BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Berwick’s energy future is shaping up.

Consultant Jim Retallack of Acadia Management Group updated town council October 9 on a range of projects tied to that future.

“It’s been a year since my first presentation, and what was proposed is happening: there are projects completed and on the go, and we’ve taken a position of prominence in the province.”

Retallack said 1,500 people visited the June energy fair’s 30 exhibitors, including four students’ projects; and attended four presentations. Eight hundred questionnaires were gathered, 600 from Berwick Electric Utility customers. A total of 7,400 CFLs have since been given away from the town’s 12,000-bulb stash through Conserve Nova Scotia.

Retallack is gathering information on a thermal utility’s viability working off Berwick’s underground watershed and was travelling to the U.S. in October to research anaerobic digestion. He’ll report back to council Nov. 30 on both potential projects.

Renovation work on the town hall for could start in December, but Berwick is waiting to hear back from the federal Green Municipal Fund. If the GMF comes through with $56,000, detailed studies on the thermal utility and anaerobic digestion will be kicked into gear, and town hall work will be a go.

“If the GMF is 100 per cent unsuccessful, the town and Berwick Electric will be $3,700 beyond budget and my company loses $10,000.”

Retallack, though, said he would take a business loss of $15,000 if the town would absorb $13,700 instead, just to “see the job done” on the town hall.

The GMF application’s success should be known in November.

In the meantime, Retallack is working on applications for the federal Eco-Trust Fund, which is expected to announce $42 million this fall for Nova Scotia energy projects. Berwick wants to host the announcement, hoping it will give a boost to its own plans to run a $5 million, five-year pilot project on anaerobic digestion of local agricultural waste. Methane captured from the digestion could be turned into 100 kilowatts of electricity and run onto Berwick Electric’s grid. Digested waste is a valuable commodity as well, along with any research data collected.

Energy digestion study hard to stomach, but gets council’s green light

Naming Berwick Mayor John Prall and chief administrative officer Bob Ashley to a new non-profit group to head up an anaerobic digestion energy project didn’t go without a few challengers at October’s council session.

The Berwick Energy-Agricultural Centre brings reps from science, agriculture, business and municipal units together to access funding and then run the five-year, $5 million trial.

Deputy Mayor Beth Easson said she didn’t want to see Berwick a “dumping site for the Valley,” collecting tonnes of agricultural waste to go through the digestors.

“This project is going awfully fast, and the risks outweigh the benefits,” she said. “We’re struggling with the infrastructure we have now - it’s crumbling in our sewer lines. Is this going to be an infrastructure 20 years down the road we’ll have to look after?”

Councillor Richard Horsburgh said Berwick has “done such a good job” in the past five years cleaning up odours and mess from its sewage treatment plant, “I can’t fathom inviting that back into town.

“Everyone is on a drilled well, and the town needs to know a lot more risk-wise and profit-wise than it does now.”

Consultant Jim Retallack and Mayor John Prall assured council “we’ll get those answers as we go along.

“The product going in, the process and how it’s taken away has to be controlled - if it’s not, it won’t happen,” Prall said.

Councillor Mike Trinacty said “I think this stuff is leading edge, really exciting.

“I hope we move forward as much as we can.”

Easson was the only council member to vote against naming Prall and Ashley to the Berwick Energy-Agricultural Centre.