Ethanol has a smoggy side

Environmental groups haven’t taken a strong stand on ethanol, which can create challenges for plant opponents, said Christa Westerberg, an attorney who has represented plant foes in Wisconsin.

“There is no massive PR machine working to point out the downsides of ethanol, like there is on the other side,” Westerberg said. “You have ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Co.) running commercials or GM (General Motors Corp.) running commercials about how ethanol is green and is going to help save us from our energy problems.”

Don Villwock, president of the Indiana Farm Bureau, grows corn and soybeans on about 3,000 acres in Knox County. He is also a steering committee member for the national 25x25 project — named for the goal of having 25 percent of the country’s energy coming from renewable sources such as wind, solar and biofuels by 2025.

Villwock said he thinks the ethanol industry is “getting better and better every day” in having cleaner emissions from its plants and is largely welcomed by communities where economic growth has lagged.

“It is great to see an industry come to rural America that actually pays a good wage scale,” Villwock said.

Portland Mayor Bruce Hosier said city and county leaders worked for a couple of years to persuade South Dakota-based Poet LLC to build its $175 million, 40-worker plant here.

“I have a very strong comfort level that this will be a very safe and productive project for our community,” Hosier said. “It is difficult to always land those 500- to 1,000-job industries, so the chance to land 40, 50, 100 jobs is always important.”

Darron Cummings / AP Project manager Leonard Lackmann surveys work under way at the $175 million ethanol refinery under construction in Portland, Ind.

Poet’s Portland refinery has a state permit for annual emissions of more than 450 tons of various pollutants. Its levels are low enough to classify the plant, which is a typical size for the industry, as a minor source of pollution under federal regulations.

Bob Berens, Poet’s site development director, said the plant features equipment that removes at least 97 percent of potential pollution.

“The remaining 3 percent or 2 percent, really, is a component of natural gas usage that we have supplying the plant. So the ethanol itself is not a polluter,” Berens said. “We don’t have the odor, there’s not as much noise. It’s really a nice, clean operation.”

Chad and Rebecca LeMaster aren’t convinced. They joined neighbors in an unsuccessful attempt to block construction of the refinery in a nearby field, and they haven’t had any luck selling their home a mile outside Portland.

The LeMasters’ worries about being so near the plant with their 7-year-old son and infant daughter have grown along with the rise of its 130-foot smokestacks.

“The more industrial it gets to look, the more apprehensive I am about living across from it,” Chad LeMaster said. “I feel like this was just shoved down our throats.”

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