EIA License Approval has Bedford Beaming

May 31, 2011 - PRLog -- Bedford Biofuels has just become the first company in history to be granted an environmental impact assessment license to plant Jatropha in Kenya.

The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) of Kenya granted the license to Bedford on Wednesday, May 25, nearly four months later than Bedford’s president and CEO, David McClure, had expected.

“It’s an arduous process to get to this stage and we have ensured all I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed,” says McClure. “It has been a difficult battle to get this project off the ground and now that we have our EIA license, we can focus on what this company was built for – growing oil.”

McClure and his team first went to Kenya following the World Jatropha Convention in 2008. The experts in growing Jatropha pointed to the Tana Delta District in Kenya as some of the most prime land available for Jatropha production.

Jatropha is a drought resistant, oilseed bearing tropical tree. When pressed, Jatropha nuts produce 35% -40% oil.

Dustin Mitchell, Bedford’s Managing Director, says the issuing of the NEMA license is monumental for Bedford.

“We are ecstatic to have this license in place and to be moving forward with the project as planned,” says Mitchell.

The NEMA license is an important approval that follows a long list of steps Bedford had to take in getting its project off the ground. In January of this year, at Tarasaa in the Tana Delta District, near Kitangale Ranch, more than 1,000 people attended a public hearing where feedback, support and objections were supplied to NEMA regarding Bedford’s submitted EIA report.

McClure says the support of locals and government in Kenya, 45-year leases on 160,000 hectares of land and now the official approval to plant Jatropha in Kenya positions the company for big things going forward.

McClure says he commends the hard work of Mitchell and the rest of the team on the ground in Kenya for their perseverance and hard work in getting the NEMA license approval.

“We recognized from the beginning that the biofuel industry was limitless and that the most important thing for us to do was secure land,” says McClure. “Now that we have NEMA’s approval, we are moving onward and upward to become a player in the fastest growing industry of the 21st century.”