Nampa council approves lease and demonstration funding for refurbished NRGX bioreactor

The Nampa City Council voted to authorize a lease-purchase agreement and to fund a short demonstration for a refurbished NRGX IE-60 bioreactor that city staff says would convert wastewater biosolids and wood feedstock into fuel, electricity and carbon products.

Senior Public Works Director Tom Points told the council the recommended lease arrangement would require an upfront escrow deposit and a first-month payment that together push initial city commitments to “no more than $1,382,000,” and that the leasing schedule includes monthly rental payments and a balloon payment at the end of the 42-month agreement. Points said the demonstration — a separate, smaller authorization the council approved — will let staff verify actual gas volumes and methane content from Nampa’s feedstock before committing to later phases.

The vote to authorize the mayor to sign the lease-purchase agreement with Commercial Funding Partners passed 4–2 (Mills, Everfield, Anguilla and Reynolds in favor; Rodriguez and Griffin opposed). The separate motion to allow the senior director of public works to proceed with the demonstration project in the amount of $181,418 passed 5–1 (Griffin opposed).

Why it matters: City staff presented the demonstration as a required step before committing to a multi-phase program projected by proponents to cost up to $30 million if fully built. The project is pitched as a way to increase wastewater-plant energy resilience, reduce biosolids volume and produce new revenue streams — power sales, carbon product sales and possibly pipeline-quality methane. But councilors pressed staff on cost, lender terms and vendor stability before approving the initial commitments.

What the council authorized and why staff pushed for a demo Tom Points told the council that the loan/lease lender required an escrow deposit that would cover roughly the last nine months of payments plus the first-month lease payment; that total escrow-plus-first-month arrangement is the reason the initial…