Madison County group visits Michigan ethanol production plant

CARO, Mich. - Seeing is believing.

Months of speculation ended Thursday when a group of 16 Alexandria residents visited the Michigan Ethanol plant in Caro, Mich.

On July 14, Broin & Associates filed an initial air permit application with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to create a 253-acre production facility near at the corner of County Road 1300 North and County Road 100 East in Monroe Township. Since then, interested parties have pored over specifications trying to get a clear picture of the plant.

"It was about what I imagined," said Ron Parker, who lives on County Road 1300 North, across the street from the proposed site. "I want to know what's moving in next door."

On Tuesday, two Madison County bodies will determine the future of the plant. The Madison County Planning Commission will vote on whether to rezone the property for industrial purposes and the Madison County Board of Zoning Appeals will vote on proposed zoning variances.

Broin, which partnered to create the Alexandria and Caro plants, sponsored the 640-mile round trip excursion aboard a charter bus. Group members gathered outside the Emery Lee Building in Alexandria's Beulah Park around 6 a.m., where Brian Minish, vice president of Ultimate Ethanol, LLC., greeted them with coffee and pastries.

The bus arrived five hours later. And after lunch and a brief introduction, Safety Manager Emily Boynton led the group on a tour of Michigan Ethanol's quality insurance and control department, and its research and development laboratory.

Then it was on the control room where Tim Klinesmith and Jeff Goodchild used computers to monitor operations.

"Nine hundred to 1,000 operations can be made from here," Klinesmith said. "There are things that have to be done manually on a regular basis but the automation saves a lot of time."

General Manager Tony Simpson touted Michigan Ethanol's high-tech controls, which allow the plant to be operated off-site.

"We can control the system through the Internet, which is amazing and a little disconcerting the first time you see someone change things on the screen," Simpson said. "But if we have a problem we can get the engineers on there to take care of whatever is wrong."

Simpson said Michigan Ethanol collects operational date through a system called process information and stores it in a database to be shared with other Broin plants.

Simpson was pressed by a few to discuss a fire that took place at Michigan Ethanol in May 2004. A television news station reported that 50 firefighters fought the blaze for 16 hours, resulting in four injuries.

"We had an employee who made a mistake, who went against operating procedure," Simpson said of the fire which began in a grain dryer. "It's no different than a grain dryer on a farm, if you misuse it, it can be dangerous. But the public was never at risk."

Simpson and other officials at Michigan Ethanol met with Alexandria Monroe Fire Department Chief Friday to discuss safety at the plant and training opportunities.

In the meantime, the department also sent two representatives, Stephen Beltz and Adam Matson, to Caro on Thursday.

"The most common place for a fire to start would be in the grain dryers, which aren't much different from the grain dryers we've worked with in the past," Beltz said. "It's things we already do, so I think we're prepared to handle it."

Beltz said he paid attention to the sprinkler system, access routes and pictured an emergency scenario in his mind.

"They have acid, but not in great quantities. It's not as hazardous as some of the stuff we have on our roads everyday," he said. "I would rather have this than a (General Motors Corp.) plant."

Michigan Ethanol has improved its efficiency since its inception four years ago. The plant opened with an annual production capacity of 45 million gallons, but has improved that number to 53 million using essentially the same equipment.

The proposed Alexandria plant is designed to produce 60 million gallons, but Minish said that number will likely rise to 65 million over time. That means a new buyer of 21 million bushels of corn each year.

As Executive Director of the Tuscola County (Michigan) economic development company, James McLoskey helped bring Michigan Ethanol to Caro. He said the company has more than lived up to its pledge, creating 42 jobs where only 38 were promised.

"The one thing that separates Broin was an incident involving a plant in Minnesota one day, when they came to the (Department of Environmental Quality," McLoskey said. "Broin discovered the problem, they reported the problem, they corrected the problem and, if there was a fine, Broin paid it."

McLoskey said Broin has fostered improvements around the area, including a jet fuel tank at the airport which opened the door to grant opportunities and the purchase of a fire truck to help the local fire department.

"I applaud you for coming all the way up here today to see it for yourselves," McLoskey said. "You've probably run into some CAVE people during this process. That's citizens against virtually everything, who are 100 percent against any kind of industrial business, but Broin has been a welcome addition to our community."

Some residents who visited the plant expressed their concerns over airborne pollutants. Documents filed by Broin suggest the plant will emit some level of arsenic, benzene carbon dioxide and more.

Broin has developed a patented technique called BPX, which eliminates coooking and moves corn to the fermentation process using enzymes. A regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) system and scrubbers eliminate 99 percent of airborne contaminants.

"Regulations require 98 percent, we've recorded 99 percent," Minish said. "That has created a debate over raising government standards because we're so far ahead of the industry."

Erin Heupel, environmental engineer for Michigan Ethanol, said the company has a well-established practice for testing airborne contamination.

"We take samples out of the end of stacks," Heupel said. "We monitor temperature and airflow out of the stack, we make quarterly reports and we have date we keep daily. It's very well-controlled and well-documented."

Broin and Ultimate Ethanol have applied for a "minor source" permit in Indiana, allowing the plant to emit less than 100 tons of volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter and carbon monoxide.

Heupel compared Michigan Ethanol's pollution emission to that of a commercial bakery or commercial candy manufacturer.

Jessica Fromholz, 12, spent much of Thursday jotting notes in a small notebook. As an assignment for her seventh-grade science class, Fromholz will write a three-page paper on ethanol production.

"I don't think it's that bad," Fromholz said. "At other factories you see black smoke coming out of it, but this one only has a little bit."