The bill comes in the wake of a years-long controversy in Fairborn, regarding a biodigester facility in Bath Twp. Local residents have complained of noxious odors alleged to be coming from the facility, and a class-action lawsuit is pending in Greene County courts.
If passed, the legislation would require a board of county commissioners to approve or disapprove a bio-solid lagoon or biodigestion facility prior to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency taking any action on a permit for it. The applicant would have to hold a public hearing on the permit prior to submitting it to the Ohio EPA, after which the county commission has 90 days to vote to disapprove the facility.
The bill also would require that lagoons have a lid, to protect against nuisance odors and “dangers to public health.”
The bill borrows some language from House Bill 52, a law passed in 2021 that gives similar controls to local governments in siting economically significant solar and wind power generating facilities.
Exceptions to the zoning rule would include operations located entirely on farms, and that don’t accept sludge waste from outside sources. For example, a biodigester on a farm that only processes agricultural waste generated by that farm or an adjacent one would not be subject to local zoning. However, if the facility accepts waste, including agricultural waste, from any other source, it could be regulated under the proposed bill.
“In other words, it’s all on the property, that’s a farm operation. We’re not touching it,” said Rep. Brian Lampton (R-Beavercreek). “What we’re doing is saying when it’s a commercial operation. (If) you’re bringing food waste in from Procter and Gamble, or even worse, human waste coming from a city, now it’s a commercial operation.”
Lampton is co-sponsor of the bill, alongside Rep. Kevin Miller (R-Newark).
In 2021, a Greene County court ruling said that bioenergy facilities are considered public utilities under Ohio law, exempt from local zoning, after Bath Twp. trustees had pursued regulations.
House Bill 193 would negates that, and would eliminate the public utility exemption for biodigestion facilities.
The Ohio House Agricultural Committee Hearing begins Tuesday at 10 a.m.
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