Page 10 - BusinessWest January 6, 2021

Community Spotlight
Agawam Looks to an Energized Future
By Mark Morris
As the world looks to generate energy from different sources and reduce waste, a new facility just opened in Agawam that contributes to both efforts.
What looks like a plain green building on Main Street is actually a plant that converts food waste into natural gas and fertilizer. Vanguard Renewables, based in Wellesley, approached Agawam Mayor William Sapelli about locating an organics-recovery facility in Agawam. After addressing some initial concerns about truck traffic and potential odor from the plant, the town gave the go-ahead.
“Because Agawam is a designated green com- munity, it’s important for us to bring in facilities like this,” Sapelli said, noting that this is only the second plant of its type in Massachusetts.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say the nearby Hood dairy plant has a pallet of yogurt that does not meet specifications or has expired. Hood can bring that pallet to the Agawam facility, where large extracting machines separate the packag- ing from the yogurt. The packaging gets bundled and brought to a recycling facility, while the yogurt is mixed with other food waste and water. This forms a slurry, which is then delivered by tanker truck to an anerobic digester, a large, dome-shaped structure. (The closest digesters to
Agawam are located on farms in Deerfield and Hadley.)
The slurry is mixed with farm-animal waste in the digester, where two things happen. First, biogas rises from the mix and gets converted to renewable natural gas for heating and cooling. Then, the remains of the slurry, known as diges- tate, are used as low-carbon fertilizer for area farmers.
“In the past, all this waste was incinerated or dumped into a landfill, but now it’s being turned into energy and fertilizer,” Sapelli said, calling the process “amazing.” As the Agawam facility ramps up to full capacity, it will be able to pro- cess 250 tons of food waste per day, according to Vanguard.
That’s just one project that has Agawam offi- cials excited as they move past a challenging 2020 for all municipalities. While the pandemic is still a daily reality, they say this town is focused on growth as a new year dawns.
Bridge to Tomorrow
For the past couple of years, the largest infrastructure project in Agawam has been the rebuilding of the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge con- necting Agawam and West Springfield. The origi- nal completion date was scheduled for May 2022.
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10 JANUARY 6, 2021
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
BusinessWest
Agawam at a glance
YEAR INCORPORATED: 1636
POPULATION: 28,718
AREA: 24.2 square miles
COUNTY: Hampden
RESIDENTIAL TAX RATE: $16.83 COMMERCIAL TAX RATE: $31.61
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $49,390 FAMILY HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $59,088 TYPE OF GOVERNMENT: Mayor; City Council
LARGEST EMPLOYERS: OMG Inc., Agawam Public Schools, Six Flags New England, Whalley Computer Associates
* Latest information available