UPDATE, Dec. 17, 2018: CHAMBERSBURG -- A spokesman for Grassroots Cannabis said that Chambersburg grow/process operation is expected to produce about 3,000 pounds of marijuana a year plus an undetermined amount of extracts.

Operations began on Sept. 15 at the plant on Wayne Avenue, according to Cassandra Dowell at CMW Media.

The operation has 20 employees and will employ 75 when fully staffed and operational, Dowell said. About 200 people applied during the local job fair in May, but some of the original job candidates were no longer interested when the plant opening was delayed.

CHAMBERSBURG -- A marijuana grow operation is showing some signs of life more than 18 months after the Pennsylvania Department Health permitted Grassroots Cannabis at 1086 Wayne Avenue.

Grassroots Cannabis promises to be a major customer for borough utilities. The company continues to list jobs online – seven months after it held a local job fair. Apparently some positions were not filled.

The company bought the building from the Franklin County Area Development Corp. and set up utility accounts with the Borough of Chambersburg.

“We reached out to them recently, and we’re still waiting for a return,” said L. Michael Ross, president of the Franklin County Area Development Corp. “I’m not sure what is going on. We’ve had zero conversation with them recently. We want to be in a position to support them. We haven’t had a poor relationship with them. It’s been more of a distant relationship.”

Grassroots Cannabis, part of AES Compassionate Care LLC, bought a former factory and 11 acres beside Interstate 81 at Exit 14 for $3.7 million from FCADC.

The Borough of Chambersburg issued a certificate of occupancy on Sept. 10 to Compass Cultivation.

Borough officials said they do not know when the plant will begin operations.

A man appeared to be working on the roof of the building on Tuesday.

Grassroots Cannabis was one of two companies permitted in the south-central region to grow and process marijuana in the first round of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program. The other applicant has been up and running for a year. Ilera Healthcare LLC was permitted in June 2017, and constructed a building at 3786 North Hess Road, near Waterfall in Taylor Township, Fulton County. The Health Department in December 2017 inspected and approved Ilera to start growing and processing.  

Grassroots Cannabis, a national company based in Illinois, has 27 licenses and operations in seven states, according to the company’s website. It has raised $75 million. It operates five dispensaries in Pennsylvania under the name Herbology in Gettysburg, Altoona, DuBois, King of Prussia and Philadelphia.

CEO Mitch Kahn co-founded Grassroots Cannabis in 2014. Matt Darin serves as COO and CFO. Both are officers in Chicago-based Frontline Real Estate Partners.

The company did not answer any of a reporter's questions by Tuesday deadline.

Grassroots Cannabis employs more than 300 people. The Chambersburg location is expected to employ about 50 people, according to Ross.

The company is advertising local jobs for harvesters/trimmers, packagers, a processing technician and a post-processing manager. The company is not advertising for security personnel and other managers -- positions among those that Grassroots Cannabis had posted when it held a three-day job fair in May in Chambersburg.

Trimmers and packagers are entry-level positions paying $12 an hour, according to the company’s job descriptions. Trimmers weigh and log each plant when cut in the growing grow room and anticipate how much to harvest from a plant daily. Packagers must maintain inventory records for materials, packaged products and completed orders.

The two other positions require lab skills, according to job descriptions. A processing technician operates distillation and filtration equipment. He or she needs at least 2 years of experience as a hydrocarbon extraction technician, but the company will consider a degree in related science or engineering. A post-processing manager dreams up and develops new products. He or she must will work with supercritical fluid extraction and Büchner funnel filtrations and handle butane, propane, ethanol, pentane, isopropyl alcohol, critically hot material and cryogenic cold materials.

Growing cannabis is energy intensive, and the industry's energy demands are growing. Lights as bright as those in an operating room can be on 24 hours a day. The temperature in a grow room is maintained between 70 and 85 degrees. The air is changed 60 times more often than in a home.

An indoor grow operation consumes ten times the energy per square foot as a typical office building, according to the SW Energy Efficiency Project in Oregon. The energy needed to produce a pound of marijuana could produce more than 275 pounds of aluminum. The energy used to produce one marijuana cigarette could produce a case of beer.

Marijuana operations use 1 percent of  the electricity in the U.S. and 3 percent in California, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. Marijuana grow operations account for nearly half of the new demand for electricity in Denver, Colo.

Chambersburg operates its own electric and gas utilities.

"I am not certain when Compass Cultivation will start operations, and until they do, it is impossible to compare their utility usage to other manufacturing uses in the borough," said Phil Wolgemuth, assistant to the Chambersburg borough manager.

Compass Cultivation has paid the $82,750 fee to tap into the borough's water and sewer systems. Mosaic Construction of Northbrook, Ill., acquired the permits to fix up the building.

The state’s medical marijuana program continues to evolve:

Medical marijuana is available to a patient whose doctor certifies he or she has a qualifying medical condition. The medical conditions that can qualify patients for medical marijuana include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, autism, cancer, Crohn's disease, dyskinetic and spastic movement disorders, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS, Huntington's disease, inflammatory bowel disease, intractable seizures, multiple sclerosis, neurodegenerative diseases, neuropathies, some opioid use disorder, Parkinson's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, terminal illness and severe chronic or intractable pain.

A year ago, just two doctors in Franklin County had been approved to prescribe medical marijuana. Today, the state Health Department lists 10 in the county and nearly 950 statewide.

In July, the state announced the second-round winners for growing and processing medical marijuana. In south-central Pennsylvania, a grower/processor was approved for Bedford County and another for Lebanon County.

The state’s 12 grow operations provide all the products for the 31 medical marijuana dispensaries in Pennsylvania. Medical marijuana cannot be imported to the state. More than 95,000 patients have registered to receive the medicine.

The federal government continues to recognize marijuana as an illegal substance.