SEDALIA, Colo. — Douglas County is one step closer to what it's calling a first-in-the-nation approach to wildfire mitigation.
On Tuesday, the county commissioners awarded an almost $8 million contract to Bauen Studios to build the county's new biochar facility. Construction will take place over the next eight to nine months.
▶️ WATCH: Denver7's Tyler Melito talks with officials and locals as the biochar facility gets closer to completion
"The Board of County Commissioners is really excited to have the country's first county-owned and operated biochar facility," said Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon.
But the feeling of excitement isn't necessarily universal. Some nearby are worried about impacts to the feel of their community.
"It's like a step back in time at our little store, and it's the neighborhood, and, you know, you get to know all the neighbors," Linday Valerio, manager for the Sedalia Country Store in the heart of downtown Sedalia, said.
Valerio says keeping the town small is a priority for many in the community.
"I think the really important thing that we want is for this town to stay that small-town feel," Valerio said.
Regardless, big things are coming. Ground was first broken on the new biochar facility about a mile from downtown at the Sedalia Landfill back in July of 2025.
The facility is set to "anchor" a larger project dubbed Douglas County GreenWorks, Engineering Permits and Inspections Manager Daniel Roberts said.
"So at this facility, we're creating what will essentially become a one-stop shop for residents to bring their slash mulch, their green waste, also their electronic waste, their household has this waste," Roberts said.
The biochar facility will be the first building on the site.
Biochar itself is "almost pure carbon," Environmental Program Manager Jared Tanaka explained.
"It's very similar to charcoal. It's used a lot in agricultural practices where biomass, or trees, if you will, in this case, get converted to that nearly pure carbon form," he said.
That conversion takes place in a low-oxygen environment, capturing carbon before it can be released into the atmosphere, according to the county.
The county is hoping the facility will be a major tool in its wildfire mitigation efforts, taking dead trees and foliage that can fuel fires and processing them locally.
"Our residential areas will have that brown pine beetle kill, which means a lot of dead, dry kindling," Laydon said. "This is a solution that is very proactive, that will address being able to remove all of that woody biomass from residences and get them here."
Roberts echoed that sentiment.
"It'll have a noticeable impact on our wildfire mitigation program, the other programs, by bringing them here, we have this energy of co-locating everything, the same staff can operate all these facilities," Roberts said. "We're actually going to achieve significant cost savings on some of these programs beyond what they exist or how they exist today."
The county reports that the facility will pay for itself within nine years of opening by selling the biochar, which can be used to improve soil health and filter "forever chemicals."
It can also help with drought resilience.
"It's able to capture the nitrogen and phosphorus that you will put down on your lawn, and then be able to harvest that and pull that out of storm water," Tanaka said.
People like Valerio are open to the fire mitigation benefits.
"Everything around us is growing, everything around us is building, maybe not in this tiny little town, but it's getting bigger," Valerio said.
"I don't want something burning this close to where I live, where I work, any of it. I don't want any part of my state burning. I love this place."
But she said she and many others in Sedalia would prefer the growth not be in their small town.
"When there's big growth like that, you kind of lose that feeling," Valerio said.
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