Plans for Pittsboro ethanol plant continue in Hendricks County

PITTSBORO — A group looking to build an ethanol production facility here is expected to present a final site plan to town officials later this month.

The plan should show the facility’s actual size and layout, as well as how it will sit on the property.

Members of Morning Star Energy will present their plan at the regular Pittsboro Plan Commission meeting June 27. They said they had intended to attend last month’s meeting, but delayed the presentation for a month while they attempted to finalize plans to purchase property along County Road 150 East and State Road 136, adjacent to the planned site.

Avon resident Brian Paasch, co-founder of Morning Star Energy, said the group had considered delaying the purchase of that property which is not crucial to the future of the facility, but reconsidered as a means of better planning the entire project.

He said offers have been made to several homeowners and the company is waiting to hear who is interested in selling.

“We thought about waiting to seek purchase of that property until later, but we finally decided, if we were going to try and buy out these houses we should go ahead and do it sooner rather than later,” Paasch said.

Andy Zeunik, Pittsboro Plan Commission president, said town officials and residents are anxious to see a final plan and work out details of the project.

He said some public concerns have been expressed, but Morning Star has done a good job of addressing those concerns and finding solutions.

“We initially had some people worried about the smell, but we discovered that new ethanol facilities produce almost no odor, and what odor can be smelled has been described as something more like a very faint yeast smell,” he said. “Not bad at all, and most people say they can’t smell anything anyway.”

Another concern was increased truck traffic along U.S. 136, a problem Zeunik said could be avoided if trucks used a “back way” in and out of the facility.

“These roads would all need to be upgraded before they could be used for this purpose, because they aren’t built for serious truck traffic,” he said.

But, he said, that route would keep trucks off of the already busy State Road 136.

“Some people had a real concern with all this truck traffic mixing with vehicles on the highway,” Zeunik said. “Morning Star came up with a plan that avoids that problem.”

Zeunik said, once the plan commission reviews the Morning Star Energy final site plan, they will pass it along, with their final recommendation, to the town council.

The town council, he said, will have the final say in whether to rezone the property, allowing the project to move forward.