Biofuel plants generate new air, water, soil problems for Iowa
Can ethanol and biodiesel production rise without bigtime damage to resources?
By PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
June 3, 2007
Iowa's ramped-up ethanol and biodiesel fuel production led to 394 instances over the past six years in which the plants fouled the air, water or land or violated regulations meant to protect the health of Iowans and their environment.
In addition, many biologists consider the industry's most prevalent environmental issue the water pollution and soil erosion that will accompany the increased corn production needed to meet ethanol's soaring demand.
The biggest problem at the plants is meeting sewage pollution limits and preventing wastes from spilling into waterways. There were 276 violations in that category, involving 11 plants, one-third of all Iowa's plants in operation during the analysis and covered in the documents. Much of the sewage trouble came from too much iron in water withdrawn from local aquifers. Iron discharges were 30 times the allowable limit in one case. Some plants, like Lincolnway Energy in Nevada, installed iron filters to correct the problem.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/BUSINESS01/706030325/1001/RSS01
Welcome to the future, where the Ozarks Aquifer gets polluted from the toxic runoff from a certain Webster County ethanol plant.
Add in the depletion of the Ozarks Aquifer due to the immense amount of water ethanol plants suck out of the ground and one word comes to mind: DISASTER.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
THE COMPANY THEY KEEP
According to a Springfield Leader and Press report in May 1977, Charles O. Luna was acquainted with Russell E. Phillips, the man federal prosecutors pegged as the mastermind behind a massive fraud scheme that bilked farmers in four states – Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas – out of millions of dollars. Phillips carried out the scheme under the guise of Progressive Farmers Association, which went belly up in 1977 after it filed for bankruptcy.
Around the same time, Springfield police said Luna was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire plot arranged by Phillips, who was later acquitted by a St. Louis County jury. Prosecutors said Phillips hatched the plot because authorities had approached Luna – then a businessman in Branson – about testifying against Phillips in a securities fraud case pending in Arkansas.
Two Arkansas-based oil companies – Lion Oil and Continental Ozark – sued Luna in the late 1980s to recover a combined debt of more than $500,000. A judge ordered Luna to pay back the debt plus interest in both cases and later authorized both companies to garnish his assets, including all bank accounts, certificates of deposit, cash and jewelry.
In 1991, Luna was hit with another spate of litigation after he defaulted on payments to companies that had leased him trailers and equipment. One of his largest debts was owed to Washington-based Paccar Financial Corp., a company that repossessed 53 of the 54 trucks it leased to Luna.
http://www.sbj.net/weekly_article.asp?aID=97644877.2670648.977769.9597121.4681347.621&aID2=75204
Looks like the Ozarks is primed and ready for an "ENRON" type mess right here in Webster County.
Around the same time, Springfield police said Luna was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire plot arranged by Phillips, who was later acquitted by a St. Louis County jury. Prosecutors said Phillips hatched the plot because authorities had approached Luna – then a businessman in Branson – about testifying against Phillips in a securities fraud case pending in Arkansas.
Two Arkansas-based oil companies – Lion Oil and Continental Ozark – sued Luna in the late 1980s to recover a combined debt of more than $500,000. A judge ordered Luna to pay back the debt plus interest in both cases and later authorized both companies to garnish his assets, including all bank accounts, certificates of deposit, cash and jewelry.
In 1991, Luna was hit with another spate of litigation after he defaulted on payments to companies that had leased him trailers and equipment. One of his largest debts was owed to Washington-based Paccar Financial Corp., a company that repossessed 53 of the 54 trucks it leased to Luna.
http://www.sbj.net/weekly_article.asp?aID=97644877.2670648.977769.9597121.4681347.621&aID2=75204
Looks like the Ozarks is primed and ready for an "ENRON" type mess right here in Webster County.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
"THE MUSIC MEN"
That was then.........
Webster County Groundwater Impact Committee Notes
August 30, 2006
12. Is the company willing to financially assist those who must drill new wells or lower pumps due to the plant’s water usage?
Greg Wilmoth stated he does not believe GBE has any responsibility to provide financial assistance.
http://www.jrbp.missouristate.edu/ethanol/ethanolq&a.shtml
This is now??????????
From an article in the Springfield News-Leader
March 7, 2007
The new president of Gulfstream Bioflex Energy promised to drill neighbors' wells deeper if the company's proposed ethanol plant used too much water.
Confused? You bet. And wary, as most Ozarkians should be when it comes to possibly losing their main source of potable water, the Ozarks Aquifer.
Is it possible that the musical, "The Music Man" is coming for an extended stay in Webster County? In that play, "Professor" Harold Hill is a con man whose scam is to convince parents he can teach their musically-disinclined children to play a musical instrument. Taking pre-paid orders for instruments and uniforms with the promise he will form a band, he skips town and moves on to the next one before he's exposed.
Only this time, with the Ozarks Aquifer in danger of depletion and being polluted by wastewater discharge, the musical is turning into a horror story.
Webster County Groundwater Impact Committee Notes
August 30, 2006
12. Is the company willing to financially assist those who must drill new wells or lower pumps due to the plant’s water usage?
Greg Wilmoth stated he does not believe GBE has any responsibility to provide financial assistance.
http://www.jrbp.missouristate.edu/ethanol/ethanolq&a.shtml
This is now??????????
From an article in the Springfield News-Leader
March 7, 2007
The new president of Gulfstream Bioflex Energy promised to drill neighbors' wells deeper if the company's proposed ethanol plant used too much water.
Confused? You bet. And wary, as most Ozarkians should be when it comes to possibly losing their main source of potable water, the Ozarks Aquifer.
Is it possible that the musical, "The Music Man" is coming for an extended stay in Webster County? In that play, "Professor" Harold Hill is a con man whose scam is to convince parents he can teach their musically-disinclined children to play a musical instrument. Taking pre-paid orders for instruments and uniforms with the promise he will form a band, he skips town and moves on to the next one before he's exposed.
Only this time, with the Ozarks Aquifer in danger of depletion and being polluted by wastewater discharge, the musical is turning into a horror story.
Monday, June 4, 2007
CANCER ALLEY COMES TO THE OZARKS
EPA Finds Worrisome Levels Of Toxic Air Pollutants At Ethanol Plant
Factories that convert corn into the gasoline additive ethanol are releasing carbon monoxide, methanol and some carcinogens at levels "many times greater" than they promised, the government says.
In an April 24 letter to the industry's trade group, the Environmental Protection Agency said the problem is common to "most, if not all, ethanol facilities."
Recent tests have found VOC emissions ranging from 120 tons a year, for some of the smallest plants, up to 1,000 tons annually, agency officials said.
It is said that we didn't inherit this land from our ancestors, we're borrowing it from our children. Is a legacy of polluted water and the air we need to breathe filled with cancer causing agents what we will leave our children?
The Rogersville plant is the wrong place for a quick fix deal that will leave a toxic legacy lasting for generations.
Factories that convert corn into the gasoline additive ethanol are releasing carbon monoxide, methanol and some carcinogens at levels "many times greater" than they promised, the government says.
In an April 24 letter to the industry's trade group, the Environmental Protection Agency said the problem is common to "most, if not all, ethanol facilities."
Recent tests have found VOC emissions ranging from 120 tons a year, for some of the smallest plants, up to 1,000 tons annually, agency officials said.
It is said that we didn't inherit this land from our ancestors, we're borrowing it from our children. Is a legacy of polluted water and the air we need to breathe filled with cancer causing agents what we will leave our children?
The Rogersville plant is the wrong place for a quick fix deal that will leave a toxic legacy lasting for generations.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
POLLUTED WATER AND TOXIC AIR
For each gallon of ethanol produced, typical ethanol plants consume 3.5 to 6 gallons of water and produce 12 gallons of sewage-like effluent in the fermentation and distillation process. Syrup, batches of bad ethanol, and sewage are dumped into streams, threatening fish and plants with chloride, copper and other wastes which deprive waters of oxygen when they decompose. A state inspector in Iowa reported that a creek next to the ethanol plant in Sioux Center was milky and smelled like sewage.
Prodded by hundreds of complaints at the Gopher State Ethanol plant in St. Paul, where residents complained that the plant smelled like "rubbing alcohol mixed with burning corn," the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began testing emissions from the plant. They found high levels of carbon monoxide, methanol, toluene and other Volatile Organic Compounds, including formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, both of which are known to cause cancer in animals.
http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/factsheet.html
Toxic air and polluted water. Does anyone really believe that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources will be watching out for the state's natural resources? Or will they roll over and play dead like they have in NW Missouri, whose residents have been abandoned by the DNR in favor of the factory hog farms?
Prodded by hundreds of complaints at the Gopher State Ethanol plant in St. Paul, where residents complained that the plant smelled like "rubbing alcohol mixed with burning corn," the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency began testing emissions from the plant. They found high levels of carbon monoxide, methanol, toluene and other Volatile Organic Compounds, including formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, both of which are known to cause cancer in animals.
http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/factsheet.html
Toxic air and polluted water. Does anyone really believe that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources will be watching out for the state's natural resources? Or will they roll over and play dead like they have in NW Missouri, whose residents have been abandoned by the DNR in favor of the factory hog farms?
Friday, June 1, 2007
Irony
I think it is ironic that Webster county is being told by this corporation (and our government, evidently) that there is plenty of water out there and that this some odd billion gallon per year use by one company is not an unreasonable use while at the same time Springfield city leaders (see Springfield News-Leader, 06/01/07) are taking the initiative to PROTECT THEIR water supply by tightening use restrictions and urging conservation... Isn't the community of Joplin also entering crisis mode in their search for a clean water supply?
CORPORATE WELFARE
One of life's two certainties, death and taxes, has been taken away for up to 30 years to attract an industry to Saline County.
The Saline County Commission Tuesday approved, on a 2-1 vote, a tax abatement agreement lasting up to 30 years for Mid-Missouri Ethanol, which plans to build a 40-million-gallon ethanol plant near Malta Bend.
The agreement will excuse the corporation from paying taxes until Dec. 15, 2033, or until it buys all $62 million of the Chapter 100 bonds back from the county.
http://www.marshallnews.com/story/1040067.html
Is this wholesale looting of Saline County taxes for the Malta Bend plant in store for residents of Webster County?
That's 30 years of huge tax breaks to a faceless corporation. Taxes that would have went to public entities such as the school district and the county roads will not be paid. Instead, that purloined money will help fatten the bottom line of the Rogersville ethanol plant and used to pay huge bonuses to the owners. In other words, the citizens of Webster County will have to pay for the "right" of having their water and air polluted. And when the Ozarks Aquifer can no longer support the ethanol plant or ethanol plants are no longer viable, the owners of this obscenity will declare bankruptcy and walk away with millions of dollars.
And probably leave the heavily contaminated site as is for TAXPAYERS to clean up with their money.
The Saline County Commission Tuesday approved, on a 2-1 vote, a tax abatement agreement lasting up to 30 years for Mid-Missouri Ethanol, which plans to build a 40-million-gallon ethanol plant near Malta Bend.
The agreement will excuse the corporation from paying taxes until Dec. 15, 2033, or until it buys all $62 million of the Chapter 100 bonds back from the county.
http://www.marshallnews.com/story/1040067.html
Is this wholesale looting of Saline County taxes for the Malta Bend plant in store for residents of Webster County?
That's 30 years of huge tax breaks to a faceless corporation. Taxes that would have went to public entities such as the school district and the county roads will not be paid. Instead, that purloined money will help fatten the bottom line of the Rogersville ethanol plant and used to pay huge bonuses to the owners. In other words, the citizens of Webster County will have to pay for the "right" of having their water and air polluted. And when the Ozarks Aquifer can no longer support the ethanol plant or ethanol plants are no longer viable, the owners of this obscenity will declare bankruptcy and walk away with millions of dollars.
And probably leave the heavily contaminated site as is for TAXPAYERS to clean up with their money.
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