LAKE PLACID — On the same day the North Elba Town Council officially terminated its biodigester contract with Bioferm, council members pledged they still want to find a solution for organic waste in landfills, even if it’s an alternative to a biodigester.

After councilmen unanimously voted to terminate the town’s contract with Bioferm, Councilman Bob Miller said the town is moving forward to seek a different solution.

“We are not walking away from the idea of problem solving the issue of having organic waste in the landfills,” Miller said. “What we are walking away from is a corporation that told us they can not deliver the goods they promised.”

Miller and other town councilmen explained that the sole reason the contract was terminated was because Bioferm informed the town it couldn’t provide a new biodigester within the $1.2 million covered by a grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, as the cost would have run about $250,000 more than agreed upon.

“Not only did you make it clear,” Town Attorney Ron Briggs said, “it’s in the written contract. So they signed a binding written contract and your commitment was to provide the grant and no more than that, and they agreed to provide a biodigester and accept that payment. But they had the legal right under the contract to terminate the contract if they couldn’t deliver, and that’s what they did.”

“So basically, the deal is,” Councilman Jack Favro added, “we can’t afford to be $100,000 or $200,000 over, hanging out in the wind somewhere that we can’t pay for.

“For the 2018 tax cap,” he added, “we will have $93,000 at the most to be able to use in our budget — f you take health insurance and all that, it eats that up pretty fast. So we really don’t have any extra money just sitting around in the coffers here.”

Miller added that the town met last week with representatives from NYSERDA — the authority providing the grant — and the Adirondack North Country Association about the future of the project. He also was adamant that the town would continue to work with the same researchers and professors from Clarkson University to devise their next solution.

Miller and Doty stressed that the town feels it has invested too much, upwards of five years of research and work, to find an organic waste solution to suddenly give up on the project.

“We have so much data from five years of work we can move in and move forward now being ahead of the curve, if you will,” Doty said, “knowing what the town’s responsibilities will be, what the needs are, what the town can afford and help with — there are just so many aspects to moving forward that make more sense now.”

“We are hopeful there is additional funding,” Doty added, “and we are also finding out alternative processes if you will to handle organic waste. It isn’t all through biodigesters.”

Doty said alternatives may include a straight composting-type system and/or an anaerobic digester.

“One would be very simple, the other is much more involved,” he said.

Miller added that the town council’s next step is to contact its contacts at Clarkson.

“(And ask them) what options are there?” Miller said. “‘is there a cleaner pathway to getting what we need?’

“Hopefully they’ll have some ideas for us.”