WEST JEFFERSON, Ohio (WCMH) -- A central Ohio community is celebrating after months of fighting against a big project.
That project is a biodigester, a system that converts cow manure and food waste to renewable natural gas, which was proposed for West Jefferson in Madison County. Now, after months of neighborhood effort, the company has pulled out.
NBC4 Investigates first reported the story in December.
Indoor slide park’s first Ohio location eyes May openingThe outcry against the project involved neighbors, area commissioners, and state legislators who, while celebrating, are not stopping their work just yet.
A zoning law technicality would have let the biodigester project move forward and now the group is working to make sure that can’t happen in your neighborhood, either.
"I am totally thrilled," Steve Dersom, a West Jefferson resident for 25 years, said.
"Almost disbelief at first, shock and awe because our group has worked, not just our group, that our whole community has worked so hard to just be heard," Angie Carpenter, who has lived in the area for 57 years, said.
Vanguard Renewables, a Massachusetts natural resources company, planned to build a biodigester in Madison County, just about 20 miles from Columbus. A biodigester makes renewable energy by taking food and animal waste, breaking it down, and turning it into biogas, which is filled with methane.
Ohio marijuana festival wants to pay five random people $1,000 each to judge products"Before this even started, I did not even know what a biodigester was, and so to learn more and more about the process and to learn how we could protect our community," Carpenter said.
Many disagreed with how close it would be to homes and were worried about prior environmental violations committed by the company. Two hundred people came together for a February meeting to voice these concerns.
"That was the final thing that put the pressure on Vanguard to say they were going to stop the project," Dersom said.
State representatives got involved and introduced amendments to address the lack of regulation when it came to biodigesters.
"I actually received a phone call from our State Senator Michele Reynolds, who has been such a huge help, she and our State Representative Brian Stewart," Madison County Commissioner Brendan Shea said.
The 11 biggest weather events in central Ohio historyReynolds introduced an amendment with strong language to give local input more power on proposed projects. She said this caught the attention of Vanguard, which agreed to stop the project if the Ohio Senate amendment did not move forward.
"It felt like it had been building toward this for a number of months, but just seeing it crystallize in that letter was just... words can't describe how happy I was," Shea said.
The residents want biodigester projects regulated like solar projects, which have a variety of laws including giving local governments more power through restrictions.
In a statement, Reynolds said:
“The withdrawal of the proposed biodigester project reflects the strength of community advocacy and strategic legislative engagement. After hearing concerns from Commissioner Brendan Shea, Madison County residents and local leaders, I met directly with representatives from Vanguard Renewables to communicate the serious environmental and quality-of-life implications of the project. Representative Brian Stewart and I both took legislative action. While Rep. Stewart introduced an amendment in House Bill 15, while I pursued a separate, Senate-based amendment in SB 2 that addressed the broader consequences of siting industrial-scale digesters near residential areas without direct local involvement. As the House version advanced toward concurrence with the Senate, I engaged with Vanguard in a direct meeting to discuss our mutual concerns. In the course of those discussions, Vanguard agreed to withdraw the project and write a letter pulling their permits from the Ohio EPA—avoiding the impact of the Senate’s stronger language moving forward. This was a collaborative win grounded in local advocacy, legislative leverage, and productive dialogue. I was proud to play a key role in protecting our community and ensuring that state policy remains responsive to the people we serve.”
Vanguard Renewables did not comment for this story.
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