Olmsted County Concerned Citizens

Fund Raisers To Raise Money To Protect Clean Water & Air

Tom — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:08:03 +0000

Dad’s Belgian Waffles

Eyota American Legion

8:30 am to 12:30 PM

May 16, 2010

Kids 5 & younger Free

Sponsored by OC3 – for clean water and air

Tickets $7 all you can eat.

Eyota City Wide Garage Sale

Walking Taco Feed at the West Side Park

Garage Sale Items for Sale

8:30 to 2 PM

Walking Taco Feed $5 for a drink and large walking taco

Tacos sold from 10 AM to 2 PM

May 15, 2010

Minnesota Energy Says It Plans To close Ethanol Plant!

Tom — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:32:14 +0000

4/10/2010 9:53:21 AM

Comments (0)

Associated Press
BUFFALO LAKE, Minn. — The Minnesota Energy ethanol plant in Buffalo Lake is closing, putting 20 people out of work.

The decision to suspend ethanol production was a difficult and painful one, but necessary, according to Randy Byro, chairman of the board for the farmer-owned ethanol plant and grain handling cooperative.

”Margins, margins, margins,” he said. The operation has been losing money in recent months and its near-term financial prospects continued to look negative, he said. It’s the only ethanol plant in the state’s top corn-producing county.

The closing doesn’t affect the company’s grain handling and agronomy operations in Buffalo Lake, Steward, Cosmos, Lake Lillian, Eden Valley or Darwin.

Byro said the ethanol plant will reopen if market conditions improve. He said the cooperative would need to see a 50-cents-to-75-cents-per-gallon upswing in prices before it would consider reopening the facility.

The facility opened in 1997 and has a rated capacity of 19 million gallons per year, making it one of the smallest ethanol plants in the state.

The plant’s closing was difficult news for Buffalo Lake due to the loss of jobs and economic activity it represents, according to Mayor Joyce Nyhus.

It comes exactly one year after the community saw the closing of its largest employer, Minnesota Beef Industries, formerly known as North Star Beef.

Nyhus, however, remains optimistic. She said the possibility now exists for the ethanol plant to be sold and would likely be suitable for other types of production.

One idea being floated around the Renville County community is the possibility of copying the example of the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company in Benson, which makes Shaker’s Vodka. Some have even speculated about converting a portion of the county’s sugar beets into rum, she said.

In an ironic twist, it’s also possible that the ethanol plant’s troubles could ultimately benefit the community in ways unforeseen. As part of an agreement with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency involving air emission violations, Minnesota Energy has sold a well it developed when it was considering an expansion to the city of Buffalo Lake.

It will provide the community with high quality, arsenic-free water. Buffalo Lake has invested in a variety of technologies to remove the natural occurring arsenic from its municipal water source, all without success, according to the mayor. The arsenic issue was also considered the final blow to a string of problems that led Minnesota Beef Industries to close its plant, she noted.

The city will be opening bids later this month for developing a seven-mile pipeline to the new well. The city gains access to both a large quantity and high quality water source: Nyhus described the well’s raw water as being of higher quality than the treated water from the existing city supply.

Partly due to the availability of arsenic-free water, the city has received inquiries from prospective buyers for the meat processing facility. The city is working with the Renville County Economic Development Agency and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development in hopes of seeing the facility reopened.

Great Web Site For Information On Biofuels

Tom — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:30:14 +0000

Excellent information on ethanol & other biofuels

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/category/biofuels/

Kernal-Nomics: Big Ethanol Inflated Job Claims

Tom — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:51:28 +0000

The Ethanol Industry is LYING/exaggerating the number of jobs the Ethanol Industry creates, WHY?

http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2009/11/kernalnomics-the-ethanol-lobbys-inflated-jobs-claims/

Sound Science Prevails in EPA Decision

Tom — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:23:18 +0000

Sound Science Prevails In EPA Ethanol DecisionPosted by Don Carr in Biofuels, Featured Articles on December 1, 2009 | no responses | ShareThis

WASHINGTON December 1 –The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said today that it will wait until mid-2010 to decide whether to grant a waiver request that would allow up to 15 percent ethanol in gasoline. Growth Energy, an ethanol trade and lobby group, requested the waiver. EPA based its decision on the need to conduct more tests to determine the higher blend’s impact on engines. Under current federal rules gasoline can contain no more than 10 percent ethanol.

Environmental Working Group Midwest vice-president Craig Cox, who manages EWG’s agriculture programs from its Ames, Iowa, office, said this about EPA’s decision:

“EPA should be congratulated for resisting efforts by the well-funded and politically well-connected ethanol lobby to short-circuit a science-based analysis of corn ethanol’s adverse impacts on engines, public health and the environment. Blending more ethanol into the gasoline supply without conducting a sound scientific analysis of its total impact only serves a narrow constituency of large corn growers and ethanol producers while ignoring the potential risks a blend increase poses to consumers. It’s time we recognize that ethanol has been unable to attain independent viability as a motor fuel despite lavish subsides and mandates, and even more important, that it has been unable to prove that its production and use are beneficial to the environment.”

The corn-ethanol industry has lobbied fiercely for the increase in blend limit, claiming that a government-mandated increase in ethanol use would create more than 130,000 new jobs. But a new EWG report, citing independent university and government research, concludes that ethanol lobbyists have dramatically exaggerated the employment benefits of their proposal, even as automakers and small engine manufacturers warn that a higher ethanol blend could cause serious damage to millions of motors in vehicles, boats and lawn equipment.

View the report, Kernelnomics: The Ethanol Industry’s Inflated Jobs Claims

# # #

Another Ethanol Plant Fined For Polluting

Tom — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:48:24 +0000

Winnebago ethanol plant fined over
water pollution allegation

Southern Minnesota ethanol plant to
pay pollution fine

Last update: January 29, 2010 – 9:30 PM

One of Minnesota’s earliest corn ethanol
plants will pay an $891,000 penalty for
alleged water pollution, according to an
agreement announced Friday by the
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Corn Plus in Winnebago dumped wastewater
from a cooling tower illegally into pipes that
discharged it into a county ditch and then
into Rice Lake, according to the complaint.
The alleged violations occurred between
2006 and 2008.

The problems came to light when citizens in
the southern Minnesota community
complained about the odorous and
discolored discharges and alerted state
inspectors.

Under terms of the settlement, Corn Plus
agreed to pay a $200,000 civil penalty and at
least $691,000 to correct the problems by
September.

It must install a closed-loop system to use
less water and discharge it only to a licensed
wastewater treatment plant.

Company officials could not be reached for
comment.

Last fall Corn Plus paid $150,000 to resolve a
criminal water quality charge by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.

The ethanol plant was constructed in 1993,
and produces about 50 million gallons of
ethanol annually.

TOM MEERSMAN

1-21-10 THE ETHANOL ILLUSION

Tom — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:51:42 +0000

http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/11/the-ethanol-illusion.html

1-21-10 Corn Based Ethanol Woes Video

Tom — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:19:46 +0000

http://vodpod.com/watch/1931818-pbs-nightly-business-report-on-corn-ethanol-woes

Biofuels Threaten Water supplies

Tom — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:17:42 +0000

Production of Biofuels is seriously depleting our potable water supply.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30158655/

Link to Petition Against 15% Ethanol

Tom — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:30:59 +0000

Please, write a letter to your legislator stating you don’t want to see a state or federal mandated increase of 15% ethanol in our gasoline! Read info about Petition in link below!

http://www.fueltestkit.com/petition_e15.html