City Manager Urges Council to Support Waste-to-Energy Plant

City Manager Jeffrey Broughton urged City Council members on Tuesday to support a plan that would provide tax breaks for a proposed waste-to-energy plant at the now-empty American Phoenix facility on Vance Tank Road.

By: Roger Brown | TriCities.com
Published: October 21, 2009

BRISTOL, Tenn. – City Manager Jeffrey Broughton urged City Council members on Tuesday to support a plan that would provide tax breaks for a proposed waste-to-energy plant at the now-empty American Phoenix facility on Vance Tank Road.

Broughton said the council should back Reclaimed Resources Inc.’s proposed $140 million project to build an ethanol-manufacturing plant, which would ideally begin operation in three years and employ 100 people.

“We think this project is real,” Broughton told council members. “Over time, we’ve become more convinced this project will happen. And if it does happen, we’d like to see it happen here [in Bristol].”

The proposal calls for Bristol and Sullivan County to give Reclaimed Resources, a company formed by a local businessman, at least $4 million in real and property tax breaks during a five- to seven-year period, though Broughton said each would still receive some taxes from the plant during that time.

Both the Bristol City Council and the Sullivan County Board of Commissioners must approve the proposed tax abatements.

If each approves the abatements during separate meetings in November, an official agreement could be reached by year’s end, Bristol Deputy City Manager Mike Sparks said Tuesday.

During a lengthy presentation to council members, Sparks said the Reclaimed Resources’ project is the city’s best hope to get some use from the 97-acre
American Phoenix facility, which has largely stood vacant and inactive for years.

“If we don’t have a project in that building soon, it’s going to become very close to unsaleable,” Sparks said.

Sparks said the proposed ethanol-manufacturing plant would create jobs and “provide a productive use for a vacant building.” He added that the waste-to-energy plant was particularly attractive to Bristol because it would be odorless technology that wouldn’t produce emissions or cause ground-water contamination.

“It may help the entire region,” Sparks told council members.

Council members peppered Sparks with questions about the proposed plant, but generally expressed cautious, early support for it.

“It sounds spectacular if it works,” Councilman David Shumaker said. “And if it doesn’t, we just have the empty building we have now.”

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