The Three Oaks Planning Commission has again tabled an energy company’s request to build a renewable natural gas plant that’s drawn opposition from its rural neighbors.
Houston-based Archaea Energy, the world’s largest renewable natural gas producer and a subsidiary of BP, wants to build the plant across Basswood Road from the closed Forest Lawn Landfill. The plant would convert methane gas from the landfill’s decomposing trash into liquid or compressed natural gas, which powers specially designed vehicles like most of Transpo’s buses.
People who live near the site fear such a plant’s noise and lights would ruin the area’s rural feel and lower their property values. The plan commission also tabled the item at its February meeting.
Janice Muhr and her husband live within a few hundred feet of the site. Her change.org petition has gathered more than 300 signatures, and she’s distributed yard signs that say “NO LANDFILL GAS PLANT.”
At an Open House last week, Archaea officials vowed changes in an attempt to win over opponents. They offered to build a 20-foot sound wall around three sides of the plant, and to install only downward-facing lighting.
Muhr says she welcomed the spirit of the changes but they don’t go far enough. She says Archaea should establish maximum light and sound levels that will be measurable so that neighbors can hold them accountable.
"That would be like buying something and you're told that it is a certain size, and you get the thing and it isn't a certain size, and you have nothing in writing to support the fact that they told you it was going to be this certain size," Muhr said. "You have no recourse. That's what we're talking about."
