One mill's waste another man's treasure: Wawa-based entrepreneur unveils plans to develop wood-pellet fuel mill.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Forestry: Special Report - Gerry Bugyra's NorWa Manufacturing and Distribution Co. - Brief Article

What is considered one forest producer's waste has become almost gold for the start-up of a fledgling Wawa outfit that has plans to convert sawdust into environmentally friendly and clean-burning pellet fuel for heating homes.

Gerry Bugyra expects his wood-pellet fuel mill will be operational this fall, the first of possibly four such facilities he intends to establish in Northern Ontario.

Through a long-term agreement struck with Weyerhaeuser, Bugyra's company, NorWa Manufacturing and Distribution Co. Ltd., will receive sawdust and other residnal wood-waste material from the forestry company's oriented strand board plant in nearby Limer, and produce about 12,000 tonnes of wood fuel pellets a year.

"It will be the first operation of its kind in North America," says Bugyra. It will utilize a special prototype pelletizing system developed by a British Columbia environmental firm.

Construction on the $500,000-mill is expected to be complete by mid-September, and NorWa should be ready to ship pellets by early October.

The operation would create 15 full-time positions, running three shifts a day at Full production.

Woodbridge Constructors of Thunder Bay was awarded the contract to build a steel-structure building in the Wawa Industrial Park.

The building will house a modern punchdie pelletizer developed by Enviro 2000 of Surrey, B.C., a system that produces a pellet about the size of an eraser head.

NorWa will produce a very dense and hot, clean-burning hardwood pellet with a BTU factor of 8,800 BTUs per pound.

"It's a 100 per cent natural product that we're manufacturing," says Bugyra, a former Algoma ore division diesel mechanic millwright who financed the $500,000-project with his own money and an investment from a small local investors group.

As well, the Superior East Community Development Corp. came aboard as a major financier contributing its ceiling limit of a $125,000 loan, along with funds pooled from 14 other community futures development corporations in the northeast, for a total of investment of $875,000.

Dan Friyia, general manager for Superior East, says what struck home with the agency's board of directors was the proposal's job-growth potential, the quality of Bugyra's submission and the fact that it is value-added forestry, identified by the organization as one of their strategic objectives for regional economic development.

"We certainly ran into the right entrepreneur with the right idea," Friyia says.

The genesis of the idea...