A southern Alberta company making biodiesel from animal fats, deep fryer oils and canola oil is due in court next month over alleged discharges from its processing plant.
Western Biodiesel and its former operations manager Jason Freeman face joint charges over separate incidents in October 2008 in which wastewater containing biodiesel and methanol was released from its plant just north of High River, south of Calgary.
According to the charges laid under the province’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and Waste Control Regulation, the wastewater in these incidents was “allowed to flow onto an adjacent property near the facility,” the province said in a release Thursday.
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The charges involve “alleged release of a hazardous substance into the environment, improper disposal of wastewater and biodiesel, failure to report the releases and… providing false or misleading information.”
The company and Freeman are to appear in Provincial Court in Okotoks on Nov. 29.
Western Biodiesel has previously billed itself as circumventing the food-versus-fuel debate surrounding biofuels, by using “non-human food grade rendered animal fats to create a high-value, carbon-neutral diesel fuel replacement.”
The High River plant, which started production and sales in August 2008, has a biodiesel production capacity of up to 19 million litres per year and can make blends ranging from B5 (95 per cent petroleum diesel, five per cent biodiesel) to B100.
Among the public investments in the plant are a seven-year, $19.9 million commitment from the federal ecoEnergy for Biofuels program in 2009 and a $5 million grant from Alberta’s Bio-refining Commercialization and Market Development Program and Bio-energy Infrastructure Development Program in 2007.
