The company proposing a multi-million-dollar medicinal cannabis production facility in town has plans to mitigate concerns typically associated with such operations.
“What’s nice about our facility and our project is that it’s brand new, it’s not a retrofit. Because of that, we get to choose state-of-the-art technology — everything from water management, to odour issues, to air circulation,” said Jesse Beaudry, president and CEO of Candre Cannabis, during last week's public open house and job fair hosted at the Sundre Community Centre. Click here for more on that story.
Reducing waste is simply a good business practice for any enterprise seeking to lower costs and improve profits, so there will be efforts to reduce the amount of water used.
“We’ll recycle as much water as possible,” he said, citing ongoing pilot programs that aim to ensure a maximum amount of water that is not initially absorbed by the plants will be captured and reused for further growing.
“But the fact of the matter is cannabis is a plant and plants require water.”
Any water that is sent offsite will be inert and uncontaminated, he said.
“We’ve learned a lot from the agricultural industry. To be candid, we’re stealing a lot of the ideas that already exist.”
The emission of odours is also associated with the production of cannabis. Having recently visited five full-on production facilities over the past month in places such as Colorado and San Diego, Beaudry said identifying the building from outside as a cannabis operation is not obvious.
“But when you walk in, you know.”
Cannabis has a distinct aroma, especially when the plants flower and bloom as they approach harvest. So a very important part of controlling odours outside of the building is an HVAC system and air circulation, he said.
“You want to ensure that you circulate as much air as possible and you control those emissions internally so they’re not being emitted outside. We’re going to invest heavily in our HVAC system — it’s good business.”
The proposed facility is situated in Sundre’s industrial district without any immediately adjacent neighbouring residential households. But that does not mean a carte blanche to produce odours irresponsibly, he said.
“There are absolutely odours associated with cannabis production, of which we can do our best to mitigate. And we think we have a good plan for that,” he said.
“That being said, we’re in the appropriate location.”
