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.