North Country Public Radio

A Lake Placid science teacher and her students hope to help the Tri-Lakes area go green in a big way by next summer. Tammy Morgan, who teaches environmental science and biology, and high school senior Chris Williams, led a school team that planned a bio-digester project that will be one of the first community-scaled systems in the country.

Think of an anaerobic bio-digester as a huge stomach where food scraps from local schools and restaurants, grass cuttings from back yards, and even cardboard pizza boxes, could be turned into energy, fertilizer, and garden compost.

Over the last few years, Morgan and her students have worked with the USDA, Town of North Elba, NYSERDA, the Adirondack North Country Association, and engineers at Casella Waste Systems on the idea. More than a school science experiment, the idea is a pilot project in the region. Todd Moe caught up with Tammy Morgan and her student, Chris Williams, at the Adirondack Youth Climate in Tupper Lake recently. She said the plan is to locate the bio-digester at the North Elba Transfer Station in Lake Placid and have it operational by July of 2016.

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