How about this?
According to some members of the Sangamon County Board, ethanol plants like the ones above are keeping in the character of farm land. A proposal passed the Zoning Board of Appeals that would allow Ethanol and Biodiesal plants to be built in Agriculturally zoned land. It was introduced by a Board Member whose district doesn't include an inch of farm land and won't be up for re-election until 2010.
Currently, land must be zoned for industrial use before an ethanol plant is built, which means owners of the land must go through the public re-zoning process before they have permission to build in the middle of farm land. Changing an agricultural zone to an industrial zone also allows other types of industrial development if the ethanol plant should ever fail.
The Orwellian rationale given in a December 22 SJ-R article about the proposed change is that it will prevent future industrial development from destroying the agricultural "character" of an area. I find it bizarre that anyone would talk of preserving the rural character of an area after they allow the construction of a high-traffic, high-pollution ethanol plant.
Once an ethanol plant is built, the character of an agricultural area is already dramatically altered. That ship has sailed.
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Whenever a zoning change is proposed a LESA (Land and Evaluation Site Assessment) score is calculated by professionals. This is a measure of whether the proposed change fits in with the surrounding development. The score will tell us, for example, that a mega-hog farm doesn't belong next door to a housing subdivision.
Predictably, the LESA score tells us that ethanol plants are industrial sites that don't belong in the middle of a rural agricultural area. This presents a problem for those County Board members who like to follow the professional recommendation of those who calculate the score.
It's my understanding of the process that allowing ethanol plants to be built in agriculturally zoned land will save the County Board from the embarrassment of having to defy the LESA rating. At least one Waverly resident involved believes it will also have an impact on the lawsuit brought against the county to stop the plant.
I like ethanol. Whether it does much at all to help the environment is a matter of debate. The current Illinois Times has a short article covering that issue. My belief is that if you factor in the resources being expended by our military in the Middle East that ethanol looks like the better alternative. However, no one knows whether corn-based ethanol will be a long-term solution to our energy needs, or a transition fuel used until we find something better.
The fact that we want ethanol plants doesn't mean we can't use common sense about where to build them. Sure, ethanol uses corn, but does that mean every industrial site that uses an agricultural product should be built next to a farm? How about textile mills or ADM plants? Should those be zoned for agricultural land too?
Besides generating large amounts of train and/or semi-truck traffic, ethanol plants can cause large amounts of pollution. The toxins emitted into the air can vary widely depending on the pollution control methods use in a particular plant.
When the Waverly ethanol plant came before the County Board, the company did not yet have their plans approved by the Illinois EPA. There was no publicly available information telling us how much pollution would be released into the air around the plant. The County Board chose to pass the responsibility for that issue off onto the IEPA.
If the Board continues that passive stance, it will mean that any ethanol plant will only have to abide by the minimum standards required by law, resulting in more pollution for everyone in the area.
The Board also approved the Waverly plant despite concerns that the company building the plant sometimes uses cheap, non-union labor brought in from out of state. The proposed zoning change will allow the County Board to approve future ethanol plants with even less oversight and less public involvement.
This will go before the full County Board for a vote on Tuesday, January 9th. If you think this is bad policy, like I do, you can find your County Board member's contact information here.