City helps methane conversion project
A revolutionary environmental project in Putnam County moved a step closer to reality Monday night when the Eatonton City Council approved an agreement with a company planning to convert methane gas from dairy cow manure to commercial natural gas.
SRNG-T&W LLC is a joint venture of two Putnam dairy farms – T&W Farms and Sunrise, and SustainRNG – developer of a new method of capturing and processing methane gases for reuse as natural gas.
Since the project was first announced in May 2021, SustainRNG has been constructing a digester that will convert the methane under a large domed building on T&W Farm’s property near Lower Harmony and Dance roads.
T&W Owner Tim Camp told The Eatonton Messenger Monday that construction has been slower than expected.
“It’s been like everybody else,” Camp said. “The supply chain is so unpredictable. They aren’t going to be done until spring of next year now. It was scheduled to be done this fall – November, December.”
Basically, 12 times a day, a water tower on Camp’s land will flush manure from his 1,200 cows into a pit. From there it is pumped through a filter, and the resulting water mixture, called slurry, will be sent to the digester and processed into renewable natural gas. Slurry from Sunrise Dairy’s cows will be piped three miles to T&W’s digester.
The final product will be compressed into specially designed tanker trucks and sold to the natural gas system in Dublin.
The two Putnam County farms will get a percentage of the revenue.
All expenses for construction of the digester, lines and other equipment are being paid by SustainRNG, whose major financial backer is Duke Energy, a subsidiary of Duke Power in North Carolina. Officials say there will be no costs to the city.
Monday night’s agreement, approved with minor changes, allows the Eatonton Gas Authority to sell natural gas to SRNG-T&W to operate the digester at a discount of $1.50 per unit below the normal rate. The deal is for up to 10 years or until the company recovers all of its capital costs. At that point, Eatonton will take over ownership of the entire system built by SRNG-T&W.
Scott Tolleson, representing the Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia, helping to organize the deal, told councilmembers that things changed from the original plan where the Eatonton gas system would distribute the final product.
“We were trying a method where we were going to interconnect with the Tri-County system over in Greene County across the lake with some pipe,” he said. “Connect these systems and move gas back and forth. That became too expensive and hard to accomplish for the developer and engineers to solve.”
Tolleson says the project will be a good, new customer for the Eatonton Gas Department. The digester is expected to use the equivalent amount of natural gas as 50 residential homes or 10-12 restaurants.
Methane gas is considered a major detriment to the environment.
SustainRNG will make money by selling government credits it receives for capturing and converting methane gas from dairy cow manure.
Also at Monday night’s meeting:
• Latoshia Maddox, director of the Eatonton-Putnam Senior Center, reported that even though COVID forced closure of the center for more than two years, she and two other women were able to deliver meals to needy seniors during that period.
Maddox said that July 2020 through July 2021, about 30,240 meals were delivered. That provided two meals a day, every day to 42 clients. From July 2021 through July 2022, about 10,560 meals were delivered, enough for five meals a week for 35 clients. She also asked councilmembers to budget money for additional help at the center since the workload has increased with the center’s reopening. Also, she requested money for a van or other fully operational vehicle to use for transportation.
• Councilmembers approved a conditional use zoning request by Denise Waller for a small K-12 private school she wants to operate at 601B South Jefferson Avenue. For the past three years, she has operated an after-school program at 116 W. Marion Street.
• Based on the actual costs for providing police and other assistance at large events on Eatonton’s streets, city council voted to increase the cost of a permit for parades and road races to $100 and permits for marches will now be $50. The cost for other gatherings will remain at $25, which has been the cost for all such permits.
• Alcohol licenses were approved for October and November events at the Plaza Arts Center, The Fiesta Hall at 799 Monticello Road and the Shell gas station and adjacent liquor store at 204 and 204A East Sumpter Street.