Representatives of Bigadan, the company proposing to build an anaerobic digester in Ellsworth, have withdrawn their special use permit application. The project is no more.

According to an email received by Village Administrator/Clerk-Treasurer Brad Roy from Bigadan consultant Ray Davy at 12:36 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, “Jorgen Fink at Bigadan informed me this morning that they wish to withdraw their application for a Special Use Permit to build a biogas facility in Ellsworth.”

Roy received another email at 2:38 p.m. April 3 from Bigadan Project Development Executive Jorgen Fink, which stated “Following up from your meeting on April 28 (sic) and your decision, we hereby withdraw our Special Use Permit (SUP) Application for Ellsworth Biogenergy.”

Roy said he believes the decision Fink is referring to, which should have said March 28 meeting, is the inability to come to an agreement to terms of the PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) and MOU (Memorandum of Understanding).

Bigadan is a Danish renewable natural gas company that had proposed to build a contained anaerobic digester and nutrient recovery facility in Ellsworth near the East End Industrial Park on 25 acres owned by Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery.

The biogas company, named Bigadan, has more than 40 years of experience and offers engineering and construction services to biogas plants, along with specializing in renewable energy production, manure and organic waste treatment and nutrient recycling.

The project was expected to invest $190 million in the community in five years and create 37 jobs in trucking and at the plant. Since the digester would have been considered a utility and utilities are exempt from property taxes, the company was proposing to “voluntarily pay taxes on a yearly basis,” which is called “payment in lieu of taxes,” or PILOT.

Bigadan owns and operates 10 biogas plants in Denmark. The digester would have taken in various waste streams, including animal waste from area farms and whey water from Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery and convert it into natural gas and CO2 byproducts.

In July 2023, when the project was first proposed publicly, Pierce County Economic Development Director Joe Folsom said Davy reached out to him to identify a potential location. Ellsworth was considered desirable because of its proximity to farms, the creamery, an existing natural gas pipeline, and UW-River Falls, home to one of the largest dairy science programs in the United States.

Hudson and Menomonie’s wastewater treatment plants and the Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery’s Menomonie location have anaerobic digesters.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, anaerobic digestion is a process through which bacteria break down organic matter (animal and food waste, wastewater biosolids) in the absence of oxygen in a sealed vessel called a reactor. The reactors contain complex microbial communities that break down the waste and produce biogas and digestate (the solid and liquid material byproducts of the process).

Many citizens spoke out against the project at Ellsworth Village Board meetings, starting in August 2023. They cited concerns ranging from odor, property values decreasing, safety, proximity to homes, truck traffic, affects on infrastructure, lack of transparency, conflict of interest, and more.