By DTN Staff
OMAHA (DTN) Agricultural corn seed giants started working on a containment strategy as Nebraska environmental regulators began taking stock of the pesticide and fungicide contamination at an ethanol plant that processed treated seeds almost exclusively.
Seed companies stepped in and hired a company to take over environmental cleanup at the AltEn LLC ethanol plant, capable of producing 24 million gallons per year, outside Mead, Nebraska, about 20 minutes from the suburbs of Omaha.
AltEn shut down its plant in early February after the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) issued an emergency order to cease operations at the plant on Feb. 4 following numerous environmental violations. AltEn completed shutdown on Feb. 8.
Mead AltEn Ethanol plant
A burst pipe late last week in a 4 million gallon digester tank at the AltEn Ethanol plant near Mead sent liquid manure and thin stillage, a byproduct of the ethanol manufacturing process, into waterways and culverts up to 4 miles from the plant. COURTESY PHOTO
Mead AltEn Ethanol plant
Mead AltEn Ethanol plant
A burst pipe late last week in a 4 million gallon digester tank at the AltEn Ethanol plant near Mead sent liquid manure and thin stillage, a byproduct of the ethanol manufacturing process, into waterways and culverts up to 4 miles from the plant. COURTESY PHOTO
After multiple complaints to state and federal officials and an inquiry by a researcher from the University of Nebraska, all evidence points to what should be an unlikely culprit â an ethanol plant that, like many others around the United States, turns corn into biofuel.
The company, called AltEn, is supposed to be helpful to the environment, using high-starch grains such as corn to annually churn out about 25m gallons of ethanol, a practice regulators generally hail as an environmentally friendly source for auto fuel. Ethanol plants typically also produce a byproduct called distillers grains to sell as nutritious livestock feed.