Central Huron Proceeding with a Feasibility Study For a Potential Occupant of the Former Bluewater Centre
by Bob Montgomery
Central Huron council recently hosted a virtual meeting with GreenLab of Denmark regarding their future with the former Bluewater Centre on highway 21.
GreenLab has expressed interest in leasing some of the property and Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn says it's a unique opportunity for the municipality. The proposed use would be a form of industrial park where one industry's waste is feed stock for another one. Or new industries coming in might be recycling something that can be used by another industry. “The Danes have some really interesting technologies that they've developed and they want to spread it around the world for the betterment of the world and in a way that produces a little profit for them.”
Ginn says it’s been referred to as a closed loop industrial park, where one industry’s waste product would be used in the production of energy and then returned to the soil to help revitalize it. The waste products could include natural gas, electricity, heat, as well as other raw products. They also have some interesting technologies for surplus agricultural products.
The next step is a feasibility study to see if what is working in Denmark would work in Central Huron and he says some of the products might be different than the products in Denmark and that will depend on what's available here. He says so far this proposal checks all of the boxes as far as what they had hoped for the property. Ginn says they haven't made any decisions at this point and they'll want to see the feasibility study before they do. He suspects it will work in an agricultural area here since it's working very well in an agricultural area in Denmark and says this is probably the best proposal they've had to date.
Ginn says he believes circular economies and circular industrial parks are the way of the future. “We spend way too much time trucking something from Quebec to Toronto and then back to Quebec and milk from Huron County to the other side of Toronto to get processed before it comes back to Huron County. So how much greenhouse gas could we save by having a compact area closer to where things are produced.”
Ginn says Huron County wouldn't necessarily have the same industries they have in Denmark, it would have to fit the area and what's available and needed in that area, but to be the first in Canada to have this kind of a plan would be something to be proud of. He says they'll ask staff to bring back a report on the cost of a feasibility study and he expects to have that at their next council meeting. He doesn't know at this time how long the feasibility study would take.
