Warkworth – Using advanced technology and patents of its own making, Bio Balance is seeking approval to operate an organic fertilizer facility at the site of the old Warkworth cheese factory on County Road 25.

Nine months into the process the company is waiting on a certificate of approval from the Ministry of Environment.

“We know people living here will have questions and that is why we are having a public open house,” said Don Carr, president of Bio Balance.

It will be held at the Warkworth Legion Feb. 9 from 4 to 7 p.m.

“The focus around Warkworth seems to be on the fact that the site we are using is the old whey pond – the wastewater – for the old cheese factory that closed about 20 years ago,” Carr said.

“Yes, that is the property we are going to use, but we are not going to use it as a whey pond. It’s actually the site for the composting operation and so that’s the application we’ve made to MOE, to be permitted to do composting on that site,” he explained.

“Composting has been around for thousands of years but the technology is here today to be able to do it with better quality controls.”

For Carr and his business partners Don Cooper, president of Simpson Environmental Corporation, and Bob Novitsky, an engineer and MIT grad who lives in Ottawa, the business is “sophisticated, high end” and one that makes use of each of their talents.

Simpson Environmental is a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of air and water treatment products and systems and is providing the technology for the composting operation (www.bio-balance.ca).

Novitsky, whose focus “has been on nasty stuff that needs to be remediated” – he’s worked “on removing radiation from old ships that were used in the war in Kosovo” – holds the patents Bio Balance will be using to make the fertilizer,” Carr said.

“I need to make it clear that we are not in the waste business, we are in the fertilizer business. Our core business is fertilizer and in order to get there our process is using our patents we have developed and composting is a step in the process to make good organic fertilizer.”

The company’s target markets are golf courses and landscapers.

Responding to questions put to the MOE by Jim Peters, director of planning for the Municipality of Trent Hills, Carr hopes to fill in the blanks with some answers of his own.

For example, when asked what materials will be composted, he said a large portion will be agricultural waste from farm operations (mainly poultry), processed organic waste, industrial organic residue (food processing, treatment process sludges) as well as wood-based waste such as leaves, grass clippings, twigs, sawdust, woodchips and so on.

Hazardous, toxic, pathological, sewage and radioactive wastes will not be permitted.

“There are about 75 successful composting operations in Ontario regulated by the MOE using similar organic based feedstocks,” Carr said. Several of the newest operations are covered aerobic static pile operations similar to the one proposed for Warkworth.

“Our plant will have no impact on ground water and no impact on water courses in the vicinity,” he explained. The pipe line feeding the former lagoon will be capped.

“If this was coming into my community I would want to know what is it going on, what does it mean to my water, air, smell, or traffic caused by trucks – will it be ugly and will property values go down,” said Carr.

“And that is why we are holding the open house to have anyone come and ask us these questions and any others they might have.”

Acknowledging the major potential impact for compost operations is odour, Carr said that Bio Balance will be using a carbon-balanced recipe that diminishes the potential for odours from the start of the process.

“In addition an advanced composting system using negative air pressure on the ‘covered’ compost piles and controlled turning of the piles will also mitigate this concern.

“Finally, separation distances from Sensitive Receptors significantly exceed the guidelines (MOE),” he said.

In its first year of operation the company plans on producing 300 tonnes of organic fertilizer for sale but the capacity of the operation is approximately 8,000 tonnes.

“That’s a business that is very significant for the community,” Carr said. The overall cost of this venture, for operation of both the plant (fertilizer finishing) and the compost site is close to $1.5 million,” he said.

And the business will create jobs.

The company hopes to be employing around 10 people by the end of its first year in operation – sales people, office staff and people to do the bagging, blending and running of the composting operation.

“We are going to live in the community and we want to be a part of it. We want to understand the public’s perceptions,” Carr said. “Hopefully, ours will be a business the community will be proud of.”

Kim MacNeil, chair of the Warkworth Business Association, said the association plans to attend next week’s presentation.

“We want to make sure anything that what comes into the community won’t be a detriment to the businesses in the community.

“There can be kneejerk reactions and personally I have a concern, but I don’t have enough information either. Anything that would hurt businesses would be a concern for us.”