Decatur County Commissioners agreed Tuesday to begin selling carbon credits created by the burning of methane gas emitted from the county’s old landfill on Georgia 309 South.

Commissioners unanimously approved a contract with Blue Source LLC of New York City. The company will verify that the county has carbon credits to sell and then market and sell them to companies that need them to produce and release large amounts of carbon into the air.

It’s estimated the methane-capturing wells currently installed at the 309 South landfill produce about 20,000 tons of carbon each year.

Blue Source would charge a fee of 15 percent of the sale price plus a fixed cost for annual verification of the carbon credits, according to the company’s proposal.

According to Blue Source’s predictions, Decatur County could get close to $71,000 in net revenue from sale of carbon credits in the first year and perhaps as much as $105,000 by 2014, as demand for carbon credits increases.

County Attorney Brown Moseley said he had worked with Blue Source on revisions to the contract and said he believed selling carbon credits was a “no-lose” deal for the county. Moseley said he had also heard positive things about Blue Source from the city of Farmers Branch, Texas, which has a similar deal with Blue Source to sell carbon credits generated at its landfill.

Road paving update

At the request of Commissioner Russell Smith, the board heard an update from Dennis Medley, superintendent of the county’s Public Works Department, on a project to re-pave John Sam Road.

Medley said the project has been delayed because Oxford Construction, which has the only asphalt plants in the area, has been using all of its available production capacity. Medley said that barring rain or extreme cold, the re-paving of John Sam Road could begin on Tuesday, Jan. 18.

Medley said his employees had surveyed Carter’s Mill Road, one the county’s dirt roads in the poorest conditions. He said Public Works also got a good response from homeowners who had been asked if they were willing to donate right-of-way to help pave the dirt road. He said Georgia Power has been asked to consider reducing or waiving a $160,000 fee to move its utilities out of what would be the new paved road’s right-of-way.

Other business

In other business, county commissioners:

• Awarded, by unanimous vote, a bid for rehabilitation of the sewer lift station that serves the Decatur County Jail, to Po Boys Plumbing of Winder, Ga. Po Boys had the lowest of five bids submitted, with a total of $141,533.

• Approved, by unanimous vote, a request from Nimesh Parikh, 7827 Tallahassee Hwy., for an alcoholic beverage license to sell beer and wine for off-premises consumption. According to County Manager Tom Patton, Parikh is the new owner of Bishop’s Travel Center on U.S. 27 South.