As was indicated in a blog post yesterday, Fibrowatt undertook siting evaluations in Georgia so that it would be able to move forward in a timely fashion with power purchase agreement discussions. During this site evaluation process, as often happens with projects of this size and visibility, the public began to ask questions and form opinions on how such a facility would fit in their community.

To help explain the benefits of a Fibrowatt facility and to provide answers to questions that have been raised by local residents, Fibrowatt scheduled a public meeting for today in Hart County, Georgia. This is similar to the Open House approach Fibrowatt has used in the past with projects it has developed elsewhere. While the Hart County meeting was subsequently called off when development efforts were suspended in Georgia, it is still helpful to look a little closer at the questions and answers that are important to a potential host community.

As can be seen on this website and the Fibrowatt website, Fibrowatt tries to answer the questions of concern to a host community. Though it is hoped that these answers are helpful, sometimes it is also important for people to get a third party answer to these questions. It is on this basis that we would like to share a communication between a resident in Hart County, Georgia and a resident of Benson, Minnesota that has gone through the whole development process. As you will see, the experience with a Fibrowatt plant is far different than the suspicions people seem to initially have about such a facility.

In December 2000, when Fibrowatt and the City of Benson first announced that a plant would be built in Benson, Minnesota, it was agreed that the local community needed to be a key part of the process. In a similar way to what was done with plants in England, Fibrowatt asked the City of Benson to put together a Citizens Advisory Panel (CAP) to help involve the whole community in the process. The Benson CAP was chosen by the City of Benson so that the project could reach out to a majority of the community – through key members of its community network. This CAP first began holding meetings in April 2001 and has remained active since its inception. During nearly ten years of existence, CAP members have been involved in the initial development, permitting, financing, design, construction, and now operation of the Fibrominn Biomass Power Plant.

On July 11th, a resident of Hart County reached out to the members of the Fibrominn CAP and it would appear might have been expecting a negative response on the Benson plant. While we are not sure if other CAP members responded to the request, Fibrowatt was eventually forwarded a communication between one of the CAP members and a resident of Hart County. While we would suggest that the whole communication is worth reading, it is the closing paragraph that begs repeating. As stated by the CAP member:

“I believe that Fibrominn has been a win-win operation for Benson. There are not significant downsides from what I can tell. Call me delusional. But I’m glad that Benson was fortunate enough to be selected to host the plant here.”

While we recognize that a community will have a lot of questions about a project like Fibrowatt’s – we just wish more importance was placed on actual facts and the opinion of a community like Benson that has actually gone through the whole process.