UPDATED: Bristol businesman begins work on $157 Million plant

Developer says $157 million Reclaimed Resources Inc. facility will employ 100 people at average pay of $42,000 annually

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Work has already begun to convert the old American Phoenix building on Vance Tank Road into a plant that will turn trash into ethanol, said Ted Cox, the Bristol, Va., businessman behind the $157 million project.

Though city and county government officials have yet to approve a proposed $4 million incentive package for the project, both have indicated support – and Cox said he has the 660,000-square-foot building under contract.

“The process would take municipal waste – solid waste and other organic products including municipal sludge – and make them into usable products without having to be put in a landfill,” Cox said.

Mike Sparks, deputy city manager for development, said the building has been sitting empty for more than a decade – and city officials are thrilled that someone has found a good use for it. He also said Sullivan County officials have expressed interest.

“It’s very big,” Sparks said of the project’s significance. “Our intent in the community … is to try to foster job growth and economic development to help this area prosper, and to be able to use a piece of real estate that had value but was not being used is a very good thing.”

Cox said the building’s availability will greatly cut the time it takes to get the business, Reclaimed Resources Inc., into operation, which he now estimates at about 16 months. He said the plant will open in early 2011 and employ more than 100 people at an average wage of $42,000 a year plus benefits.

“We’re reclaiming it,” Cox said of the building. “Everything that we do is a product of recycling or reclaiming something that is not being used, into a renewable system.”

He also said that while his investors are primarily outside the United States, he hopes to draw some federal economic stimulus dollars for the project.

While eight plants similar to this one, which grind municipal waste into slurry and send it 2,000 feet underground as part of the treatment process, are being built around the United States, Cox said, his will be the first to open.

During early discussions on the project, the newness of the technology was a major reason Washington County, Va., officials expressed skepticism for it locating in their county.

Wise County officials – and ultimately Bristol, Tenn. – welcomed the prospect of being the first to have it.

Those three localities emerged in recent months as the most likely contenders for the plant, though Cox said three of the four other localities where he presented his plan expressed interest. Ultimately, the building’s availability cinched the deal for Bristol, Tenn., he said.

Cox said he might build a second, smaller plant in Wise County, and officials there are hopeful it will happen, said Bob Adkins, a Wise County Board of Supervisors member who serves on the county’s landfill and solid waste committee.

Adkins said even if Wise County doesn’t get a plant, “it could save big bucks” by allowing the county to avoid all of the costs associated with landfilling its garbage.

In Washington County, the proposed plant has become a central feature in the reelection campaigns for two sitting supervisors.

Challengers in those races have long blamed sitting board members for driving revenue-generating potential out of the county.

“Washington County had a chance to get that ethanol plant here, and of course, as you know, we lost it,” said Vernon Smith, who is challenging Supervisor Dulcie Mumpower for the seat she’s held for 16 years. “It’s just another example of our current Board of Supervisors turning away high-paying jobs.”

Mumpower and Supervisor Jack McCrady both have said the technology was unproven and uncertain, and they didn’t received enough details to make a decision. Mumpower, whose neighborhood sits beside the proposed Washington County site, also objected to the idea of trash being hauled through a residential area to reach the industrial park.

Joe Straten, who is challenging incumbent McCrady for his seat on the board, said many of his constituents are disappointed by the news that the plant will locate elsewhere.

McCrady did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday and Thursday. Mumpower said Wednesday that she had no comment on the new plant site.

Board Chairman Kenneth Reynolds noted that the Bristol, Tenn., site is away from residential areas.

“Not every business or industry fits every site,” Reynolds said. “I just think they looked at the options available and it seems to be that’s a good option down there.”

Sparks said the mixed response Cox received is typical for a major industrial project, particularly one with a new technology.

“Hopefully this will be the beginning of a good marriage,” he said. “I think this is what we’re going to see more of in the future, where projects are built around things that we used to not do and now we see a good social and economic reason to do it.”

Cox said the technology will work – and will produce no pollution. The technology has been in use in Europe for years, he said.

“The technology was proven in the United States [years ago], but because of the low cost of fuel, the low cost of oil and the readily available landfill space, this technology was not needed at that time,” Cox said. “The owners of the patents then chose to go to the Netherlands because of the huge demand for ways of disposing of their waste. Therefore, this has been used there on a daily basis for the past 20 years without being used in the United States.”

Over the past two decades, Cox said, the federal government’s attitude toward ethanol fuel has changed, and there now are incentives that make it easier to finance such projects.

Jeurgen Steyer, a German native who moved here from Florida to manage the plant, said many Europeans, who live in countries where communities are planned and land prices are at a premium, are shocked to learn that, in America, trash is still dumped into landfills.

“You have to look at the whole picture. There’s just so much more to it than smelly waste,” Steyer said. “They [Europeans] just don’t understand how a country as rich as this country can’t get a grip of their environmental issues.”

Cox said the plant will help address several issues in the Tri-Cities: the space consumed by landfills; the need for domestically produced fuel; and the cost to localities of dealing with municipal waste. The trash will come from within a 60-mile radius of the Tri-Cities, Cox said, and consume 750 percent of the 5,000 tons of trash that already travel the Tri-Cities daily.

“We feel like this facility will be the flagship of the waste disposal business for the whole United States,” he said. “We look forward to making this a showplace for Bristol, Tenn., to show the rest of the world that we are a progressive-thinking community and that cooperation between private industry and local leaders can make things happen.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701

Earlier

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Ted Cox, the Bristol, Va., businessman behind a new $157 million trash-to-ethanol plant that will serve the region, said today that work has already begun to renovate the 660,000-square-foot building that will house it.
City officials on Tuesday discussed plans to offer a $4 million incentive package for Cox’s company, Reclaimed Resources Inc., to develop the project at the long-empty former American Phoenix facility on Vance Tank Road. The incentive money has yet to be approved by the Bristol Tennessee City Council and the Sullivan County Board of Commissioners, but Cox, eager to complete the facility, said he isn’t waiting to get started.
“We’re reclaiming it,” Cox said of the building. “Everything that we do is a product of recycling or reclaiming something that is not being used into a renewable system.”
He said the plant will open in early 2011 and employ 100 people at an average wage of $42,000 a year plus benefits.
To learn more about Cox’s plans to turn the region’s garbage into ethanol and other usable products – and the massive impact he believes it will have on the future of waste disposal in America – read Friday's Bristol Herald Courier.

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701