Biofuels Company to Repay County
by Noah Haglund (The Weekly Herald) The company has agreed to compensate the county for $143,000 in goods and services it didn’t deliver for a canola project.
Snohomish County’s experiment helping farmers turn crops into biodiesel hasn’t been a failure, but it’s hardly a success either, according to an entrepreneur involved in the project.
Whole Energy Fuels of Bellingham entered a settlement agreement last month to compensate the county for $143,000 in goods and services it failed to deliver in developing the county’s canola-crushing system. The original $465,000 contract, signed in 2008, was to design, build and install the system.
Whole Energy CEO Atul Deshmane said technical difficulties hampered his company’s ability to finish the work. So did turmoil in the biofuels market, which he said has since improved.
…Meanwhile, farmers’ interest in the crusher has fallen short of expectations. In 2010, for example, local farmers were only growing about a tenth of the oilseed crop originally envisioned. Some farmers have complained that agricultural land here in Snohomish County is too pricey for such low-value crops. READ MORE
