Box Elder eyes Shoshone biofuel plan

BRIGHAM CITY — Box Elder County commissioners approved a letter Tuesday to the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation expressing interest in a project to reduce the footprint of the Little Mountain landfill.

"The county is always interested in new ideas for increasing the efficiency of county operations with the potential to reduce the tax burden on our citizens," the letter states.

According to the letter, commissioners are interested in exploring an agreement that would allow the county and the Shoshone Economic Development Corp. to jointly own a project that would be sited at Little Mountain, where the county's landfill is located.

The project would allow the two parties to share revenues and reduce the landfill's footprint over time, while qualifying as a renewable-energy project that could qualify for energy or carbon credits.

Michael Devine, the corporation's chief operating officer, said Little Mountain is historically significant to the tribe, and a small biofuel facility there would reduce the garbage.

The facility would generate revenue for the corporation, and the county would likely receive tipping fees at its landfill if the right kinds of waste streams could be attracted to the area, said Commissioner Rich VanDyke.

The letter also states that while the county is interested in further discussions with the Shoshone group, the county plans to wait until its membership in the Northern Utah Regional Landfill Authority is officially terminated, something that may not happen until October.

In April, commissioners ratified their decision to leave NURLA — which originally wanted to renovate the Little Mountain landfill for future use by Davis, Weber, Box Elder and Cache counties — because of an apparent conflict of interest.

But voters in November turned down a proposal to sell the landfill to NURLA.

"The people of Box Elder County have spoken with a very loud voice that we are not going to sell our landfill," VanDyke said Tuesday.

Devine said the tribe has also purchased a site, known as the Promontory landfill, near the Union Pacific rail line that crosses the Great Salt Lake. That site will be home to a large waste-to-energy facility, which would produce electricity through the gasification of municipal waste.

The nearby rail line would allow the corporation to ship waste to the yet-to-be-built facility and railroad ballast out from a nearby quarry the tribe also owns.

It plans to sell electricity to Riverside and Anaheim, Calif.

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