Chatham-Kent PUC looks to settle waste-to-energy project ‘discrepancy’

A photo included in the April 27, 2026 report to Chatham-Kent Council showing Recommendation #2 authorizing the transfer of the 2.71 acres owned by the CK Public Utilities Commission from the west side of the property. (Courtesy the Municipality of Chatham-Kent).

The Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commission has addressed a key question recently raised by detractors of a planned $160 million waste-to-energy project over an apparent discrepancy in the facility’s size.

On Friday, the four Chatham-Kent councillors who voted against approving the project at the April 27 regular meeting of council held a media availability to raise concern over the wet tonnage capacity included in the permit application to the province for the Anaerobic Digester (AD) project, which would recycle wastewater and ethanol sludge into natural gas and fertilizer.

“This has us a little concerned because we approved something like 370,000 [wet metric tonnes], but the approval to the provincial government is for 900,000 [wet metric tonnes],” said Michael Bondy, the longtime Ward 6 councillor, in an interview with CTV News on Friday.

Chatham-Kent councillors call for do-over on $160 million waste-to-energy project

And he stressed, before going public, he sought clarification from municipal administration that hadn’t come through.

“We have asked, you know, we wouldn’t call the media. We would ask the question first. But we’ve asked several times and there’s no answer,” said Bondy.

PUC Letter

A letter addressed to the mayor and council on Friday from Darren Galbraith, the general manager of the PUC, confirms the permit application to the province includes a processing capacity of 900,000 tonnes per year (TPY) to reflect all the effluent flows on the property and the total Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) capacity of the facility.

That includes the 450,000 TPY currently generated by Greenfield Global, the private partner for the AD project, in a separate industrial wastewater treatment stream.

“This should not be interpreted as the design or operating capacity or the imported waste tonnage to the digesters,” read the letter from Galbraith. “This is a cumulative total of what was already going through the (Greenfield Global) plant plus the 370,000 TPY that was referred to in the council reports.”

Galbraith adds in the letter, any suggestion the plant will be bigger than originally planned is inaccurate.

“The permit approvals to the ministry needed to reflect that this is a combined project and all the flows need to be accounted for in permit approvals,” wrote Galbraith.

The approved 370,000 TPY refers to the “primary organic feedstock” the AD will be processing on an annual basis.

The remaining 80,000 TPY in the permit submission is “buffer” designed into the project to allow operational flexibility and expansion within the approved plans including buffer capacity, holding, and redundancy.

That buffer is meant to allow for “future optimization” should operations warrant and would mean a new facility wouldn’t necessarily be needed to move from 370,000 TPY to 450,000 TPY.

Late clarification?

In response to the letter, Coun. Bondy told CTV News it was welcome clarity that has come at a late hour for the multi-million-dollar project.

“I appreciate the clarification from Mr. Galbraith,” wrote Bondy via email. “There seems to be quite a bit of confusion regarding the project. I would suggest this could have, and should have, been avoided.”

Bondy, along with councillors Alysson Storey, Rhonda Jubenville, and Amy Finn opposed the project at the April 27 meeting.

They argue the project has not had sufficient public consultation to match its price tag and believe a pause is necessary to better inform the public while receiving more feedback.

The group is pushing the public to raise any concerns through the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) public replies process, open through June 4.