Ron Hamilton, Shelbyville News Staff Writer
A Florida-based ethanol manufacturing company wants to build a plant less than two miles northwest of Shelbyville on Boggstown Road.
Indiana Biofuels Inc., a subsidiary of NexGen Biofuels located in Wesley Chapel, Fla., has applied for a Federally Enforceable State Operating Permit (FESOP) from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to construct an ethanol plant a half-mile east of the intersection of County Road 200 West and West Boggstown Road. According to the company's Web site, the land is currently owned by Blue River Livestock Farms.
According to Patty Pear, spokeswoman with IDEM's Office of Air Quality, a public hearing on the draft permit can be requested, or it may be generated by adverse public comments.
"During the public hearing, officials at IDEM will accept written and verbal comments, answer questions and discuss air pollution concerns," Pear said in a prepared statement. "If a public hearing is held, IDEM will make a separate announcement of the date, time and location of the hearing."
Information on the parent company's Web site states that NexGen Biofuels plans to develop four ethanol plants and one biodiesel plant in five states. The ethanol plants also will produce 275,000 tons of distiller dried grain (animal feed), 15,000 metric tons of corn oil and 270,000 tons of raw carbon dioxide, each per year, as byproducts. The plants will take from 12 to 18 months to build, from design to operation, and the first phase of scheduled construction is scheduled to commence soon.
The Boggstown Road facility could produce as much as 110 million gallons of ethanol per year and use more than 36 million bushels of corn annually. The manufacture of ethanol releases certain quantities of pollutants into the air. IDEM documents indicate that if Indiana Biofuels operated 365 days per year, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, it could produce 135 tons of various pollutants, including volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, sulfuric oxides, carbon monoxides and lead. The permit requires production limits and the use of control equipment to limit the amount of air pollution that can be released.