Brian Roebke photo
Supervisor Jesse Juedes (left) discusses the smell coming from the BC Organics community digester with Doug Galbreth (right) while Supervisor Ron Diny listens during last week’s Town of Wrightstown meeting.
By Brian Roebke
Editor
The monthly Town of Wrightstown board meeting at the Greenleaf Village Hall, on Wednesday, July 9, produced some good news in the form of an explanation of the smell that’s been coming from the BC Organics community digester on Mill Road.
Josh Haese and Doug Galbreth of BC Organics gave an update and report that seemed to satisify town officials that a solution may be in sight.
“We are trying to be proactive because we know this has been a heartache for the community,” Galbreth said.
They told the board they were so focused on the beginning of the process — manure entering the facility — that they thought the end of the process wasn’t going to be a problem.
Supervisor Jesse Juedes, speaking to the two men, referred to an email from a resident about the smell from the community digester.
“I think you can understand the frustration and the hurt that the community is really starting to feel,” Juedes said.
He thought the odor had decreased since the town contacted the Department of Natural Resources.
Haese said they discovered a problem with the flare, meaning the burners within the flare have a tremendous amount of buildup and have cracked, causing issues.
“What happened is essentially our flare shut down because of that buildup and then the back pressure shut down our gas system,” he said.
That meant their ability to put gas into the pipeline and to flare the gas went away because of a safety measure built into the operation.
“Essentially that’s what caused our plant to go down and with both the flare down and the gas system down, not putting anything into the flare or the pipeline forced our system to pop our PRVs on our digesters,” Haese said.
To counteract that, they planned to take the flare down on Thursday and still inject into the gas pipeline but replace all the burners and pressure wash and get all the buildup off the flare system.
“Essentially with those new burners in, the flare cleaned, then we shouldn’t have that issue again,” he added.
That problem gas was escaping into the air, causing an odor.
BCO is having greater success producing gas for the pipeline every month and they believe they are near peak production. They have ordered larger compressors and blowers they hope will reduce the smell after they arrive early this fall.
They are also increasing the amount of water that’s being taken out of the plant and sent to the river.
Supervisors approved a contract with Scott Construction for 16 small projects between the town and village at a cost of $303,673.
Road work will be done on portions of the following roads: Autumn Glaze Court, Elmro Road, Golduest Driver, Hjorth Road, Jennifer Lane, Ledgetop Drive, Ledgestop Court, Mallard Road, Meadowlark Rad, Mill Road, Partridge Road, School Road, and Wrightstown Road.
Katie Eichert appeared before the board requesting to establish a bike lane when Fair Road is reconstructed. She thinks vehicles get too close to bikers, walkers, and runners who use the road and it’s not safe for them.
“There are a lot of kids from Greenleaf who struggle to get into Wrightstown for summer school, sports, things like that,” she said. “There’s not really a safe way for them to bike into town.”
Verbeten believes it will be brought up to state highway standards that makes the road wider.
Eichert mentioned a trail as a possibility but that’s not realistic because property would need to be acquired and the cost of the path would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Juedes said some of the ditches are steep there as well.
Juedes thinks it would be okay to bike on the road if it’s the same width as the state highway, and a town road would have much less traffic.
Ron Diny wondered if the striping could be adjusted to create a bike lane on one side.
Verbeten said it might even be required as part of the grant, and the town will make some inquiries during the engineering process.
The board discussed retention, destruction or release to local historical society of the final assessment rolls from 1957 and 1975-2009 according to the Wisconsin Model Record Keeping System recommendations.
Town Clerk Donna Martzahl said the Wrightstown Historical Society offered to take them and Juedes said if the historical society digitalizes them at their cost, as they have offered, and give the town a copy, they can have the originals.
“Otherwise they can just sit there,” Juedes said.
Supervisors approved the transfer as long as the historical society complies with the agreement.
In an update on citations issued by the Town of Wrightstown for Brown County Joint Municipal Court, Zoning Administrator Shawn DeCleene received an email regarding the issue on Fair Lane with Sharon Zakowski. The plea agreement was held open until July 1 with conditions of installing and maintaining motion detectors with video recording capabilities, monitoring the two entrances to the barn located on her property, and maintaining the video captured for one week.
In addition, if there is a complaint about abnormal barn activity, the town should contact her lawyer to arrange for viewing of the relevant video.
Zakowski should ensure access to the barn can be obtained only through padlocked doors.
If she complies, the tickets will be dismissed in six months.
Now that the village has been accepted into the Joint Municipal Court, DeCleene can turn this over to the village constable, Bobbie Sue Burbey.
Supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding with Village of Greenleaf and Town of Wrights-town for FEMA grant for Wrights-town Road. FEMA wants to run the grant through the town, which originally applied for the grant.
In the planning commission/zoning board of appeals report, DeCleene said Al Six has stepped down and the town needs a new member for the plan commission.
Supervisors approved the property tax bill agreement for 2026, with having Brown County continuing to do tax collections, and approved the 2026 Brown County Joint Municipal Court Budget.
The board discussed a petition for direct annexation by unanimous approval of 24 acres of property on Highway U from the town to the Village of Wrightstown.