Company making 'super soil' seeks special use permit

The manufacturer of a new type of soil its backers say will revolutionize the agricultural industry is seeking to create the product in a Dayton industrial area.

Eden Research LLC wants to put a research and processing facility in a 53,144-square-foot building at 10 Airpark Vista Blvd., Dayton. The company's request for a special use permit will be heard by the Lyon County Planning Commission on Tuesday.

Mary Mains, owner of Emerald Fox, a wholesale company affiliated with Eden Research, said the company has been researching the process of taking highly mineralized rock, crushing it and breaking it down to the molecular level to release the nutrients. Chemicals and products like lime, methyl alcohol, sodium hypochlorite, sodium cyanide, sodium sulfide, activated carbon, methanol and calcium oxide are used to further break down the soil, creating what she called a "super soil."

"It's a replacement soil for worn out Earth that puts the minerals back into the Earth," she said.

Jeff Hampton of Eden Research, said people should not be concerned about the chemicals.

"Most of the chemicals are used in the cleaning process. Cyanide dissipates in the air in about 23 seconds," he said. "It is an agent that helps break the minerals down. It prepares them when they're in the grinding process to break it down to very fine material."

Eden Research's request for a special use permit was denied by the Dayton Regional Advisory Council after members had difficulty understanding what the product was from the paperwork provided by the company. No representative was on hand at the Aug. 1 meeting.

"The proposal seems to take an unknown product out of the ground, bring it and the chemicals into the building," said DRAC member Ralph Ewing at that meeting. "They don't say what the raw material is or what the product is."

Both Hampton and Mains said they were unaware of the DRAC meeting.

The request was continued at the July planning commission meeting after the Central Lyon County Fire District requested time to investigate possible hazards. The fire district has since recommended approval of the request.

Hampton said the "super soil" is laid over and plowed into existing soil to return nutrients to the land.

"It's good because with this you don't need fertilizer," he said. "It renews the soil. It grows lemons the size of cantaloupes."

He said the Dayton facility, which will eventually employ 25 people, has never been produced for commercial sale, but has been researched for more than 10 years.

"It's been tested and we have lots of customers for it," he said. "We just want to get in that building and market it out of there and that's the end of it. After we get the plant up, there will be a lot of research and information released on it."

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@ nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.

If you go

WHAT: Lyon County Planning Commission meeting

WHEN: 9 a.m. Thursday

WHERE: 27 S. Main St., Yerington

CALL: (775) 463-6531