Planning commission recommends CUP for Smith Valley dairy methane digester after state safety review

The Lyon County Planning Commission voted 7-0 on May 13 to recommend that the Board of County Commissioners grant a conditional-use permit for a methane (biogas) digester already installed at a Smith Valley dairy, after staff said state regulators flagged the site for additional review.

Lucas Carrel, senior planner, told the commission the digester sits inside a larger 311-acre dairy and that the digester tank has a liquid volume "approximately 2,200,000 gallons." He said the county issued building permits for the structure in 2021 but those permits have since expired and that the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection's Chemical Accident Prevention program (CAP) told county staff in November 2023 that a local conditional-use permit is required for this kind of operation.

Why it matters: the digester produces methane from dairy manure and the CAP program treats the product and some associated materials as hazardous for storage and transport. That places safety, air-quality and fire-suppression review primarily with state regulators while leaving the county responsible for local land-use impacts such as truck routes, lighting and noise limits.

In his staff presentation, Carrel described site context and recommended mitigation language for the commission to include if it forwards approval. He said the digester subsystem is located on about 6.84 acres within the larger dairy, the…