Valley County hears proposal to process woody biomass locally to cut disposal costs and wildfire risk

Valley County commissioners held a working session Sept. 24 to hear a company presentation about building local woody-biomass processing facilities that the firm says could cut county disposal costs, reduce wildfire risk and produce heat, electricity and biochar.

Ken Holton, identified in the meeting as the presenter for Forrester, described an end-to-end program the company says would accept untreated woody biomass at one or more drop-off locations, process the material with high-temperature pyrolysis technology, sell biochar and other products, and retain rights to carbon credits to help fund operations. “It’s a program that we think that we that could be good for the county, its residents,” Holton said.

The county session was informational; no contract or approval was requested. Commissioners and staff asked technical and site-planning questions, raised safety and operational concerns, and agreed to pursue follow-up work including geotechnical review of one possible site.

Why it matters

County officials told meeting attendees that recent grant funding that helped pay for chipping and disposal has ended and that county costs for managing woody debris have risen. Clerk Miller said, “what we expended in 2024 was $276,626. For so far this year, we've expended $209,035.55. And it's my understanding that there's another invoice being submitted for payment for a rough estimate of around 400,000 for this fiscal year.” Forrester and federal partners said a local processing option could reduce recurring county expenses and create a scalable alternative…