Seed companies lost their fight to keep a Nebraska feedlot from being sold as part of their effort to involve the operation in an ongoing cleanup of the pesticide-contaminated AltEn ethanol plant.
Supervisors voted to grant a conditional use permit to the Texas firm to run the feedyard adjacent to AltEn over objections from seed companies who argued Mead Cattle bore some
By Ruth Wiechmann for Tri-State Livestock News
It was originally touted to be the best of boons for the environment: when E-3 Biofuels planned to open an ethanol plant at Mead, Nebraska, it boasted the intent to be the only “full circle” energy system in existence. Methane produced by anaerobic digesters using manure from the associated 30,000 head feedlot, Mead Cattle Company, would power the plant, wet distillers grain made from local corn would feed the cattle in the feedlot. Local farmers could sell their corn directly and everyone would be happy.
But a February 12, 2021 spill of around four million gallons of wastewater, likely contaminated with high levels of pesticides and fungicides brought national attention to a situation at the ethanol plant, now known as AltEn.
Representatives from the seed industry have stepped in to work with state regulators and EPA on potential cleanup plans for the AltEn ethanal plant in Mead, Nebraska. The site has millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater in ponds and 84,000 tons of contaminated wet cake that cannot be used for feed or applied to the soil.
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