GBE withdraws preliminary request for air permit

Last month, Gulfstream Bioflex Energy LLC notified the Missouri Department of Natural Resources that the inventories – a preliminary step toward an air pollution permit – were not a priority, said Permits Section Chief Kyra Moore. The company’s move does not rule out future plant proposals by GBE in those counties, she said.

“Newton, Jasper and McDonald counties are not our main focus at this time,” GBE CEO Greg Wilmoth wrote in an e-mail.

Late last year, GBE contacted DNR’s Division of Environmental Quality to request the inventories for a proposed ethanol plant in the three-county area. The inventories identify every air pollution source in a county and every emission point, Moore said. DNR then feeds that information into a computer model to ensure the new emissions will meet environmental regulations and air quality standards, she said.

Neosho’s economic development director, Gib Garrow, told Springfield Business Journal last month that GBE officials had visited the city four times and were considering a plant site in an industrial park near Camp Crowder, a Missouri National Guard installation.

Elsewhere in Missouri

Air modeling inventories requested by GBE for proposed ethanol plants near Rogersville and Monroe City are under way, Moore said.

GBE recently announced it would build a $220 million plant in Monroe City, a small town about 20 miles west of Hannibal in northeast Missouri.

In August, the company unveiled plans for a $185 million plant on 252 acres east of Rogersville, but surrounding property owners concerned about their groundwater supply filed a lawsuit to block the plant. Both sides are preparing for a March 6 trial.

This story originally appeared in SBJ’s Feb. 13 free e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.[[In-content Ad]]