The Board of Ada County Commissioners Rick Yzaguirre and Sharon Ullman on Tuesday approved an agreement with Dynamis Energy to lease about 10 acres at the county-owned landfill to build and operate a gasifier that will generate 22 megawatts of electricity.
Details of the lease agreement are not yet known. The Statesman has requested, but not yet received, a copy of the lease agreement.
Dynamis needed the county-approved lease agreement in order for DEQ to continue processing the energy company’s air quality application; Dynamis also needed the lease agreement in order to starting pulling building permits. Two building permits for shell structures — foundation, walls and roof — are ready.
Now that Dynamis has a lease agreement and two building permits are ready, it can start construction. Dynamis CEO Lloyd Mahaffey has not yet responded to a Statesman question about when construction will start.
Ulllman has stated several times Dynamis cannot start construction until it buys back the site-specific facility design plans the county paid Dynamis $2 million in 2010 to create.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner Dave Case made a motion to terminate all Dynamis agreements and demand repayment of the $2 million owed Ada County because Dynamis is not complying with the contract’s timeline.
Yzaguirre and Ullman did not support the motion. An audience member opposed to the project yelled out, “I second the motion.” “That will do you a lot of good,” Yzaguirre retorted.
Dynamis was to start construction in March of this year, but then delayed it to July. Dynamis said the delays are due to DEQ. Dynamis applied for its air quality permit in late April. Dynamis made several changes to the application in late July, so DEQ had to start some of the review process over. DEQ said it plans to issue a draft permit by mid-November.
On Tuesday, Commissioners Yzaguirre and Ullman also voted for a resolution “affirming creation of an industrial park” at the county-owned landfill.
Case said the commissioners took the action, “to get around state law.”
Under Idaho law, “Any property belonging to the county may be leased by the board without public auction for a term not to exceed thirty (30) years, to be used for an industrial park in conjunction with economic development purposes. An industrial park for purposes of this section means facilities for manufacturing, processing, production, assembly warehousing or activities associated therewith.”
The resolution to “affirm” the industrial park required a public hearing. This is the first public hearing the Commission has held on a Dynamis-related item. Three people spoke before the commission, but Chairman Yzaguirre said comments must be limited to the industrial park resolution.
Kristin Stilton called the county’s handling of the Dynamis project a “farce.”
Allison Sesnon chastised Yzaguirre and Ullman. “You are running this under your own parameters, changing laws as you see fit in order to move through a process,” she said.
“We have followed the advice of our attorneys,” Ada County Prosecutor Greg Bower and Chief Deputy Prosecutor Ted Argyle, Ullman said. “We have followed their advice the entire time through this project. So these allegations of doing something illegal, need to be directed to the prosecutor’s office,” Ullman said.
At the close of the 20-minute hearing, Sesnon yelled out “Recall Yzaguirre.” Yzaguirre still has two years left in his term. Voters ousted Ullman in the May Republican primary. Her last day in Jan. 14.
Yzaguirre and Ullman have not yet responded to Statesman questions about the industrial park or the $2 million Dynamis owes the county.
