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That audience included Logan County
Board members Dick Logan and Pat O'Neill, Lincoln mayoral candidate
Tom O'Donohue, and several representatives from Illini Bio-Energy.
Dan Meyer, one of the founding members
of Concerned Citizens of Logan County, addressed the audience and
started off the meeting, welcoming the crowd and the special guests.
He explained that the mission of the CCLC was to make Logan County
residents aware of location, proximity, dangers and risks of the
ethanol plant at the proposed Nicholson Road site.
Meyer revised the estimate of
acreage that Illini Bio-Energy would acquire in order to build the
plant from the 240 mentioned at the last meeting to approximately
207 to 217 acres. He described the property in question as the
rectangle of land north of Route 66, to the south of the monopole
cell tower, bordered by 1200th Avenue on the west and 1250th Avenue
(Nicholson Road) on the east.
Reiterating their list of concerns
from the previous meeting, Meyer stated that the CCLC was concerned
about the usage of the remaining acreage. With the property rezoned
industrial, Illini Bio-Energy could do anything they wanted in the
future with remaining acreage. They could build another ethanol
plant or invite other dangerous industry to situate there without
the community's ability to have input.
Meyer stated that the CCLC was only
repeating facts given to them by Illini Bio-Energy, the Logan County
Board, various legal and environmental experts, and facts they had
collected about similar facilities from the Internet. He said their
current job was to sort out the facts from rumors and hearsay.
Meyer questioned the ability of
local elected leaders to decide about the location of the ethanol
plant in an unbiased manner, accusing some elected officials of
being biased in this process because they were either investors or
the relatives of investors in Illini Bio-Energy.
Meyer had questions for Illini
Bio-Energy as well. How high will the stack be? Had Illini
Bio-Energy considered the traffic their plant would produce, the
safety of the surrounding community, the impact on schools, and
proximity to colleges and nursing homes? Was it true that the list
of chemicals that would be on the site included propane, coal,
ethanol, lime, and other dangerous and flammable products?
Meyer turned the meeting over to
CCLC founding member Ruth Freeman, who encouraged concerned
individuals to write letters to Brad Frost of the EPA to express
their concerns. Frost promised to respond to each individual's
questions and concerns. Pre-addressed standard letters addressed to
Frost were available at the meeting.
Freeman stated that the CCLC was
currently examining contracts for other similar ethanol plants in
order to discover information that might increase their knowledge of
the construction and operation of the proposed Lincoln plant.
Freeman ended her statement by urging the crowd to write letters to
the editor stating their opinion and opposition to the plant.
Sharon Pierce, another founding
member, told the audience that the group's research had uncovered
the need for a 2½-mile evacuation zone for this type of facility
because of the dangerous chemicals stored on the site and the threat
of fire and explosion. She said the proposed Lincoln ethanol plant
would be much like an ethanol plant in Heron Lake, Minn. That
facility produced 55,000 gallons of ethanol a day, while the Lincoln
plant would likely produce 50,000 gallons.
Pierce said the stack at Heron Lake
was about 150 feet tall, and she expressed concerns for the effect a
150-foot-tall stack would have on local aviation. She stated that
the plant in Minnesota uses the city sewer system for the discharge
of wastewater from the plant. "Where would the Lincoln plant
discharge its wastewater?" she asked. Documents they had uncovered
on the Internet detailed that an ethanol plant this size would
likely discharge about 172,000 gallons of 80- to 85-degree water per
day.
Pierce stated that they had serious
concerns about the storage tanks that would be located on the site,
holding as much as 1 million gallons of ethanol at a time, and
questioned whether gasoline would also be stored on that site.
She called attention to the fact
that no fence was currently planned to protect the plant from
intruders or terrorists or to protect innocent children from the
dangers of the plant.
Heron Lake is a town of 3,000
people, and the plant is located about a mile from town. The
proposed Lincoln facility would be located within less than one-half
mile from a school, a college, a nursing home and directly adjacent
to a population of approximately 16,000 residents.
Pierce asked whether Illini
Bio-Energy had considered the threat of mercury poisoning from the
Western coal. She also questioned how the 1 to 2 tons of fly ash the
plant would produce each hour of production would be handled. "Where
would the fly ash be stored?" she said. Would it contribute to
groundwater poisoning because of the leachate from the fly ash
storage?
Pierce stated that at the last
meeting Illini Bio-Energy had discussed that more than 100 trucks
per day would be coming and going each day to service the needs of
the ethanol plant. Did Illini Bio-Energy know that Nicholson Road
and Route 66 was already a dangerous intersection? "People have died
at that intersection," Pierce stated.
Frank Rickord, a neighbor from
1235th Avenue, spoke next about his research on the water needs of
the proposed ethanol plant. He reiterated that Illini Bio-Energy had
stated at the last meeting that they would get the 700,000 gallons
of water they needed each day from Illinois American Water, wells
that they drilled, a pipeline that would deliver water from some
other area or a combination of these sources.
Rickord stated that in talking with
the city water company, he learned that they currently do not have
the production to supply the ethanol plant. A new well has recently
been drilled east of town but is not yet in production. Some $2
million to $3 million would be necessary to bring production up to
the level needed to supply the ethanol plant, and apart from
funding, would not be ready for some time.
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The two local prisons together use
about 1 million gallons of water a day. Illinois American Water
supplies the prisons at a cost of about $60,000 a month.
Rickord said these facts led him to the
conclusion that Illini Bio-Energy would probably choose to sink
their own deep wells to produce enough low-cost water for ethanol on
that site, and those deep wells would endanger the water supply to
every shallow well of every residence north of Lincoln city limits.
Brian Wrage, a spokesman and board
member for Illini Bio-Energy, then took over the meeting. He opened
with the statement that those who live in Epperson Addition on
Nicholson Road would never see the plant, hear it or smell it. The
audience came alive at that suggestion, expressing their doubts and
remarking that they could hear the race cars at the Logan County
Fairgrounds on Sunday nights in town.
Meyer also revised their
understanding of where the ethanol plant would be constructed on the
207-acre plot. He was told by a source unrelated to Illini
Bio-Energy that the plant would be built right at corner of
Nicholson and Route 66, raising new concerns about the plant's
closer proximity to schools and hazards to traffic.
As it turns out, maps show that
portion of the acreage to be all undermined and not suitable to
build on. Wrage said the Nicholson Road site might not work out
because of undermining issues.
Wrage said the proposed stack height
would be 125 feet. He said the plant would not be located at the
intersection of Route 66 and Nicholson Road. "That area is all
undermined by coal mines," he said. The ethanol plant would be
located at the south edge of Camp-A-While, about two-tenths of a
mile from Kruger Road. The actual size of the ethanol acreage would
be about one-fourth square mile (40 acres). The entire facility
would likely take up about 60 acres, including tank farm, storage
and the railroad spur.
Wrage downplayed the safety concerns
that were being expressed. All the storage tanks would be diked. The
company had considered the safe distance issues and had concluded
that the plant exceeded the necessary safety zones. Water discharge
from the plant would not be an ecological issue. Water used in the
fermentation process would never leave the plant. The plant would
discharge about 100 gallons of cooling water per minute. This water
would leave the grounds after first cooling and evaporating in the
retention pond and would be discharged into Brainard's Branch. The
ethanol plant currently producing in Burlington, Iowa, had no
cooling discharge because that water evaporated in the retention
pond.
An unnamed man in the audience,
identifying himself as an Eaton employee who often works with
Eaton's wastewater treatment, spoke up and asked if the ethanol
plant would line the retention pond to prevent concentrated metals
from the coolant water going back into ground and contaminating area
wells. Wrage answered that he did not know if the pond would be
lined.
Wrage stated that the sanitary water
from the plant would be discharged into the plant's own septic
system. He said that all fly ash would be collected and stored
inside a concrete building prior to being shipped back to Turris
Coal in Elkhart. He estimated about three loads of fly ash a day
would go back to the local mine for disposal. "Fly ash is often used
to extend concrete," he said.
Anhydrous ammonia, injected directly
into the furnace, would be used in the scrubbers.
Grain trucks would pull loads into
the plant five days a week. The plant would produce on two shifts.
Employees wouldn't be there in the middle of the night.
Regarding the fence issue, Wrage
stated that some of the investors think the fence is a good idea.
A member of the crowd asked about
the future of such a plant in light of changing fuels and
alternative energy. Wrage stated that fuel cell automobiles were
probably the next big thing, and ethanol is used to produce the
hydrogen for fuel cells. "Ethanol plants have a great future ahead,"
he said.
Illini Bio-Energy, at its own cost,
would supply the required hazmat equipment for the community fire
departments to use to fight any spills or contain any fires at the
plant. Wrage reassured the crowd that ethanol is not an explosive
product. A member of the audience mentioned that according to the
prospectus there would be a 30,000-gallon propane tank on the site,
and propane is very explosive. In addition to the hazmat equipment,
Illini Bio-Energy will write the disaster plan for the community at
the company's cost.
Wrage addressed the financial
incentive to the county, stating that Illini Bio-Energy "will be
paying taxes for decades." A member of the audience questioned the
short-term financial burden the plant would place on the taxpayers
of Logan County because the plant would receive a tax abatement for
the first 10 years.
Dick Logan, a member of the Logan
County Board, questioned why the ethanol plant didn't locate in
Elkhart. He said the Elkhart people had invited the plant to situate
there with open arms. Responding, Wrage said that the costs of using
the adjacent railroad drove them away at Elkhart and that the
Nicholson Road site allowed greater tax savings over a longer period
than the enterprise zone at Elkhart would provide.
The CCLC maintains a website at
www.lincolnethanol.com.
There you can obtain the list of issues, a list of contacts and
telephone numbers, sign the petition, and sign up to be a volunteer
in their drive to keep the ethanol plant from locating on Nicholson
Road.
Information about Illini Bio-Energy
and the proposed ethanol plant can be obtained on their website at
www.illinibioenergy.com.
[Jim Youngquist]
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