Lake Mayors Range from Optimistic to Concerned on Trash-to-Ethanol

BioRefineries/Renewable Fuel Production, Business News/Analysis, Indiana, Not Agriculture, Opinions

March 17, 2011

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by Marc Chase (NWI Times) Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. expressed reservation at signing a 20-year agreement to commit his city’s trash to a process that remains commercially unproven.
“I talk to smart people that know what they’re talking about, and they say that the plant they’re basing this whole model off of is in Arkansas. And it’s a real small plant,” McDermott said of the proposed Schneider plant that would convert municipal garbage into the biofuel ethanol. “It’s not anything of the magnitude they’re talking about in Lake County.
“If the plant was up and running — and we could see you’d take trash in one end and on the other end comes ethanol — and I knew it was working perfectly, it would be easier to make that decision. But because right now it’s experimental, it’s a lot tougher to make that decision.”
…The Lake County Solid Waste Management District, a local government agency, contracted with Powers to build the plant in 2008, but individual Lake County cities must each sign interlocal agreements to send garbage there.
…The lawyer for a major garbage trade group and a local waste industry official have said the county’s contract with Powers could violate legal precedent pertaining to the flow of trash and that legal options are being explored.
Whiting Mayor Joe Stahura said the plan appears attractive because it offers waste processing at a discount from traditional landfills but echoed that legal concerns must be addressed before his community signs on. READ MORE

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