Rep. Murphy Brings Fellow Legislators to Tour Perham Resource Recovery Facility Perham, MN — Joined by several fellow legislators including Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, Representative Jim Joy, Representative Jeff Backer, Representative Mike Weiner, and Congresswoman Fischbach’s district director Ben Anderson as well as former Otter Tail County Commissioner Doug Huebsch; Representative Tom Murphy (R – Underwood) attends tour of Perham Resource Recovery Facility. The tour was organized by Rep. Murphy’s office and led by Executive Director Chris McConn, Plant Manager Brian Schmidt, and Otter Tail County Assistant Director Steven Branby. The Perham Facility recovers approximately 1,200 tons of recyclable material every year from the waste stream as well as converting solid waste into usable electricity. In Minnesota, roughly one-third, or about one million tons of solid waste is converted to electricity in Waste to Energy (WTE) like this one. The Perham facility also sells roughly 1 million pounds of steam to the neighboring Bongard’s Creamery and Tuffy’s Pet Foods for their manufacturing processes. “This tour was a great opportunity for my colleagues and I to witness first-hand how our public-private partnership to create energy from solid waste while sharply improving our environmental impact is keeping waste out of landfills and turning it into useful electricity.” Said Rep. Murphy of the tour. “I look forward to how we can continue to innovate with reliable solutions for energy and waste management.” The Perham plant intends to expand their operation with emerging technologies such as Ash Reutilization for roadbed construction and Carbon Sequestration to pipe carbon monoxide to North Dakota to improve oil extraction from wells in the region. Emerging technologies continue to expand the availability of safe reliable energy. ### |