality committee member Richie Gage told the Herald he was impressed with the plant itself and its state-of-the art equipment, particularly the belt dryer they will be using to dry wood fibre in pellet and biocoal production.
Diacarbon says the particulate matter the belt dryer emits is less than what a more common drum dryer produces.
Gage said the amount of PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter which humans can breathe in) this plant will put into the
air appears to be minor.
“Put it this way, do we need more? No. However, there are a lot of pluses to this plant,” he said, noting the plant will be processing the wood waste that otherwise would be trucked out of the valley.
Gage said his main concern is the amount of dust that will be produced in the process of loading and trucking the wood waste to and from the mills to the biomass facility. He pointed out the nearby locations of Aspen Planers and Tolko as a positive.
Ericsson said his company is intent on hiring a predominantly local workforce and has had a lot of interest from Merrittonians who want to work at the plant.
“Our intention is to hire as many locals as possible,” he said.
He also said about 15 of the 17 workers hired for the construction phase are locals.
Once operational, the facility will have about 25 permanent job openings, Ericsson said.
The open house was held in the facility’s sawdust storage area and more than 66 people stopped in, Diacarbon employee Lyndsey Rosevear said.
She said not everyone signed in and she thinks about 85 people in total stopped by for the open house.
