A former coal-burning power plant near Buena Vista may soon have a new lease on life as a green-energy electricity provider.

During a presentation at the Jan. 15 meeting of the Amador County Chamber of Commerce, Buena Vista Biomass Power Communications Director Jesus Arredondo said progress is being made toward getting the facility reopened by mid-year.

Arredondo said his company has already spent $15 million on the project and anticipates spending an additional $25 million to re-engineer and convert the existing plant from its former status as a lignite-burning facility to a long-term, sustainable, biomass-renewable energy power-generation facility.

Former operators of the plant, including Pacific Gas and Electric, were once permitted to burn discarded tires and other materials, as long as they burned lignite at least 20 percent of the time. That practice came under scrutiny due to environmental concerns and, along with the deregulation of the electricity markets in California, resulted in the plant being shuttered in the late 1990s.

A project overview provided by Arredondo said, when placed back into service, the BVBP will produce 18 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 16,000 homes through the "clean" burning of approximately 210,000 tons of woody fuel annually. The fuel is expected to consist of agricultural trimmings from orchards, wood from urban demolition projects, sawdust and pallets from manufacturing facilities, and forest materials gleaned from various thinning and cleaning projects that would otherwise be disposed of in burn piles or deposited in landfills.

"What we're trying to do with this facility is utilize what's out in the forest," Arredondo said.

Although his company has not received all of the necessary permits for operation yet, Arredondo said he was confident they would be issued soon and he emphasized the "green" aspect of the project.

"This will be virtually a zero-emission facility, also a zero-discharge facility," he said.

The facility will be regulated by the Amador Air Pollution Control District and must meet state-specified air quality standards.

One statement on the BVBP Web site at www.bv-biomass.com says one of the benefits of biomass power plants is that they "provide an option that can eliminate 95 to 99 percent of pollutants that would otherwise be produced by the open burning of the biomass."

Arredondo said the water needs for the project will be met by using water purchased from the Jackson Valley Irrigation District, which will be treated at a reverse-osmosis facility his company plans to construct.

"We will not be taking groundwater," he said.

Arredondo added that, during construction, more than 50 jobs will be created and that BVBP has committed to hiring locally "whenever feasible." He said he also anticipates that when the plant is up and running, it will create 20 full-time jobs for operators and maintenance personnel, as well as approximately 70 jobs in other support areas, including collection, processing and transportation of the woody fuel for the plant.

Buena Vista Biomass Power is a privately held limited liability company that is majority owned by Otoka Energy Corporation, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company.

In November 2009, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District approved a 20-year contract with BVBP to utilize the power it generates.

BVBP has also been awarded a $2.4 million Wildland Fire Management grant from the United States Department of Agriculture as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

According to the ARRA Web site, the facility will use approximately 30 truckloads of woody fuel per day over a minimum of 330 days per year. At least 1/3 of that is expected to come from within 50 miles of the plant, from the El Dorado and Stanislaus National Forests and the Mother Lode District of the Bureau of Land Management through forest-fuels treatment and forest-restoration activities.

Lignite is a form of soft coal and contains a hard wax known as OP or Montan wax. It was once used to produce phonograph records, car and shoe polishes, and carbon paper. The facility, on Coal Mine Road, was once a major supplier of the wax and also burned the lignite to generate electricity.