After 18-month moratorium, Madison County finalizes biomass regulation
MARSHALL - Madison County has been working to solidify its regulation of biomass facilities for 18 months, but the county just finalized its work in forming those guidelines.
On April 9, the Madison County Board of Commissioners voted to approve the Madison County Planning Board's recommended changes to the county Land Use Ordinance relating to biomass facilities.
The Planning Board met March 19 to hear feedback from residents, who encouraged the board to home in on energy production in its definition of such facilities.
In the recommended changes, the ordinance defines a biomass facility as a facility that converts biomass sources into energy or wood pellets for public or private use.
"Biomass includes, but is not limited to, wood and wood processing waste, wood pellets, agricultural crops, and waste materials, biogenic materials in municipal solid waste, animal manure, and human sewage," the ordinance reads.
Development Services Director Brad Guth outlined the recommendations to the commissioners in the April 9 meeting.
"Under our definition, wood pellets, and converting any of those biomass materials to energy would be biomass," Guth said. "So, that's the only two things that biomass is regulating in within this particular ordinance, and that's changed at this last Planning Board meeting. One of the changes we made was to restrict all the different things like compost facilities that could have been regulated, or were regulated as it was before, sawmills and those types of things, they're not regulated in this.
"Wood pellets, if they produce them, that would be regulated in this, yes."
While both large and small facilities will require a special use permit, large biomass facilities will be relegated to solely Industrial zones, while small or temporary biomass facilities can be approved for a special use in Agricultural-Open Space (AO), Residential Agriculture (RA), Commercial (C) or Retail Business (RB) districts. Each biomass facility will go before the Board of Adjustment for a special use permit, and the Board of Adjustment will consider compatibility, public health and safety, environmental impact, traffic and parking and neighborhood impact in its standards.
Large vs. small
The Planning Board recommended in Chapter 3 of the Land Use Ordinance the county distinguish between large and small biomass facilities.
The four criteria that will distinguish between large and small facilities will be annual biomass throughput, energy production, the number of employees and the facility's capital investment threshold.
Large
With the new recommended changes, a large facility will be defined as a facility that meets any one of the following four criteria:
Annual biomass throughput higher than 5,000 metric tons of biomass per year.
Energy production: A large biomass facility generates more than 10,000 MWh or more energy annually.
Number of employees: A large biomass facility has more than 50 employees.
Investment: A large biomass facility requires an investment of more than $5 million.
Small
A small biomass facility process under 5,000 metric tons of biomass per year, or;
A small biomass facility generates less than 10,000 MWh of energy annually, or;
A small biomass facility has under 50 employees, or;
A small biomass facility requires an investment of less than $5 million.
A number of residents offered public comments with suggestions for the regulations.
Carl Batchelder, a Redmon resident, suggested the board make changes to allow small biomass facilities to be zoned Industrial.
Elaine Robbins and Jim Tibbetts, both of Marshall, urged the board to look at changing the language on the small biomass facilities listing, as the "or" qualifying the criteria could lead to confusion in interpreting the definition.
"The small biomass facility, if it ends with 'or' on the different clauses, if you had a large one with a few employees, you have defined it as both a large and a small one, which would be confusing," Robbins said. "If you change all the 'ors' under the definition of a small biomass facility, then everything that's large from one of them will be large, and if it's all small, it would be small."
Robbins also recommended the board formulate a definition for a temporary biomass facility.
All three residents thanked the Planning Board for their willingness to hear feedback from the community.
Board of Commissioners Chair Matt Wechtel said he agreed with Robbins on the temporary biomass definition.
"It does seem logical that if we define large biomass facility and a small biomass facility and we don't define what is a temporary biomass facility - and i'm not exaclty sure what a temporary biomass facility would be," Wechtel said. "Let's say I go to the local fast food shack and get their oil and convert into diesel fuel for my tractor. Is that a temporary biomass facility, is that small biomass, what is that?"
According to Guth, if a resident goes to a site and converts a biomass source into energy on a site, that would constitute a temporary facility.
"For example, there's a co-generator that you could use at a sawmill, for instance," Guth said. "That would be where the byproduct of the saw mill is sawdust, that you would put into this co-generator, and it would generate energy and heat. That could be a temporary biomass facility. It could also be a permanent."
Commission Vice Chair Michael Garrison said he felt Robbins' point about the interpretation of the language in the small biomass facility definition was worth a discussion as well.
"I think it's worth a discussion on the 'and/or.' It does appear that it would open up a box of discussion that you meet one of those, but you don't have to meet them all," said Garrison, who encouraged Guth to speak to his reading on the criteria.
"Well, that's not exactly something that I — of course Elaine had talked to me about it — but I'm not sure that I interpreted it the same way as she did," Guth said. "What my understanding of how it was presented was, if it doesn't meet any of those four items for a large biomass facility, then it would be a small biomass facility."
Garrison and Wechtel said they agreed with Batchelder's recommendation to change the language to include Industrial zoning for small biomass facilities.
"At the very least, it should be an option," Wechtel said. "There's no reason to prevent it from being an option is what I'm better stated in saying."
Action taken
The board made a number of amendments to the Planning Board's recommendations.
The Board of Commissioners voted to scrap temporary facilities from the Land Use Ordinance altogether. Additionally, the board voted to include Industrial zoning for mall biomass facilities.
The board voted to keep the small biomass facility criteria intact, after Garrison and Commissioner Jeremy Hensley said they were in favor of keeping the "ors" in the listed criteria.
"If it captures one with the 'ors' then it's going to be a small biomass facility, in my opinion," board attorney Donny Laws said.
"What would that would do, is it would make more uses subject to a small biomass facility. I think it would expand the use of the ordinance if you make it 'or.' You just need one of them to come subject to the ordinance."
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Per a question from Commissioner Jeremy Hensley about local farmers facing regulation, Guth said farm and agricultural uses are typically exempt from zoning ordinances in North Carolina.
Garrison lauded Guth's work on the regulation.
"It needed to be dealt with, and I appreciate all those who are involved in bringing forth, I may eat my words down the line, but what seems like to be a pretty cut and dry but very condensed ordinance that doesn't impact an extremely large number of entities and focuses on where most people's concerns are," Garrison said.
"I'm glad that those last few meetings sound like they were hugely productive."
Guth reminded the board and residents that the ordinance can be amended as needed.
"Just like our noise ordinance was amended, and things that we thought were perfect and fine, we realized situationally that things could change, so we can amend it," Guth said.
Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for three years. He earned a first-place award in beat news reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: After 18-month moratorium, Madison County finalizes biomass regulation