The Surry County Board of Commissioners decided this week to end its negotiations with Fibrowatt LLC over its planned chicken-litter incinerator near Elkin, saying that the company never answered opponents' concerns about the project.
The commissioners voted unanimously on Monday to stop negotiating about the project with Fibrowatt officials.
Commissioner Paul Johnson, the board's chairman, said yesterday that the Fibrowatt project in Surry is dead.
"I don't think anybody on the board has any plans of reversing (their decision)," Johnson said.
County Manager Dennis Thompson sent a letter on Tuesday to Fibrowatt at its headquarters in Langhorne, Pa., informing the company of the commissioners' decision. The letter said in part that the commissioners will try to sell land off Gentry Road to an industry that the Elkin community would support.
Terry Walmsley, a spokesman for Fibrowatt, said that the company regrets the decision.
"But we understand that they did what was best for their own community," Walmsley said.
Several community groups including Elkin residents and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League have said that the proposed Fibrowatt plant would produce noxious odors and toxic emissions, and increase truck traffic on rural roads and highways.
They also said it would decrease property values and interfere with their health.
Fibrowatt denied those claims, saying that its plant would not have added pollutants to the environment, and that the company would have removed polluting chemicals from the chicken litter.
The state's utility companies have been negotiating power-purchase agreements with Fibrowatt and two other companies that would provide renewable energy sources.
A state law requires utilities to start getting some energy from pig and chicken manure by 2012. Fibrowatt selected the site in Surry in June 2008.
Fibrowatt still plans to build plants in Montgomery and Sampson counties that would generate electricity by burning chicken waste.
The plant in Surry County would have been near a Duke Energy substation, poultry producers, Interstate 77 and N.C. 268.
"We do believe that Northwest North Carolina needs a facility like ours," Walmsley said.
The commissioners' action reversed their unanimous vote in March 2009, when they rezoned 117 acres near Elkin along the Yadkin River intended for the incinerator that would be called FibroHills.
Surry County, which owns the land, had applied for a state grant to bring water and sewer lines to the site, officials said. Surry had spent $2.17 million to buy the land and prepare the site; the project would have added $140 million to the county's tax base.
At that time, the commissioners said they wanted to bring jobs to the Elkin area and they needed a place for an industrial park. Many residents opposed the rezoning last year.
Commissioner Jim Harrell said that most residents in Elkin and nearby areas were opposed to the Fibrowatt plant. He represents Elkin and southwestern Surry communities.
"It was a distraction," Harrell said. "There have been too many unanswered questions. We just don't need it."
The Surry commissioners decided on March 29 that the county would consider withholding incentives for Fibrowatt if the company didn't respond to the concerns of residents who oppose the planned plant.
In April, the Yadkin Valley Chamber of Commerce backed off its previous support of the planned Fibrowatt incinerator.
The chamber said it was concerned that the plant would harm Surry County's tourism, its residents and the environment.
jhinton@wsjournal.com | 727-7299
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