Site team for $210 million Lake County bio-fuel plant to visit area

BY BILL DOLAN, Times of Northwest Indiana 
bdolan@nwitimes.com

Powers Energy One officials will scout as many as nine potential Lake County sites next week for a $210 million bio-fuel plant that could begin construction next year.

And given the plan is to be the first of its kind in the state, environmental regulators aren't quite sure what to expect.

"We don't have a definite site, but we have three we are looking at pretty hard," Powers Energy President and Chief Executive Officer Earl Powers said this week. "And we are going to try to finalize as early as (Dec. 5)."

The visit comes less than two weeks after the county's solid waste board and Powers signed a contract to provide Powers with enough municipal trash over 15 years to generate millions of gallons of ethanol and create 160 jobs.

Picking a site could galvanize renewed opposition to the project by environmental critics who contend it will add a new layer to the region's toxic pall of industrial pollution.

"We will continue to be interested in the issues we believe have been glossed over," said Sandy O'Brien, of the Duneland Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club was among several groups that fought unsuccessfully to have the county pick the alternative of recycling and composting waste.

O'Brien contends Powers process of vaporizing garbage into a synthetic gas fermented into ethanol as well as the diesel fumes from garbage haulers could pump mercury, lead and greenhouse gases into the air in a similar manner to garbage incinerators.

Waste District Executive Director Jeff Langbehn said he toured Power's pilot plant in Arkansas and contends the process is clean.

"If they processed all of the waste in the county, the pollution would be 10 times less than the amount already coming out of semi trucks on the road," Langbehn said.

And Powers said, "We should not have any problem at all with the air permit at all -- or the water permit because we would be recirculating our water."

Those arguments will be tested by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management once Powers applies for a state permit, IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said.

She said Powers garbage-to-ethanol plant appears to be the first of its kind in the state.

"If there are air emissions, there could be a requirement for an air permit," Hartsock said. "If they will be processing solid waste, they will likely be required to obtain a permit for that. And if they have some sort of discharge of wastewater, they may need a permit for that."