The road from concept to reality for tire recycling business Blizzard Energy Inc. has been a long one. Owners first brought the idea up before the Great Bend City Council a decade ago but it was another couple of years before it was up and running.

Now, the firm’s 10-year lease expires on Dec. 31. City Administrator Kendal Francis will bring a renewal agreement before the council Monday night and recommend its approval.

According to the council agenda, Blizzard suspended operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and company officials are attempting to restart. The city has worked with them to find terms that would help them get back up to speed. 

In the proposed agreement backed by Blizzard officials, lease would be for a one-year term, with four renewable one-year options. Initial rent would be $1,779 per month. This rental amount will remain the same from their current agreement. Rent increases 5% with each renewal. 

Rent will increase to $2,850 per month upon return of the facility to full-time operations. Termination can be done without cause with 90 days notice.

In a nutshell, the Blizzard Energy of Santa Maria, Calif., company takes old tires and shreds and melts them. The by-products of this process are gas (which can be used to heat the facility), oil (which can be refined to off-road diesel fuel), carbon black (which is used as filler in rubber products and many modern plastics), and the steel from the steel belts.

It was back in November of 2012 that Great Bend Chamber of Commerce President Jan Peters introduced Blizzard Energy to the council. 

It took awhile to get all the necessary permits from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment but those are now all in place. Some of the Russian-made equipment was sub-standard, a problem that is being rectified. 

In August 2018 Blizzard was recognized for their “Tire Processing and Reclamation” project with a Kansas Department of Health and Environment Kansas Environmental Stewardship Award. The project was based on the pyrolysis of end of life scrap tires to reclaim oil, steel and carbon black. 

The facility used a closed system, reclaiming all the end-of-life tire components. The process itself had no air emissions, except for the burners providing the process heat to the ovens.

The company is located on the Great Bend Municipal Airport grounds.