Riverhead looks at partnering on food-waste plant on Youngs Avenue that would produce natural gas

Riverhead Town may be soon be producing natural gas from commercial food wastes.

Town officials are considering entering into a joint venture with a Melville company, headed by Wading River resident Mark Lembo, to build a food waste processing plant that will generate natural gas that can be sold to National Grid.

The town is looking at siting the facility on a 12.7-acre site on Youngs Avenue, just west of Osborn Avenue, that includes the municipal yard waste facility and the former Riverhead Animal Shelter site.

CEA Energy LLC, owned by Lembo and engineer Richard Galli, would build and permit the anaerobic digester facility — a facility that uses a series of biological processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen — to produce natural gas.

CEA Energy would construct a pipeline from the proposed facility on Youngs Avenue to the nearest National Grid pipeline on Route 58, Lembo told the town board today.

The Youngs Avenue facility would handle an average of 100 tons per day of food waste — generated by supermarkets and other large commercial properties. More than 20 percent of the typical municipal waste stream is food waste, according to U.S. government data.

CEA Energy is asking the town to provide the land as well as a $500,000 investment over two years — which would cover “soft costs” of permitting and design, Lembo said.

The company is confident it will be able to finance the project without additional investment from the town and without relying on the town to borrow money to build it, Lembo said. CEA would rely on grants and investment credits made available by the state, he said.

The plant and pipeline would cost $20 million to $22 million to build, according to CEA real estate consultant Steve Soler. CEA would handle financing the construction of the plant, Soler said.

Soler projected the project’s annual net revenues would be just shy of $4 million, which Lembo said would be split 50-50 by CEA and the Town of Riverhead.

Lembo said local area carters have told him they would use the new facility to dispose of commercial food waste and he has already identified carters who would bring an average of 100 tons of food waste to the facility daily. The tipping fees at the facility would be less than what the carters currently pay to dispose of the waste.

The facility would generate, on average, traffic of four to five garbage trucks each day, Lembo said. Each garbage “packer” truck carries about 25 tons of waste, he said.

The plant is a negative air pressure facility and would emit no odors in the normal course of its operations.

It would employ the technology of Global Water and Energy (GWE), which has built facilities in Europe and, recently, in Southington, Connecticut. Another limited liability company in which Lembo is a member has obtained permits to build a GWE anaerobic digester plant in North Haven, Connecticut. That plant is not yet under construction. Lembo said it was delayed do to issues surrounding “soil conditions” which the company is working to rectify.

Deputy Supervisor Catherine Kent said she visited the Southington plant with the town engineer and deputy engineer. She said the visit was “helpful” and she plans to visit with local civic groups to discuss the idea.

“There was no smell outside,” Kent said. She said she encourages other town board members to visit the Connecticut facility.

In New York State, dairy farms upstate have been using the technology, which has been employed by municipalities in Europe for more that a decade, Lembo said.

Lembo told board members there is grant money available through NYSERDA, but an application deadline looms. The grant applications must be submitted by the end of this month, he said.

Board members present at the meeting (Councilwoman Jodi Giglio was absent) were generally favorable to the proposal and said they would approve a resolution authorizing a contract with CEA Energy.

“It’s an innovative idea and has the ability to bring in some revenue for the town,” Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith said after the meeting.

“I’m pretty comfortable with it,” Councilman Tim Hubbard said. “I’d like to see it laid out so we know exactly but I’d like to move forward with this.”