Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call this meeting to order. And please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, if you can.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. If we could get roll call, please.

Commissioner Watts?

Here.

Commissioner Jewell, here. Commissioner Dahlgren, here. Commissioner Runtine, here. Commissioner Johnson, here. Commissioner Alves is absent. Commissioner Beckler, here.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's Planning Commission hearing. Today's meeting is open to both in-person and virtual participation and may be also viewed online through the Placer County website. If you would like to make a public comment on any item today, the planning commission clerk will announce when it's time for the comment for that particular item. For those participating via zoom, please use the raise hand feature at the bottom of the screen. If you're calling in by phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand. When you are prepared to speak, when I open public comment for that specific item, please note that public comment does include matters not on today's published agenda as well as the individual hearing items. Each speaker is allowed up to three minutes to provide comment and you will have one opportunity to do so for each item. Thank you for your cooperation. We like to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to share their comments. Please be advised that today's meeting is being recorded and will be available on the Planning Commission webpage following the hearing. So with that, we will move on to our consent agenda, which we have one item, item number two, which is minutes from the Planning Commission's August 27, 2026 meeting. Is there any commissioner that wanted to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion? I see none. Do we have anyone from the public that would like to remove an item from the consent agenda? I see no one in person. Anyone online?

No hands raised.

Okay. Seeing none, if I could entertain a motion for this item.

Motion to approve.

I have a first.

Second.

Second. Can we get roll call, please?

Rentin?

Yes.

Jewell? Yes. Watts? Yes. Dahlgren?

Yes.

Johnson? Yes. Beckler?

Yes. Great. Next item on our agenda is the county planning director Chris Pooley to provide a report. Good morning, Chris.

Good morning, Chair Beckler, Commissioners, Chris Pahuli, Placer County Planning Director. I have a few updates for you this morning that are contained on your report that's being distributed to you. I want to start with just an update for items that were previously heard by the Board of Supervisors since your last meeting and also upcoming items. Earlier this week, the board took up the Community Development Resource Agency's fee schedules, including the planning fee schedule. They considered the item, generally were in support of the revisions to the fee schedule, including a number of new fees for activities that we previously were not charging for, and increases to keep up with the cost of doing business to both our flat fees and our deposits for our time and materials or at-cost projects. I should also mention there were increases proposed to appeal fees, both appeals to the Planning Commission as well as appeals to the Board of Supervisors. Included in the fee schedule was a request to establish a general plan maintenance fee. So it would be a surcharge on building permits that would then build up a fund to be used to undertake future general plan updates or implementation of general plan. activities such as the housing element updates every eight years as well as safety element updates and other other related activities. The board expressed interest in removing that that surcharge from the fee schedule and so they continued the item until September 22nd where we'll return with that item removed and ask the board for consideration of the fee schedules. Also upcoming to the board on October 6th is the county's application for a pro-housing designation. I'll spend a couple of minutes on that later in this report and talk through that. But again, October 6th is when it's scheduled to be before the board. And then also wanted to mention on October 20th, we are planning to bring forward the Snow Museum and Community Cultural Center item to the board. That meeting will be in Tahoe and as a reminder that item was heard by the Planning Commission on August 27th and you unanimously recommended approval of that entitlement package to the board. As far as upcoming Planning Commission meetings on September 24th we are anticipating four items on that agenda including THE ALCHEMY SURF PARK IN THE PLACER RANCH SPECIFIC PLAN AND A BICKFORD DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT AMENDMENT. I SHOULD NOTE CHAIR BECKLER IS GOING TO BE ABSENT FROM THAT MEETING. VICE CHAIR RONTINE WILL BE CHAIRING THAT MEETING. OCTOBER 15TH WE ARE ALSO LOOKING AT FOUR ANTICIPATED ITEMS INCLUDING bringing back the two zoning text amendment packages that were continued by the Planning Commission on group homes and the package related to emergency shelters and low barrier navigation centers. Also at that meeting, I'm anticipating that we will bring forward a legislative update. In the past, the Planning Commission has asked for an update on new bills that are signed into law and we're anticipating TO HAVE A PRESENTATION FROM OUR GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DIRECTOR AT THAT MEETING. ON OCTOBER 29TH, WE'RE LOOKING AT THREE ANTICIPATED ITEMS, INCLUDING AN UPDATE TO THE HEALTH AND SAFETY ELEMENT THAT WILL BE THE FOURTH AND FINAL GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2026. Just a couple of other updates. I mentioned the pro housing designation application is going to the board on October 6. I've included a link on your report for the web page for our pro housing designation application. If you were to click on that link or go to that link, it includes the draft application. It also has the presentation materials from a September 1st virtual community meeting that we held where we discussed the application and received public comment. ALSO WANTED TO NOTE THAT WE CONTINUE ON WITH OUR TOUR OF ALL OF THE MUNICIPAL ADVISORY COUNCILS RELATED TO OUR PLACER 2050 GENERAL PLAN UPDATE. WE'VE ATTENDED ALL OF THE MACS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE HORSESHOE BAR PIN RUN MAC WHICH IS SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER 22. I'VE ALSO NOTED HERE THAT WE HAVE SCHEDULED THE COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS WHERE WE WILL BE REVIEWING LAND USE AND STARTING TO PREPARE FOR OUR LAND USE ALTERNATIVES FOR THE GENERAL PLAN. THOSE COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS ARE LISTED ON THE REPORT FOR YOUR USE AND INTEREST IF YOU'RE ABLE TO ATTEND. I also wanted to note that your next quarterly report is going to be provided on October 29th at that meeting. And then lastly, I wanted to mention that prior to this meeting, we received a few comment letters related to the Granite View condo project in Olympic Valley. As you're aware, the Planning Commission previously heard a public hearing to receive comments on the draft EIR. That final EIR is still in preparation, and that item will return to the Planning Commission once that is complete. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions from the Commission.

Thank you, Chris. Any questions?

Just a comment for you and Kelsey. I will be absent October 15th.

I will also be absent October 15.

OK. Thank you. So it sounds like we have two absences on the 24th and two absences on the 15th.

Okay, thank you. Well, thank you, Chris. All right, next up, planning commissioner reports. Does any one on the commission have any information to share that they'd like to share, comments, report?

Okay.

All right, moving on to open public comment. This is public comment period for matters that are not on today's Planning Commission agenda. As a reminder, each speaker will have three minutes to provide comments. Is there anyone in person that would like to make comment? I see none. Do we have anyone online? We have a hand raised.

Caller, go ahead and unmute your mic and give your comments.

Greetings, Commissioners. Diane Louise Alisi here from Christian Valley Park Community Services District, District 5. I'm asking the Commission to direct staff to create a pilot program that breaks the cycle of heavily subsidized developer-driven projects that drain taxpayer funds. The county already has the partners' needs, faith institutions, nonprofits, and land trust properties are ready to build upon. What they lack is the pathway. We asked the commission to establish a permanently affordable off-grid tiny home on wheels pilot, structured as a community land trust on existing either church or nonprofit land. This is not a request for an exempt no permit settlement. These sites can be prepared to meet every zoning, sanitation and fire requirement. Our ask is that the counties design a pilot that applies the same published criteria to smaller nonprofit controlled below 40% AMI projects currently reserved for large institutional developers who rarely produce them. In this model, the community holds the land and the residents own their homes through a transparent lease to own structure. This ensures long-term stewardship or skin in the game and deeper affordability than projects serving only moderate income households. We asked the Commission to direct county staff to build this pilot with existing partners. Specifically, we request a coordinated pre-application framework involving planning, environmental, health, fire, and economic development that produces written determinations on the THO zoning pathway and density limits Approval for engineered off-grid water and sanitation systems, eligibility for fee exemptions and housing trust fund criteria. Create the pathway, bring the partners to the table. Let ordinary landowners and nonprofits compete on equal terms. I appreciate your time, thank you. And of course, how would you live without me, you know?

Thank you for your comments, Diane. Do we have anyone else online?

No other hands raised.

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. That's seeing there's no other speakers. We will now move on to our hearing items for today. And that is item number one. This item is a conditional use permit for the Cabin Creek Biomass Facility project in the Tahoe area. The Planning Commission is the decision body for this item. And the staff presentation will be given by Principal Planner, Stacey Wydra. Good morning, Stacey.

Good morning, Chair Bechler and fellow planning commissioners. I'm happy to be here today. Yes, I am presenting the Cabin Creek Biomass Facility Conditional Use Permit. To quickly get you oriented as to where the project site is located, it is located in the Tahoe area, closer to Truckee, but specifically located at the Eastern Regional Landfill, which we may also refer to ERL, just to abbreviate it, located at 900 Cabin Creek Road. And as you can see here on the slide on the left, it is located in between Truckee and Olympic Valley as you head into Tahoe City. And then the picture on the right demonstrates the existing conditions of the site. It is where our landfill currently exists today, together with other service uses, such as our Department of Public Works facilities and so forth. And so the project site is designated by our general plan as agricultural timberland with an 80 acre minimum lot size. And then the zoning is forestry with a combining special purpose zone district. The Conditional Use Permit considered before you today is to establish a biomass utilization and biochar production facility at the ERL complex. We'll go into more details on that. And just before I dive into the specifics, we do have kind of a two-part presentation where I will go into the entitlement and the environmental review, but Jared Deck, the Deputy Director of The Department of Public Works in Tahoe will go into more of the specifics of the actual biochar production facility itself. So the conditional use permit is to consider that utilization in the biochar production facility utilizing a kiln-based noncombustion thermal conversion technology to process locally sourced biomass and other eligible organic materials. into renewable products. And again, Jared will go into more of those specifics. The project has been designed to be in compliance with the Placer County Air Pollution Control District, among many other environmental requirements. And then the project itself also supports the wildfire protection and the biomass utilization program. So specifically focusing on the reduction of wildfire risk, Protect residents and property. Promote beneficial reuse of that excess biomass. And then improve air quality through the alternatives of open burning. Again, which Jared will go into more of those specifics. So the project is designed in two phases. The first phase would be the construction of 30 modular kilns. The associated on-site improvements and then some 4800 square foot building and then a some processing facility accessory uses on-site as well. And then Phase 2, contingent upon the success of Phase 1 and subsequent to discretionary approvals and environmental review, the expansion up to 60 kilns could be considered. An additional of 30 more kilns. And then with the potential addition of the energy recovery systems to capture and utilize the Cinegas which is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in various ratios to generate heat, electricity and other beneficial uses. So I want to highlight a few key project features which this project could bring if approved. So air quality. The project has been designed to comply with all of the Placer County Air Pollution Control District requirements plus state law. And then also this implements a control for fugitive dust, material handling, vehicle activity, etc. With regards to feedstock and materials, they are sourced primarily from the ERL operations, which then in turn reduces transportation distances and costs to have to take this material elsewhere. And so that is an environmental benefit as well. The facility also processes non-merchantable biomass, so including forest slash fire mitigation debris, pine needles, pallets, and so forth, diverting that material out of our landfills. So again, you can see somewhat of the benefit here. Climate benefits, it's a controlled environment through these kilns versus an open burning, which then in turn reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Phase one, as I mentioned, would focus on the biochar production. And then phase two would potentially incorporate the energy recovery systems for the beneficial use of that sin of gas that is generated. And then feedstock transportation, the priority is to locally source the biomass. And so it could reduce the transportation distances of getting that, you know, how it's currently done today while also providing an additional beneficial use option for those materials generated out of our forest floors and wildfire risk reduction activities. And so the production of biochar does have the potential for other renewable and beneficial use products Again, Jared will go into all this but I just have a few listed here soil amendment water infiltration environmental remediation and so forth and then I just want to highlight though that the this conditional use permit does not authorize the disposal sale of or use of products in a manner inconsistent with the applicable federal, state, regional, or local requirements. So the project was analyzed for consistency with all of our codes. And with this kind of use, there's quite a few. So I'll quickly jump into the general plan consistency. There's a few policies here that I thought I would just highlight of which it's consistent with. One policy, encourage, promote productive use of wood waste. And so that is in fact what this biomass facility is doing, or would do. And then the, and I won't read all these, but basically these two policies kind of combined really encourage the cooperation of working with other agencies and special districts, including the fire districts, while also managing and coordinating the forest fuels that come out of the forest. And again, Jared will go into some further details on a task force that has been created. And then with regards to the zoning, it is zoned forestry with a combining special purpose district. The project does comply with the zoning allowed land uses through this consideration of this conditional use permit. We have not found any adverse impacts that would otherwise require a denial of this conditional use permit. And it's also been determined that it is compatible with the surrounding land uses of which you kind of saw in that aerial that I provided in one of my first slides. You know, again, solid waste and public works complex is really what's operated up at this site together with the ERL. But uniquely with the special purpose combining districts, the development standards such as setbacks can be considered differently than what the base zone district allows. And so the proposed setbacks do differ. from that base zone district of forestry. However, with that consideration of really trying to utilize existing land area up there that is in close proximity to similar land uses, so not to be incompatible, but at the same time really kind of reduce the expansion of that area of disturbance. The staff reviewed the proposed setbacks for this development that you see on this slide and has determined that due to the unique configuration of the area of which they're trying to occupy the site, the two existing road frontages, so Cabin Creek Road is off to the left, and then there's an access road that's just north of it that provides access to other existing land uses. So really trying to utilize existing disturbed and circulation that exists there. And so with that, the building placements and then the separation from the existing cell tower, which is right in here, while not disturbing its land use at all, it was determined that the reduced setbacks will not create a negative impact both in its design and or location. So we also had to look at our Placer County sustainability plan and determine whether or not it was consistent with that. And so to address climate change legislation, there are a number of executive orders, assembly bills, and senate bills, of which the sustainability plan was created, and that framework does look at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so GHG, while addressing energy, transportation, waste, forest health, and so forth. And so the project as designed is consistent with those strategies, including the increased renewable and carbon-free energy generation, that is what this land use is intended to do, reduce opportunities for cleared forest residue, so the biomass facility will accept and convert that residue into hopefully for future energy. And then it targets the statewide goals that are out there. And so with this project, it would reduce the disposal of organic waste. And then furthermore, it also, again, reduces and converts that woody biomass into other renewable uses. So the project was considered by your planning commission back in 2012 for a slightly different biomass facility. It was actually a gasification technology. That planning commission approval was appealed by the Center for Biological Diversity. And as a result of that appeal, an addendum was prepared to the EIR that was prepared for that project. to address the items of the appeal. And then in May of 2013, the Board of Supervisors denied the appeal and approved the, or I should say certified the EIR and the addendum and approved the project as designed back in 2013. Unfortunately, that project never got off the ground. And so we are here now before you today in 2026 with a different technology that again, Jared will go into more of those specifics But we have prepared an addendum to that 2013 EIR for your consideration today. So moving into CEQA compliance, the current project proposes, you know, slight, like I said, some modifications to what was originally proposed. But that was all reviewed and analyzed in the addendum prepared for 2013. the project that's before you today. And then through that process, it was also further confirmed that the addendum was the appropriate environmental document. to satisfy and consider all of the resource categories. Not only that we're considered with the original certified EIR, but a lot more new resource categories have been introduced since 2013. And so we ensured that all of those, so all of the environmental impacts that we're dealing with today were considered with this addendum. And so then it was further determined that all identified impacts will remain less than significant with the incorporated existing and amended mitigation measures which are contained in your packet. And so be, and then We had a community meeting. This project site is actually located outside of a MAC boundary, so a little bit unconventional. We didn't go to OVMAC or anything like that, but instead we hosted a virtual community meeting on April 23rd, 2026. And while we received general support for the project, we did hear concerns related to air emissions. Again, further vetted out in the addendum. The consideration or maybe more or less the discussion about, you know, where are these proposed biomass facilities going? How many are there? So, you know, are we conflicting kind of thing with those existing facilities and or proposed ones? The long-term fuel supply and then the overall sustainability of this facility. and its operations. And so before I get to my recommendation, I do want to acknowledge that we received comments from MAP, Mountain Area Preservation, this morning. I want to cover a couple of their concerns. So I'm not sure if you guys were able to read it, but there's three paragraphs. So I'm just going to kind of take it, you know, first point, second point, third point. And so the first point is with regards to, and I'll just summarize, like trips, truck trips. And while SB 743 specifically focuses on passenger vehicles, commercial trucks are not necessarily required to be. analyzed and essentially are exempt and so it's our understanding that the intent is to ensure commerce in the state of California relative to these kind of commercial type uses and so I do want to stress though that the truck trips do still have to adhere to traffic impacts and air quality pollution control district requirements And then the second point or the second paragraph I will defer to Jared I think he will be able to answer that through his his presentation and So I won't go into any of those details just to not confuse you guys. And then the third point or the third paragraph, while condition number one does require phase two to require supplemental environmental review and further discretionary approvals, I understand it may not necessarily be that clear. So we're happy to modify that language if if your commission sees that it should be warranted. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and ask that the Planning Commission consider the Cabin Creek Biomass Facility Project and take the following actions. A, adopt an addendum to the previously certified Cabin Creek Biomass Facility Project Final EIR, or Environmental Impact Report, State Clearinghouse Number 2011-12-2032. prepared pursuant to Section 15164 of the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines and Section 18.20.110 of the Placer County Environmental Review Ordinance, and approve a conditional use permit to construct and operate a biomass facility that converts locally sourced forest vegetation, woody biomass, and other organic waste materials into biochar and other renewable products using kiln-based noncombustion thermal technology subject to the recommended conditions of approval and based on the findings contained in the staff report. So that concludes my part. I will now turn it over to Jared.

And then Stacey, are there any quick questions for Stacey on land use or planning that anyone has before Jared? Not yet? Okay. Thank you, Stacey.

Okay, thank you. All right. Good morning, Chair Beckler, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Jared Deck. I'm the Deputy Director for Placer County Public Works. I'm happy to present the second portion of this presentation directly kind of focused on the actual... Here, let me move this forward. the project itself. So within this project has been a long process. So definitely appreciate the help of Stacey, of Lee, of Chris to get through this process and get us to this point. As I'll talk through, this project has been a longstanding project. It's been a long priority for the county. And so we're happy to have it at this point now. um really the goal of this project is to reduce catastrophic wildfire as a part of the placer county hazard mitigation plan that's one of our highest priorities to reduce catastrophic wildfire and that risk to loss of lives loss of structure within the county and so the main focus of this project is to alleviate some of that and to help find outlets and have opportunities to utilize that biomass in a positive manner within the county within our local region And so within that, I'll talk through the presentation. My goals are to talk through the existing outlets for biomass right now, our existing biomass that's available in the forest, and talk through the project. So history, it's very long. This project was originally started in 2008, so a substantial amount of time that has gone into getting us to this point. The original project was proposed in Kings Beach, and they were looking at that as an alternative and then shifted and moved this to Eastern Regional Landfill since it was already an industrial site. Stacey went through the planning and zoning for it. So it was a good opportunity to utilize this site and this opportunity where there's already wood waste there and there's availability next to some existing facilities like the regional transit facility, our roads facility. the Eastern Regional Landfill Solid Waste Sorting Facility, so an industrial area where we could utilize this site for that. Like she mentioned, in 2013, the EIR was officially approved, and in 2017, the Placer County Board put it on hold, just with uncertainty around the economic conditions of that site. Since that point, there's been a big shift in just the thought surrounding catastrophic wildfire and the impacts to the state with that as well. And so in 2022, we brought this back to the board to look at this alternative again, revitalize this project, see if there's another opportunity to bring this forward and have a good opportunity to established a biomass facility locally in the North Tahoe region. And so 2022, the board approved an evaluation of the current market for the existing project, which was the original EIR for a two megawatt energy production facility. Looking at that and then also opening up the opportunity, which the board gave us approval in 2024 for the release in RFP, our request for proposals to work and look if there's opportunities to have a partnership between a public-private entity and bring in some private agencies to really grow this and create a seismic shift in the opportunities to treat that wood waste and to create a model hopefully that can be sustained and move forward through the whole Sierras if this is positive and if this is beneficial for the county and the local region. So this slide, it's a little shifted there, but really wanted to focus on the impacts of wildfire. So in a relatively small fire compared to some of the larger fires that have happened throughout the state over the last, we'll say decade, The mosquito fire, which was local here. So that was right in our backyard that happened. Major impacts to our community, major issues, major destruction of our local forest. The emissions that that produced was a study done by the Pasco County Air Pollution Control District. So in a 14-day period, there was 3.7 million CO2 tons that were released just in that small amount of fire. So for all of Placer County, the whole yearly emissions are 4.2 million. So in a 14-day period, the amount of greenhouse gas that was released was equal to a full year of all the industrial uses, all the transportation within all of Placer County. So just to give you an impact of that fire that happened locally, major shift of what can happen just for one fire to substantially reduce all the efforts we're putting in to reducing greenhouse gases. So the more we can treat this, the more we can mitigate it before it gets to that point is really our goal out of this project. So then this is going to talk about our biomass that's available to us locally. And so we picked this kind of five-year window because it tells a really strong story about catastrophic wildfire and how it impacts our facilities and how green biomass was actually created during this point and increased. And so you can see 2015, 2016, 2017, there's a little bit of a jump between 2016 and 2017. Generally, before 2015, 2016, our total inbound, which is the bar on the left-hand side, the more purple one versus the pink one on the right-hand side, the purple one on the left-hand side is the inbound material coming into Eastern Regional Landfill. So that's a green waste being produced locally in the region that's actually being brought into the facility. And the pink bar is the local outlets. So the availability of outlets in the region that we can actually take that to. And I say locally, those are 200 mile round trips that we're taking this material to. So a major transportation route, a lot of greenhouse gases as we're transmitting that material. So nothing really local that we can utilize, but local as in our closest potential facility that can utilize that material. In 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, you can see that giant shift in the jump up of material coming into our facility. So if you remember history of the state and catastrophic wildfire 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, there were major catastrophic wildfires that happened during that period. And so there was a big shift politically as well as just locally to really treat our forest from that standpoint. Defensible space around homes, fire mitigation, forest treatments really started to happen on a regular basis because people realized catastrophic fire was a major issue for this region, for this state. And so we had this huge surge of biomass coming into our facility at Eastern Regional Landfill. And then our outlets, as you can see, that pink bar on the right-hand side, stayed about the same. And so there was no new existing facilities that were actually being brought online, but that discrepancy, that shortfall of the biomass material available, substantially jumped up. And so our goal of this project is to increase that bar on the right-hand side. The more we can create utilization for this biomass locally, the better and a better opportunity for our community, not just to ship it down the road and have other facilities utilize it. but use that locally for beneficial uses, whether it's heat, whether it's energy, whether it's biochar, whether it's something else. And that's really our goals out of this. And so we created the North Tahoe Biomass Task Force. And this is a group of agencies that really saw in the North Tahoe region this issue. And everybody was in agreement that catastrophic wildfire was a major issue. And so between the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, North Star CSD, Truckee Fire, County of Nevada, Placer County, Town of Truckee, we've also added Olympic Valley, Sugar Bowl as well into this group to really have a group that's talking about how to solve this issue, how to solve that big description, see that shortfall of this massive amount of available biomass with this very limited supply of outlets that we have. And so our goal out of this group and the task force was to share resources, come together, talk, share knowledge, and try to support each other in this effort to build additional biomass facilities locally. And so North Star, they're working on theirs. They have a biomass to heat facility that hopefully they'll go to construction next year, which will supply heat for a variety of their buildings. Sugar Bowl is looking at a biomass to energy plant on theirs to offset their energy demand. So really utilizing this material locally to have a positive effect on our local economy. Now the project. After we went out to RFP, we went through a whole bunch of different proposals. And the best proposal that we saw was working with Biochar Now, which is representing Dillon's in the crowd right now. We'll invite him up to just say something a little bit at the end here. But their technology was great. It was proven. They've been working in Colorado, just north of Denver, since 2011. So their technology has been around. It's been proven of exactly what they can do with it. And it's simple, which is great. And so a lot of the newer technologies, they were unproven. They had the opportunity to failure. This product and this technology has been around for over a decade now and is available. It's simple. It's great. And it's scalable, too. So we can have a phase approach where we can make sure this project is functional during the first phase and have the opportunity to expand it relatively easy with the infrastructure that we have and the site that we have available. So they have proven their technology through the air quality standards. They've also established already existing markets for the sale of their biochar nationwide. They're building facilities, I believe six other facilities throughout the US that they've already constructed. And so this would add into that overall network of biochar production, increasing their ability to hit larger markets. And then on the right-hand side is the site map of Eastern Regional Landfill. Just to give you kind of a little bit, I don't know how to do, oh, there we go, the fancy little circle thing. So site is at the bottom here where we're proposing the biomass facility. The building on the left-hand side is our solid waste diversion site there, so you have all the sorting of all the solid waste for North Tahoe. And then you can see this massive area at the top This is all the biomass that comes in and is processed here and is being shipped out. So it's a mixture of a variety of different things that are coming to the facility. So this is the proposed site plan that we're working through. BioChart now is working with Millennium, who's also in the crowd as well, to define the site and to set aside kind of what our opportunities are. And so a couple different renderings of the site itself. So a layout, which Stacey already kind of showed you in that first presentation, and then a rendering of what it will look like as we're building into this. So a large processing facility with administrative buildings there, covered storage for the biomass that they're going to be utilizing for that week. We'll be getting deliveries from Eastern Regional Landfill. And then on the right-hand side, on the bottom picture, you can see the proposed kilns, which I'll show you a better picture of in a couple minutes here. where they actually do the production. And so as Stacey mentioned, this is non-combustion. So this material is not getting burned. It is heated up at a very high rate in pretty much a vacuum, creating that biochar now. So there's no fire. There's no combustion in this process. Paralysis process which is great. So that helps with that emissions what I'll talk about in a second So on the site you can kind of see the layout as I mentioned before areas for processing for storage for the production and then an easy flow through utilizing the existing roads that we have Coming in having trucks be able to come in drop it off or pick up material as they're coming in and coming out of the existing structure So the technology. They have a patented kiln, which is great. And so like we talked about, this has been proven. It's been around since 2011. They use this under negative pressure, pretty much in a vacuum. It's a paralysis process, so no combustion. It's not burning in this process. It's just heated at a very high rate to produce biochar. And this biochar is a high quality. The main focus of this process is strictly produced biochar itself. Biochar is a general term that's utilized for a lot of different things. There's other biochar that's produced throughout the region from other facilities where it's more of a byproduct. So energy production, that biochar is not the same quality, it's a lesser quality versus process and the technology they're using here the sole focus is biochar and so the higher quality they're able to adapt properties through it so balancing the pH depending on how they want to produce it and what markets are going after they're able to change that based off of how they're actually moving through the process in these kilns. um, air quality. So this is a big point right here. Understanding what the impacts are to the community, what the longterm goals of this project are. So as I showed you that first slide, the emissions of one fire within the county, the major greenhouse gases that that produces. And so our goal is to reduce that and reduce that on an annual basis. And so the normal operating procedure for the forest service and some of these larger agencies, is open pile burning. It's the easiest, simplest, cheapest way to get rid of this biomass in the forest. And so you can see that top line, the emissions from that. And the second line is where the original biomass energy plant was. And then you can see that third line where Biochar Now is. And so the original project and the proposal of that substantially reduced that risk for open pile burning and those emissions. And then Biochar now actually stepped it up and, again, reduced that even further. So we are in a better spot, being able to have that proven technology, having this biomass being produced in a controlled environment and utilizing their we're able to reduce those emissions substantially. And one of the questions that Stacey mentioned from that letter that came in this morning was a question surrounding how we are categorizing which material we're utilizing and greenhouse gas offset as well for that. And so in the original EIR, what they proposed was 100% of that biomass was going to be either open pile burned or left somewhere in the forest. We put a buffer into that too in our greenhouse gas calculation, so we brought that down to 75% and built in the factor of about 25% either being masticated, left on site, which would create methane, or being brought to a landfill, creating methane. And so balancing that out, making sure we're creating a buffer in there for that greenhouse gas emission within the study. And so just a comparison, that bottom chart there is open pile burning versus our existing facility. First, open pile burning versus this proposed project, the NOx reduction is going to be 90%. So if you're up in Tahoe and you see a pile that's burning, you can see that smoke fill the basin, there's major issues with that. So to be able to take this to a controlled site and utilize it there, there's a huge reduction in emissions. So 90% of NOx is reduced by this process. 99.8% of VOCs are reduced. 99.7, pretty much 0.8% of PMTN is reduced. PM2.5, same thing. 99% of that is being reduced by taking this material and controlling that process and utilizing it locally is a great thing. And then not only are the air emissions being reduced, but then also the question of carbon. And so for every... ton of biochar that's being produced, they're able to sequester 3.5 tons of CO2, which is an amazing process. So this overall process is carbon negative, which is great. So it creates carbon credits too, which is also a marketable commodity for this partnership. The great part about their technology, they can use a variety of wood. So biomass, as it's coming out of the forest, there's kind of a portfolio of different biomass that's coming out. There's the larger timber, the larger trees. It's very merchantable. You can use that for lumber, and we want that to go to those lumber mills. There's that kind of mid-tier stuff that really has to go to some of the other facilities, like the energy production facilities or the heat facility at North Star. They have to use kind of a more refined, higher-grade material. For biochar now, they can use anything. They can use anything from that high-grade stuff all the way to the lower-grade stuff. Even burn trees, charred trees, beetle-kill trees, any of that stuff they can utilize, which is amazing. So out of that portfolio of biomass that's coming out of the forest, they can kind of cover that bottom tier that otherwise wouldn't be utilized. And so I think that's a great opportunity for this technology, and Biochar now is kind of a great way that they can complete that portfolio of biomass utilization and biomass outlets. Biochar, if you're not familiar with it, It's a carbon-dense product, so it's a great opportunity. It's highly absorbent, and that's one of the things we'll talk about in the markets. There's a great opportunity to utilize this in a variety of different mechanisms, and that the way it's absorbent is very special, and it handles very unique properties as well, and the PAS balance that they can do within their process to kind of hit these niche markets. And our goals. So no exact markets have been established yet for the facility. Obviously, once we get up and running and have product, then we'll hopefully be utilizing that. Our main goals are utilizing that locally. So we're working with the California Tahoe Conservancy to work through a pilot study of understanding how we can utilize that for storm treatment. And so that stormwater runoff, the main goals in Tahoe are having healthy forests and having a healthy lake. And so having this technology, having biochar produced locally, we can cover both those topics with one facility. And so our goal through that pilot study is to utilize this biochar and show that it's effective at treating that stormwater runoff in our basins, reducing our maintenance costs for the stormwater treatment units that we have in Kings Beach, along the North Shore for Placid County, as well as the other folks surrounding the lake, having those opportunities to utilize this biomass directly in the basin. So truly a green technology that utilizing treating our forest, cleaning our lake, a really green product that's absolutely amazing to have that circular economy built in already for this facility. Other great opportunities for the biochar, what they're selling into the current markets, runoff capture, so same thing, that very porous absorbent material, you can capture a lot of pollutants coming off of anything. So for ag use, anything like that, pollution remediation, oil wells, other opportunities, they're able to amend the soil, put that in there, it can capture pretty much any pollutants that are surrounding that area. So great opportunity there. Soil amendment. There's a large ag community in Placer County. So the more we can help that ag community, the more we can create better soils and stronger soils, the more crop yields they're going to have, the less water they're going to use, which is great. And so by amending the soil with biochar, you're actually reducing the demand of water, you're increasing crop yield as that soil gets healthier. So great opportunity for our local agricultural community, our vineyards, and also our golf courses too. So the more we treat our soil with biochar, the healthier that soil becomes, the more absorbent it is, the less water that's actually needed for our golf courses or those high usage areas. So another great market locally that we can utilize that for. We talked about water conservation, the rest of the stuff, carbon sequestering, so other markets that are available for this. And so really our goal for this project is to find those markets, establish those locally, and reduce that catastrophic wildfire risk. So with that, I'm going to invite Dylan up here, Dylan Vandermark. So he's a representative from Biochar Now. Just to make a quick statement.

Thank you, Jared.

Hello, commissioners. I'm Dylan Vandemark, operations manager for Biochar Now and the applicant for this project. I greatly appreciate your time in considering this and look forward to working with Placer County in the future for making this project happen. So thank you, and I'm here to answer any questions that you have.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and then I don't know if we open up to questions now or... Yeah, so I think we'll take questions from the commission around land use questions, technology questions, or if there's questions for the applicants that you guys have before we open it up to public comment. Go ahead, Rich.

Yeah, let me see. I have really probably several questions here. Let me see. A few years ago, At the Western Solid Waste Facility, there was a experimental proposal that came forward that involved what seems to be a similar process. Is this kind of a result of that, or similar, or?

So, yeah, very different process. So the company that was working with WAPMA, they had a different type of paralysis project, which is completely different than this. So under the giant umbrella of paralysis, they were... Technologies underneath that umbrella, but very very different processes overall That was going to produce oil That one. Yeah was producing potential kind of a yeah a thicker biochar oil where this is a Biochar product that's completely okay. Yeah, it was in a low oxygen So under the umbrella paralysis there were kind of similar technologies, but the projects are very different of what they're okay. I

Let me see, the previous proposal for this site was rather limiting on the suppliers that could be accepted, like residential land use wasn't allowed in the previous proposal. Is it allowed in this proposal?

Yes. So our goal is to utilize as much of that biomass material that's already coming into eastern region of Land O'Neill as possible. And so there's about 20,000 to 25,000 bone-dried tons that's already coming into the site. So utilizing all that material. So coming from our utility clearing, from defensible space clearing, from the Forest Service, a variety of those folks.

Okay. Yeah, that's important that the residential people have an outlet, too. Yeah. Let me see. I think you'd call it syngas. which is a byproduct of this. Yep.

How is it disposed of? So during the first phase, while we're establishing kind of this relationship and the project, the first phase is going to flare off that syngas. And so it's a product that we set aside within... Here, I'll pull the site plan again. Within the site plan, you can't quite see, it's a little blurred out, but in the center we set aside a portion of this parcel dedicated to advanced uses of synthetic gas. And so our goal is once the project is established, then down the road we can either utilize that synthetic gas for either energy, during the first phase they'll actually already be using it for heat capture, so as the heat is being flared off from these kilns, then they'll capture that heat and utilize it for drying the biomass or heating the building or doing other opportunities. So it will be partially used from the first phase. In the second phase, we're talking about opportunities of either utilizing it for energy production, additional heat, or other opportunities for synthetic gas use.

You said in the first phase it will be what now?

Heat capture. So they'll be utilizing, as they're flaring off, they're capturing that heat and then utilizing that heat for heating the building and drying the biomass.

Okay. And so I guess what I'm wondering is it's a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Right. So the byproduct of that would be what, water and CO2?

Yeah, and so you can see from the emission profile, there's not a lot of emissions that are coming off of it. So that synthetic gas is relatively benign.

It would be water and CO2 that would come off, okay. And then there was somewhere in the document I saw where there's a little bit of, we call Oil, bio-oil, or something that's produced too out of this process?

There's oil that comes out of it. But I don't think so, no.

Huh? No, there won't be any bio-oil that's produced. There's no liquid product that comes out of this? Correct. Okay, thank you. I thought I saw that in a document someplace, but maybe I missed it, sorry. Okay, that's my questions.

Stacey, did you have something?

It may have just been a description of the original consideration that that was the previous.

Oh, the oil was? Okay.

I believe there was some consideration of it back in 2012.

Okay.

Thank you. But it is not proposed as part of this project.

Okay. Other questions? I'll go to you, Jeff. Yeah, let's go down the line.

Ms. Weidrich, maybe for you, you mentioned that As phase two comes into play, there might be supplemental EIR analysis. Was the original EIR analyzing through phase two, or was it a? Phase one only. I couldn't really pick that up. Was it through full build out?

Yeah, the original EIR was full construction of a two megawatt biomass facility. And that's what the proposal was for that one. The full 60. What's that? Through the full 60 kilns. So the original EIR around the two megawatt biomass facility was a separate project. This project now is a phased project. And so it's two phases that we're looking at. Okay, but both were analyzed in the career. Okay. Yeah, so in the addendum to the IR that we're proposing today. They're both being analyzed

I SHOULD JUST ALSO MENTION THAT PER THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL THAT A CUP MODIFICATION WOULD BE REQUIRED FOR PHASE TWO. AND SO THE PHASE TWO PROJECT WOULD THEN BE EVALUATED FOR CONSISTENCY WITH THAT ENVIRONMENTAL, WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENT THAT'S BEEN PREPARED, THE EIR AND THE ADDENDUM. OKAY.

THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE REFERENCING EARLIER. THAT'S CORRECT.

OKAY. In that, in the staff report, it talks about based on the success of phase one, then yes, we would evaluate a modified CUP. So the conditions of success are, you know, I think that was one of the comments, but that's then evaluated based on the process of modifying the CUP. Like how do you define success of phase one to then move into phase two, I guess?

The success of the project would be, you know, the applicant to decide whether or not to move forward with the phase two. The planning entitlement would then, if there is a decision to move forward with that phase two, the planning entitlement would be a CUP modification. We'd evaluate the project and its environmental impacts.

Okay, so maybe after Jeff's questions, I would like to learn a little bit more about what success is defined by. Thanks.

There was a comment, I think it was in that outreach, open-ended outreach you had that mentioned everything's finite. Have you guys estimated how much supply is out there to... Yeah, great question.

So I missed that during my presentation, but as part of the biomass task force for the North Tahoe area, one of our first goals was to establish sustainable yield of our community forest. And so within a 30-mile radius, we did a study to understand what agencies were producing biomass, what our long-term goals for biomass were, production that was not based on grants, so that was annually happening either way. And through that study, we found that about 60,000 to 70,000 bone-dry tons a year are produced locally within that 30-mile radius. And so about 20,000 is available at Eastern Regional Landfill. Our facility will be using up to 13,000 bow-dry tons. And so we wanted to make sure as a group, as a task force, we weren't overextending ourselves as we're trying to support these biomass utilization facilities. And so that was our first goal was to establish that sustainable yield. And so the numbers can jump up substantially if that increases, so up to 100,000, 120,000. We want to understand what the normal operational amount would be coming out of the forest because we don't want to overdraft, overdraw our forest for that biomass. We don't want to have to be going out and chasing stuff. We want to utilize what's existing and what's coming off. And that study was done for a 20-year period. So for the next 20 years, that's what we're predicting for each year annually.

Okay. And then you also were talking about the open burning and comparing emissions from the open burning. If this is... It seemed to me it was all or nothing. If this is instituted, does open burning go away? Is it completely...

I can't guarantee that. I mean, that is one of the goals is to help reduce the overall cost of forest treatment. And so our opportunities are that we're giving a better opportunity for the forest service and other agencies instead of open pile burning, a cheaper option to bring it to a facility to utilize it. And so by creating this facility, by creating the open markets for our goal is to reduce that overall cost. And that's the basis of this public-private partnership is really to set a model and hopefully a model that can be replicated for that as we're moving through this year as I can't guarantee I wish I could make that guarantee that sure and pile burning would go away But this will help reduce that overall cost and that threshold to help the Forest Service and folks get that material out of the woods into a Utilization facility more successful.

This is hopefully the end product is that that eliminate or it starts going away I'm familiar with it. There's a there's a operation down in Jamestown Tuolumne County. Is that you guys or is that someone else? I'm not familiar with that one. Okay. I'm just curious. I Thank you.

All right. A couple questions for me. We'll just keep going down the line. So in the phase one, and Rich asked this question, the synthetic gas, there is synthetic gas produced, but what you described is it's all used then on site for the facility. It's not then taken or delivered somewhere for other production. In phase two, it sounds like that synthetic gas production could possibly be looked at, you know, commercial products. Is that correct?

That's correct. And so during the first phase, as they're flaring that gas off, and so they're, as part of that flaring process, they're capturing the heat off that and utilizing that heat on site. But yes, as we expand into phase two, our goal is to kind of put this out on the market and see if there's available technologies. As technologies are growing, even from 2012 to now, I mean, the increase in technologies just in the biomass field has expanded immensely, so we're hoping over the time period that we establish this facility, get it going, we can find other opportunities. And current opportunities are additional heat capture, so the opportunity to utilize more heat on site, whether it's for heating our TARP buildings, our regional bus facility there, or the solid waste processing facility, we can expand that utilization. Also, there is the potential for energy production on site, so offsetting our energy production and energy utilization on site as well is another opportunity. So really setting aside that parcel on the site for that, the goal was to establish something right on site to utilize it there and hopefully distribute it and have the benefit for Placer County for that.

Okay. Yeah, I'm familiar. It's not quite the same, but there's a company, I'm sure lots of emerging technologies, but capturing methane gas and then producing liquid fuels for the transportation industry. The big trick is transporting it out of the site, so I was curious. Maybe just help me clarify that I think we... So is it true that biochar is the only product produced? I think there was some comments around there's woody biomass delivery separate from biochar. So is there only biochar? That's the product that's produced out of phase one?

Correct, yes.

OK. OK, so there's no other materials that are created other than that.

No, just biochar, yeah.

OK.

And just to elaborate on your last comment, too, one of the goals of stationing this facility at the site, too, is we have an offtake source for if energy or a fuel type is produced from synthetic gas, the TARP facility is directly next door. So we have the opportunity to utilize that. And that's really why we have this really interesting industrial complex here, which has the ability to use energy for charging electric buses or alternative fuels. If we produce something, we already have an outlet that we can use within Placer County for that, too. So great benefit from that.

Oh, what did I? I thought I had another question. Oh, maybe if I could hear from the applicant or if you know just what defines success of phase one, just what does that mean of it's successful? Yeah.

Yeah, and so maybe I can answer this and Dylan can add on if he has anything else to add on to this, but this would be a public-private partnership. And so the opportunity for this is to establish In the private sector, a biomass opportunity and biomass utilization. This is a field that really hasn't been established in California. This would be the first of its kind, really, to have this public-private partnership around a biomass facility that can have a product that's utilized locally. And so defining success will be financial, I think, is the first step of that. So the county is getting a portion of the net profits. We're getting a land lease from this. We're selling the biomass to Biochar now, so they're purchasing us directly from that. So we want this to be successful for both agencies. For Placer County, from the standpoint of pretty much leasing the land to Biochar Now as an opportunity, and we want Biochar Now to be successful too. So just really a partnership there to both have success or have them to be financially stable, for them to create a good business model around this. So then you can show and... have an opportunity to expand and start the Sierras. If this is a model that's financially sustainable on its own, that's great. I mean, that could completely transpire and kind of build off of opportunities in the future just to expand this and have other agencies kind of take the same model on.

Okay. And then I don't know if the applicant wanted to share anything else. It's fine.

I second everything that Jared said. And for Biochar Now, our goal, our mission as a company, is to provide a market for non-merchantable waste wood throughout the country, specifically in fire-prone regions to reduce wildfire hazard and convert that non-merchantable wood into a profitable, marketable product that has benefits, as Jared detailed. From our standpoint, the success is fulfilling our goals with Placer County and continuing to grow our market and our product throughout the country and specifically in these fire-prone areas that have end use for our product and create that cyclical closed loop system for non-merchantable waste wood into a beneficial end use product.

Okay, and then one follow-on question is kind of picking up off Jeff's. Because you'd have to establish relationships with the U.S. Forest Service to sort of get those big giant piles that you see everywhere in burn scars, in the Colorado site, have you done that before? It's not easy always getting arrangements with the federal government, so I'm just curious if that's already been proven.

Yes, absolutely. In Colorado, we have relationships with the U.S. Forest Service and State Forest Service private landowners as well, targeting all of those fire mitigation measures.

Okay. Thank you. Maybe just to...

Add on to that too, some of the work they've already done in Colorado is specifically in burned areas, taking that burned wood off that forest and off that landscape and utilizing that. So they've already had a model of success for utilizing a material, like Dylan mentioned, that's non-murchable. It's just standing in the forest, rotting, creating methane. So taking that out and utilizing that for something positive is a great opportunity. Just to touch on to like our relationship with the Forest Service We already have a master stewardship agreement with the Forest Service and so French Meadows if you're familiar with that product Already the county is already working towards great opportunities for forest treatment wetland restoration and opportunities in the forest and And so this is just something we want to grow as well. And through the task force, we're engaging with the Forest Service, trying to get them on board in different opportunities. And so the more we can talk to them, the more we can engage them in and above what we're already doing, the greater the opportunity is to reduce those open piles that we have out there.

OK.

Thank you. Robin? Uptailing on both Jeff and Amber's questions, the marketable product that you end up with, the biochar, how are you marketing that now in Colorado, or what is, who are the industries that are buying it, and have you started that process here with either the task force, with local agricultural, you know, farmers, landowners, you've got this product, great, you have to sell it, and is it, saleable and marketable in this local area, price-wise, desire?

Let me touch on locally first, and then I'll turn it over to Dylan to kind of talk about the external market, or there's nationwide markets, we'll call them. Locally, that's why we worked with the CTC, the California Tahoe Conservancy, was to establish the viability of those local markets for stormwater treatment. And so that's the goal of that pilot project, to showcase how this can be utilized locally for treatment of stormwater runoff, and clarification of the lake. And so just making sure the lake clarity is strong, we already can hopefully establish that market locally. And so that's one of the main goals. Obviously there's golf courses in Tahoe. There's other opportunities for soil amendment in Tahoe as well, but then I'll turn it over to Dylan to kind of talk about national markets.

Yeah. So as Jared mentioned, we've been around or started in Colorado in 2011. and have been developing the markets for this high quality carbon product. There's a lot of biochar out there. There are many uses for biochar of all grades, but specifically our product is kind of a top tier, high quality product because it can treat, bind, really anything that it comes into contact with. So that's what allows us to pursue water filtration and soil amendment. pollution remediation specifically. So our market growth over the past decade has been in educating that market in the quality of this product. And that has allowed us to expand from our Colorado location to six other locations across the US. with the Intention of a local market for all of those those different uses water filtration soil amendment and pollution remediation and then a national National supply to be able to provide the product for those those markets in any state And have that have that

broader national market for our product yeah one of the things that I liked was the closed loop you know making it local keeping a local not making it here and shipping it to New Hampshire have you worked with the Agricultural Commission because you're talking about soil amendment and in this seems something like Commissioner Hunsinger would be very interested especially the education part before you even have the product part yeah

And so we want to get through this process first in order to make sure the project is viable, it's approved. We have had initial conversations with kind of the ag community and the ag folks, but we didn't want to overstep before we actually had the project in place. And so I think once this approval is done, Fingers crossed, we get to that point. We'll take it to the board for approval of all the agreements for the land lease and the other things that we need to approve at that point. And then from there, while we're in that construction phase and that final design phase, really trying to approach those folks and working with our local ag community, showing the benefit, showing the water reduction. I mean, water usage is a high risk for California in general. So the more we can reduce that for our local communities, the better, the more sustainable long-term we would have for a lot of this ag. And then crop yields as well, healthier soils, the more we can showcase that locally, I think there'll be a great benefit. But it takes partnerships too, and there's a cost for that product, so the more we can balance that out and work and find a kind of unique balance in Placer County, I think it has As a county overall, I think we have a lot of those opportunities locally, which is great. And we have a strong ag community. We have a strong environmental-based community who wants to see water quality products in place. And so I think the base for those markets is there.

Thank you.

Do you want to follow up on something, if you want to? Go ahead.

I was going to follow up.

Go ahead. Yeah, how advanced is the science in terms of the use of this biochar in restoring soils or in agriculture?

I can probably defer to Dylan on this, but there's been a lot of research over biochar and soil amendments, so maybe ask Dylan to kind of elaborate on that.

Yes, it is an emerging market, but it has been in use for many, many years. But as I said, the educational aspect of the high-quality product that we produce and how that can specifically be used in those emerging markets for soil amendment and pollution remediation. Our product specifically, we work with many different applications and universities to perform studies on the product and the use. And through that, we've seen results in reducing water use in golf courses by 50%. We've seen incredible increases in yield in agriculture and a far more effective water filtration media to bind and remove nutrient runoff from ground and surface water. So the science is keeping up with our product, or we are trying to get the science to keep up with our product in proving out the benefits of this superior biochar.

Okay, you think about topsoil and just see... biology of the you know it's a living it's actually a living living organism and so i guess that's where the science would have to prove that this is beneficial yes absolutely and because of our the the unique properties of the product we are able to physically provide a um

a stable source or a stable location for that microbial growth in the soil to bring that biodiversity and healthy soil back to what has been ravaged by overuse of pesticides and many other issues that we've had.

Okay, thank you. Oh, go ahead now. Sorry about that.

So just really quick, this type of biochar kiln, is it in use in California at all at this point?

No, there's no current use in California. But as Dylan mentioned, this same technology has been in Colorado since 2011 and the other six facilities, the same technology is already being utilized. So we would be the first in California to have this type of technology? Correct.

And then you mentioned that Existing biomass material you said transportation and all that there's about a 200 mile round trip and I know one of the comments and one of our Updates was that the miles traveled so would there still with these kilns? Would there still be? product that is shipped to other locations or do can we using this as a technology burn everything that we have?

So the shipping, so currently our utilization, we're relying on external markets. So Rio Bravo, Honey Lake, those biomass facilities. The long sustainability of those facilities, we don't know. So we're really putting ourselves in this kind of a bind by relying on external markets. So the more we establish that local market is what we're trying to do. We talked about a little bit before just about establishing a local market through the pilot study we're doing for water treatment as well as hopefully those markets locally. So nothing's been set in stone yet about where those markets are going to be. But our goal is to establish those as local as possible and keep it all here. Yeah, as much as we can. And that's the goal through the task force was local utilization. So like the North Star model where they're creating heat, they're heating their buildings. So they're offsetting natural gas usage. Our goal is to offset eventually media that's shipped in from, we don't know, out of state, out of country, that's utilized in our stormwater filtration units. So we can produce that locally and utilize that locally the better. We can kind of offset that market.

Thank you. I've got two questions. First, it's kind of institutional. How is the relationship between the partnership set out in a contract? Is it through the lease document or is it a separate contract?

Yep, and so we have six different agreements that we're going to hopefully bring to the board post-approval of this. And so in those agreements, we establish the loan terms, the county is going to be providing a loan to Biochar now to establish this, the lease agreement for the property, terms of operation, terms of maintenance, terms of long-term ownership of the property. The way we've built this out is a shared profit model between the two agencies as well as the opportunity if there's any separation in the future or if there's separation, all the improvements made by Biochar now to the site would then be vested to the county. And so the county gets the benefit of hopefully this will never happen, hopefully there's a long-term relationship here But if not, the improvements that are happening to the site and the facility, those are vested in the county. So then we could find another opportunity to utilize that. But our goal right now, I mean, we have a very strong relationship with Biochar now. We've been working with them. for over two years. They've also been investing money before this approval, which I think is a huge sign of where they're at and their support of this project. They've been investing money in designing plans, going through this whole process of getting the approval. All that has been on their own dime so far. So really having them come to the table, investing their own money up front has been a big sign of where their head's at, what the relationship's going to look like, and hopefully a great partnership moving forward for a long time.

Great. That's very helpful. The other question is a little bit more prosaic. Our home is in Tahoe Vista, very close to Snow Creek, which is a conservancy-developed facility. I'm trying to picture how this char would work in terms of filtration on that

So our focus is more of the already built stormwater treatment units. And so along the lakeside where they're capturing kind of more the city-based areas, they have filtration units. And so pretty much that stormwater runoff from Route 28 from the major highways that are coming through there all gets captured and run through filtration units before it gets discharged to the lake. And so those are established ones. There are also additional alternatives of land applications for this as well, which they've done. In Southlake, they're also doing a pilot study right now for treating stormwater basins, so layering the bottom portion of a stormwater basin with biochar. And that opportunity is great because it captures pollutants, but also increases water retention. And so within the same size basin, you can increase capacity just by treating the soil with biochar. And so, I don't know, they're obviously going through the pilot study right now. They'll be able to show the results of that increased capacity, but by not, instead of digging a larger, Basin you can potentially just rely on that stuff, but there's also the natural application if this is positive beneficial They have bags and other kind of containment units that they've actually put in like before in different areas like the Tahoe Keys and South Lake and other opportunities where potentially could put that in creeks to treat water to Hopefully that water is pristine already, but anything we can do to help that like clarity. I think there's beneficial uses for it Thank you very much other questions Okay

Thank you so much, and thank you, Stacy. I'm going to go ahead and open up to public comment. Is there anyone here today that would like to speak on this item and come forward? And if you could state your name for the record. Absolutely.

Hi, my name is Mike Witherspoon. I want to thank the board for allowing this opportunity for public comment. I also want to thank Jared and Stacy for spending some time with me to run through the details of the project. By way of intro, I'm a renewable energy and biomass utilization consultant up in Truckee. I used to be on the board of the North Star Community Services District, where we have a biomass facility going in next year, and I'm a candidate for the Truckee Fire Board. So my interest in all this stuff is kind of nerdy and intense. I just want to lay out the current state for the board of what goes on in Eastern Gloucester up in the Sierras. Right now, we pay to ship fossils up the hill to provide heat and energy, and we pay to ship wood down the hill to throw away energy. This project goes a long way toward addressing that kind of overall systemic challenge. We've already covered that these trips are 100 plus miles when we're shipping the wood away. On my drive down here today, passed by two trucks full of non-merchantable wood on their way to Rio Bravo, I assume. And that costs a lot. It's not economically sustainable to do that. So the need for local consumption of our biomass is real. Also, we need a portfolio of solutions. I really appreciated the questions you guys asked through this process. Turning into biochar, great member of our portfolio of solutions. We also need local sawmills. We also need energy production plants. And this is a nice piece of the puzzle. Let's see here. So yeah, we're addressing a real primary challenge of getting this wood consumed locally. We're reducing trucking miles. We're reducing weight. This project does lower carbon emissions. It's even carbon negative, which is pretty rare. There's not that many technologies that actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere and actually store it for the long term. So it's a pretty awesome project. I'm pretty proud of you, Jared, for coming up with it. It also makes some relative economic sense. If you look at the facility at North Star, it's going to require $20 million of upfront investment. to take care of about a tenth of the volume of waste. I believe the price tag on this is closer to six. So that's pretty good bang for the buck. So proud of you guys on that one. I do want to call out a couple potential risks, opportunities for the project. One, the markets for carbon credits and biochar are emergent and volatile. And I believe biochar now is going to be carrying a lot of that risk, so thanks to them.

If you can wrap up your comments.

Yeah, I'll wrap them up. The other potential problem slash opportunity is those other facilities, the network of facilities at Sugar Bowl, North Star, and there will eventually be others, they could use drier fuel. So as Jared called out, drying down that fuel with the waste heat is a fantastic opportunity to support biomass utilization across the region.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks. Appreciate it. Anyone else here in person like to make comment? Do we have anyone online?

I have a hand raised. Caller, go ahead and unmute your mic and give your comments.

Greetings again, commissioners. from Christian Valley Park. First, I just want to preface everything with I'm in support of biomass production and biochar in particular. I personally use that in my own gardening. And I'm familiar with even the ancient water filtration using biochar with a sand medium. And kind of based on that, I would actually ask the question, what happens to the medium after the filtration is basically filled and no longer utilized? I'm really curious about this facility's projected financial model. How much are you dependent on tax subsidies? We're being heavily abused in the housing industry by the developers and so on and so forth. And so I just wanted to know where I could be pointed to find out what your projections are and or what you could offer to that. Thank you, Robin, for bringing up more of the questions about what the financial model really is, where the profit margins are. And what kind of classes of biochar are you going to be doing? So is it strictly going to be clean biochar? vegetation or is there going to be any contamination with that? What kind of testing? What kind of fire suppression are you going to have on the facility or in case a gas does ignite? I don't know what kind of gases and their level of explosion. I'm highly familiar with the fact that forest floors deserve some of their own fallen vegetation for self-fertilization. How is that going to be considered? I've seen the chipping program and different PG&E efforts to clear lines and so on and so forth, but I've also seen their contractors highly abuse us and take grandfather oaks that really have no problem whatsoever, have been here for well over 100 years and have no chance of tipping over. Is there abuse there, and how are you going to address that? And then lastly, I know Tahoe is in a pickle for electricity. Is there any way that this facility can generate electricity for the region and what that expansion, perhaps if you considered it. And basic real edification for the public where the outreach could be there. And so just address your negative risks and what it's going to cost us. So I appreciate it and I yield, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Do we have anyone else? Anyone else? No other hands raised. Okay. I'm going to close public comment and bring it back to the commission and maybe first staff if you'd like to address any of the questions that came up.

Thanks, Chair Beckler. I think we'll ask Mr. Deck to respond to some of the questions that were just brought up with the last commenter, particularly about maybe anticipated timeline for that. agreements, including the financial assistance package that you mentioned, maybe when that might be heard by the board, as well as questions about what happens with the material when it's no longer utilized, the different classes and maybe potential uses for electricity.

All right, so maybe just starting off on the financial model again. So the way the agreement is set up is a loan from the county to Biochar now in order to establish the facility. So that's to cover the $6 million of upfront cost of establishing the facility. That loan will be paid back at a 10% rate. And so there should be no impact to the county. It should actually be profitable in order to provide that loan and getting a 10% return on that. a great interest rate for the county. We're very happy that Biochar Now is agreeable to those terms. And so the return on that is going to be substantial for the county as we're providing that loan. And so that's the start off of that. The rest of the financial model is kind of built around the profit. So we really won't know until we get into that about how those markets are looking. But we have the lease agreement which is $15,000 per month. So as they're operating this facility, the county will be getting that on top of the additional profit shares that we have. And so then the question surrounding utilization, maybe Dylan can speak to this about once biochar is utilized in a stormwater treatment opportunity, what happens with that next? Maybe we'll defer to him real quick for that.

Yeah, absolutely. Specifically for stormwater filtration, we have shown through some studies we did with DuPont and mercury remediation that because of the unique properties of our biochar, that target material is bound within the carbon structure. It does not wash out. It does not leach out. So therefore, it is able to be left in situ. So for specific pollution remediation applications, the application process is working the carbon into the soil, so it is a permanent installation, and it is proven to be able to hold those toxins within that soil and not leach out. Specifically for runoff, and the water filtration, again, that material or those target toxins or nutrients are bound within the carbon structure. So once the filtration, if it is a temporary installation, like a filtration sock, which is how we use a lot of our material, once that is has filtered the nutrients out of the water, it's bound within the carbon, that can be removed from the water, replaced with another filtration media, and then that can be either disposed of or, depending on the nutrient load, it can be used as a fertilizer because it is then charged with nutrients.

Then I think I missed one question, if there was one more.

Potential uses as electricity.

Yep, so electricity. So, and timeline for electricity. So second phase, obviously we want to establish the first phase and make sure this partnership works first. Second phase, we're looking, kind of looking at three to five year range. If stuff is accelerating, if everything is working well, If we find another good partner to potentially utilize that site that we have directly here on our spot for energy production, we'll happily establish that as soon as possible. There's energy demand. So within TARP and their regional transit, they are purchasing electric buses, which will be coming in February of 28, so there will be additional electrical demand. So the quicker we can modify that, the quicker we can get something on site, we might be able to supplement behind-the-meter energy production. So as soon as we can possibly do that, I think we'll open up those opportunities. We've already engaged with a few different companies currently with energy production to see if that synthetic gas works with their technologies. So we're already investigating those opportunities. It's really just going to be finding the right fit. We don't want to jump in this too fast and potentially work with the agency that might not work long term. So really, we built the partnership with biochar now I think the county is looking for another great partnership like that as we're moving forward just to make sure there's a good fit there's good proven technology there's a lot of technology out there that's more hypothetical not proven yet more in pilot stages we want to look for something that's truly proven at that point and then hopefully implement that so really phase two we're looking kind of the three to five year range from this point okay thank you

I'll bring it back to the commissioner. Yeah, any questions, comments?

Assuming this is successful, you're going to have tons of filtration systems out there. I assume the monitoring for that will be the responsibility of the purchaser, whether it be a city or town. I guess the county won't be on the hook with this product out there as far as monitoring its viability and that it's safe and intact and not

So, correct. Like Dylan mentioned, the product is already proven for its capabilities. So, any markets that we're selling to, those agencies, if they have water quality standards they have to hit, TMDLs that they have to hit, they would be on the hook for monitoring and making sure those are functional on their own. So, we're just providing a product that is proven in its capabilities. It's just a matter of up to them of how they apply it to their operation. Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioners, other questions? This is so far down. Sorry. Are they allowed to use it in the secondary market? They buy it. They use it as a filtration system. It's now nutrient rich. Can they sell it as fertilizer?

Absolutely. I mean, if there's other opportunities like Dylan mentioned for this, I mean, we're happy to support a secondary use because that, I mean, there's additional carbon sequestering, additional market offset from that standpoint. So the more this product is utilized, the better benefit for the community, for the state, for everybody for it. So happy to support those secondary markets.

Okay. Thank you. Other questions that the Commission has? Can we maybe just go and then we'll do deliberations and comments. Can we just make sure that three specific pieces in the comment letter are addressed? I think we addressed them, but I thought they were good. So in the condition 37, it talks about the monthly logs. The request was, and this is where I even got confused, the woody material versus the biochar. is it required in that condition to provide a monthly log? That's the first one.

It is not required. Okay. In terms of the biochar. Okay. MATERIAL, HOWEVER, I DO BELIEVE THAT IS A REQUIREMENT FOR THEM TO TRACK IT OUTSIDE OF THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL, SO MAYBE MR. DECK CAN MENTION TO THAT. IT'S NOT COVERED HERE AND THERE WOULDN'T BE A REPORT TO THE COUNTY, AT LEAST COUNTY PLANNING, BUT PERHAPS HE CAN SPEAK TO ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS.

SO TWO POINTS OF OPERATION. biomass itself coming into the facility, I believe that's one of the conditions that's being tracked. And so that's already built into there. And so two separate portions of that. And the second portion, biochar going out of the facility, from, I believe, that's not being one of the conditions. But as part of the greater conditions that Dylan and his team are required to do under their carbon sequestering certifications that they do, they already track that. So that's already part of their process that they do. So in order, like mentioned during the presentation, this is a carbon negative process. And so overall, they produce carbon credits from this process itself. And they are able to market those carbon credits and sell those carbon credits. And so in order to certify those carbon credits, they have a long process that's a full evaluation of their process, including what we're talking about now on the back end, through their production, through their sale into additional markets. And so it captures all that to understand the full carbon value of that full system itself.

Okay.

And so Dylan can confirm, but underneath that same process, they already track the back end. We'll say the biochar distribution.

The outgoing distribution. Okay. Okay. Okay.

So, Chair Beckler, just to kind of reemphasize that. So, it is not currently included as a condition of approval. It could be modified should the commission want to have that be included, but it is being tracked currently, as Mr. Deck mentioned.

Okay. And then, just, I'm going through this letter. So, the second piece was around the, it was the projections, and I think this gets kind of to Jeff's question. So, the anticipation is that all those burn piles will go away, you won't have the emissions. I'm assuming, because the assumptions are based on that, one of the things that the commenter makes a statement is if you take out that assumption, then the emissions are actually over the air quality standards. But I guess the questions I have is, as part of the mitigation monitoring requirements, that would be, there would be triggers. So like, if it's not successful if we're not churning those wood piles into this biochar and the emissions are actually, they're not as low as expected, that's covered, I guess. I don't know if I'm saying it in an articulate way, but is that addressed? Can someone maybe just clarify that?

Yes, you kind of summarized it, I think, the best. But we do have our Ascent consultants online. I'm not sure if they want to weigh in on this.

Maybe we can try to tackle that real quick, and then they can add on to that.

Well, and I was going to ask, Jared, yeah, you meant the... The difference is the percentage, and maybe if you want to tap into that too. But we also have our consultants online as well is where I was going with that too.

Sorry for the technical questions. I thought they were good points raised and want to make sure we address them.

And so in the greenhouse gas analysis that Trinity did as their air consultant, we looked at that instead of in the original EIR, they did 100% of open pile burning was kind of the offset of avoided emissions that they look at. And we reduced that to 75%. And 25% either left on the ground as massification, so producing methane in that standpoint, or brought to a landfill. So we already kind of reduced and built in that buffer inside that prediction.

Assuming 25% would stay, OK?

Yeah. And then also in phase two, just to clarify the record as well, we're not over the threshold of greenhouse gas emissions. And we'll clarify this as well. But phase two is based off of projections about mission control technology, which is currently being developed. And so at that point, if phase two happens, it would come back for a conditional use modification at that point for verification that that process still is.

Okay.

But our projections with those buffers built in are that we're actually below the threshold in phase two either way without avoided admissions.

Okay. Thank you. And then third and final, just from the letter, it was already addressed, but just if we could reconfirm that. It's the updated analysis for Phase 2. The EIR or the addendum covers both Phase 1 and Phase 2 operations as anticipated. And through the modified CUP, that would go through the process again. And I'm assuming if there were issues that weren't anticipated, that would be addressed or evaluated at that time. Is that correct?

That's correct. The CUP modification is a discretionary entitlement. It will come back to the Planning Commission and it will be subject to CEQA.

Okay, thank you for addressing them. I'll just bring it back to the Commission. Comments, thoughts?

This is my favorite part of Planning Commission, where I learned something new that I knew nothing about. I felt like I got a graduate-level symposium going through the EIR, and then the questions are great. I love new technology and science, and this was really interesting just personally for me, and I'm really supportive of the project. Hopefully it works. It goes forward. Other comments?

I guess I'd like to make a comment because, you know, I spent a good part of my career with the Forest Service. And when you're talking about management of the forest for multiple uses, one of the traditional problems that's always come up is wood waste and what do we do with it. And it's been very expensive. And basically the bottom line is in order really to successfully treat wood waste, this has to pay its way out of the forest. And so at any rate, I have seen several challenges, dealing with challenges, and several ideas over the years that have been coming forward. And really, I'm kind of pleased to see finally another one that is totally new, at least in my experience. It looks like it's going to be successful in helping the wood waste come out of the forest and make a profit. So I really appreciate what you're doing, and hopefully the experiment works. Thank you.

Thank you, Rich. Other comments? Mark?

This is kind of tenuously connected to this, but when Richard talked about wood waste in the forest, I can't help but observe the huge amount of wood waste that the state is putting out as they do the various widenings and bridge replacements between here and Nevada. I assume they're a potential opportunity, although we don't want to haul them from down here all the way up there to the facility. But it just seems to me they're producing a lot, and I have no idea where they'd do it.

Absolutely. So yeah, as you're driving up 80, you can see those piles just sitting there on the side of the highway. And so as much as we can, and so really our goal out of this project is to reduce that cost. So the more we can provide a sustainable market at a low entry point for that disposal, that's our goal. And so if it advances, hopefully we'll get to that point where people are driving from this greater region in North Lake and bringing their material to us because it's more cost efficient. And it's reducing that lower trip rate. Our goal is really for that.

So Our goal at the facility really is just to reduce that cost and hopefully benefit the market and its totality from that standpoint Just thank you guys for an excellent presentation everyone Stacy If things went along you get this approved you keep moving and what's The fire update, what would you anticipate as far as firing this thing up and starting the process?

So next step is board approval of the agreements. From that standpoint, then the loan is able to be released. There's a long lead time for some of this equipment, like the kilns, is an eight to nine month range. And so hopefully end of September, we'll be able to go to the board. From that standpoint, then we'd be able to move forward with ordering the equipment and then breaking ground as soon as the snow melts up there next spring. And so really our goal is construction next year. We have everything in line for that. The consultant who's working on the plans is already ready to go. And so we have 60% plans done right now or about that range. So plans are working congruent. Like I said before, Biochar now is investing money above and beyond already parallel to this process in order to expedite that and make sure that this can happen a lot quicker. And so the goal will be as soon as snow melts next spring, as long as we get the appropriate approvals to that point, to start construction at that point. And then operational, I mean, about...

late summer early fall time. Just another quick one kind of thought of it is this weather conducted 12 months a year it doesn't

Snow up there doesn't great question. And so If you've been to Denver you it snows a lot there as well. And so they're fully operational there 20 12 months out of the year and so same thing here I mean if there's a major storm that comes in there might be some snow removal process that has to happen to get him back up and running but The kilns produce a lot of heat so naturally they're gonna help a lot of that snow move off the piece of equipment pretty quickly, too So thank you very much Trent any comments?

Yeah, the only comments I would have, and then I would entertain a motion. I also am very supportive. I am a big believer in emerging technology, and I think there's good, the phased approach I think is good, because you've obviously been successful in other states, but actually having a phase one, see how it works, sort of kick the tire, as they say, and then expand it. And the sort of synergy around the private public partnerships, I'm a big believer in and I think they can be really successful. So just really appreciate all the work that you guys have gone through and for staff for doing the presentation. So I would entertain a motion at this point.

I can turn my mic on, there it goes. Hi, I'd like to make a motion. I'd like to move that the staff recommendation under 1A as read into the record.

Okay, we have a first. Second. First and second, roll call. Watts?

Yes. Johnson? Yes. Jewell? Yes.

Dahlgren? Yes. Runtine? Yes. Bechler? Yes.

I'd also like to move the staff recommendation under item 1B as read into the record.

Second.

Move the first and second. Roll call, please.

Watts? Yes. Johnson? Yes. Jewell? Yes.

Dahlgren? Yes. Renton?

Yes. Becler?

Yes. The decision of the Planning Commission may be appealed by anyone who appeared at today's hearing and provided comment or anyone that submitted written comments on this item. An appeal must be filed within 10 days of today's date and shall be accompanied by a filing fee of $752. That concludes the business before the Planning Commission today. Thanks everyone for coming and participating. The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.