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Proposed Sparta Ethanol Plant Gets Warm Reception at Meeting

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 00:00 CST

By Steve Cahalan, La Crosse Tribune, Wis.

Mar. 21--BANGOR, Wis. -- The concept of farmers banding together to build and operate an ethanol plant in Sparta, Wis., got a warm reception at a public meeting attended by about 300 people Monday night in Bangor.

The city of Sparta is offering 34 acres of free land for the proposed project, just east of the Century Foods International plant, Sparta City Administrator Ken Witt said. The plant, which would make ethanol from corn, might employ 35 to 40 people.

Another 50 acres of land is available east of the proposed site if needed for future expansion, Witt told the audience at the Log Cabin bar and restaurant.

The Sparta plant would be capable of producing 40 million gallons of ethanol a year from 15 million bushels of corn, and could cost about $80 million. Backers said those numbers aren't set in stone.

Dave Rundahl, a rural Coon Valley, Wis., farmer, said he is among about 10 area farmers and business people who have been meeting about the possibility of an ethanol plant.

"How many think this is a good thing?" he asked the audience at the end of the 90-minute informational meeting, held to gauge potential farmer and investor interest. Nearly everyone raised their hand.

"It's a no-brainer," Rundahl told the crowd. "I think we should continue this thing." He said another public meeting could be held in two to three weeks.

After the meeting, Rundahl said he hopes a cooperative will be created. The group that has been meeting wants farmers to own a majority interest in the project.

Besides ethanol, the plant would produce distiller's grain as a byproduct that would be sold as livestock feed.

"It's great," Rundahl said of the turnout at Monday night's meeting. "This kind of shows you which way this thing is headed."

"It's something the Sparta community is interested in," Witt told the audience.

One person in the audience asked Witt about the possibility of odors creating problems in residential neighborhoods.

Witt answered that the site is on the city's far east side, so prevailing winds would blow any odors away. He also doubted odor would be a problem because of new equipment that heats the exhaust from ethanol plants. Witt said when he and others recently visited an ethanol plant in Preston, Minn., he couldn't smell an odor while in the parking lot. Inside the plant, it smelled like a grain elevator, he said.

Ray Dreger, secretary/treasurer of the new Western Wisconsin Renewable Energy Cooperative, and Jim Faust, Dunn County Extension agriculture agent, briefed the audience on the co-op's ethanol plant under construction near Boyceville, Wis. That project is expected to increase local corn prices by 5 to 7 cents a bushel, Dreger said. Farmers who belong to the new co-op also will be paid dividends.

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Copyright (c) 2006, La Crosse Tribune, Wis.

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Source: La Crosse Tribune (La Crosse, Wisc.)

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