Ada County Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to exercise a contract clause that requires the company to pay back money it was given to design a waste-to-energy facility.

About 30 people attended the meeting, but two county officials said they didn’t see any representatives from Dynamis.

Commissioner Sharon Ullman made the motion to seek repayment, according to fellow Commissioner David Case. The county could sue if the company doesn’t pay up within 90 days — but that’s not all, Case said.

“In my mind, it would terminate the project” if the company doesn’t repay the money, said Case, who has been the board of commissioners’ lone voice against Dynamis.

In June 2010, the county signed a “professional consulting services” contract with Dynamis. The county agreed to pay the company the $2 million to design a site-specific facility on county-owned land adjacent to the landfill.

Dynamis was expected to build, own and operate the plant on land leased from the county, and once the design was complete, to buy back its design plans for $2 million.

The design is complete and Dynamis has been saying since early this year that it is ready to start construction as soon as it gets an air quality permit.

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality officials say they don’t know when the agency will issue a draft permit for public review because it still needs additional technical information from Dynamis to complete the application review. In August, Dynamis submitted to the county building permit applications for two shell structures.

Last week, Idaho Citizens for Safe Environment and Transparent Government filed a lawsuit against Ada County over the project. Included in the complaint is a claim that the $2 million the county gave Dynamis constitutes a loan, and it is illegal for counties to loan money to businesses. The commissioners decided Wednesday to hire the law firm Hawley Troxell to defend the county against that suit.