Judge's ruling weeks away on GBE ethanol plant

At the conclusion of a March 6–7 trial in Webster County, visiting Boone County Circuit Judge Frank Conley told attorneys for Gulfstream Bioflex Energy LLC that a temporary restraining order prohibiting the drilling of wells at the 252-acre proposed plant site east of Rogersville would remain in effect.

The hearing was the latest in a series of legal battles waged by a group of property owners who filed suit against GBE in August in hopes of blocking the plant. The group – known collectively as Citizens for Groundwater Protection – contends that wells pumping between 880 and 1,000 gallons of water per minute to the plant would adversely impact the groundwater supply that feeds their wells. The proposed plant is capable of producing 100 million gallons of ethanol annually.

A Webster County judge first issued the temporary restraining order against GBE in October, but it expired later that month when the company’s attorneys filed a last-minute motion for a change of judge. The Missouri Supreme Court appointed Conley, who reinstated the restraining order in December.

Following two days of testimony about the plant’s potential impact on groundwater, Conley said he wouldn’t rule on the plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction until attorneys for both sides had filed a final round of court documents. If another hearing is necessary, the judge said he would be available in mid-April.

Meanwhile, GBE’s corporate officers, who include a new president, are in a holding pattern.

“I hope they come together and get this done quicker than this,” said company President Jim Kaiman, who replaced CEO Greg Wilmoth in February. “Time is of the essence.”

Wilmoth told Springfield Business Journal in November that GBE had obtained roughly $600 million in financing for three ethanol plants in Missouri, but Kaiman said that’s not the case. A lead bank has been selected, but the financing hasn’t been finalized, he said.

Kaiman said Wilmoth is now a vice president, along with GBE officers Charles Luna and Jeff Negre.

Plant details surface in court

Much of the courtroom testimony focused on hydrogeology issues, such as the aquifer beneath the plant site and the rate at which it “recharges” with groundwater.

As attorneys questioned two leading experts who starkly disagreed about the plant’s impact on groundwater, additional details about the ethanol distillery emerged.

GBE officials originally said wells at the plant site would pump about 880 gallons of water a minute to the plant for a total of 1.26 million gallons a day. But the estimate used during the trial was 945 gallons per minute, or 1.36 million gallons a day.

At that rate, the plant would use 496 million gallons of water a year – a little less than half of the 1.07 billion gallons used by all of City Utilities of Springfield’s industrial customers in fiscal 2006.

In the company’s defense, GBE attorneys cited authoritative hydrogeological documents that suggest Webster County has 12 trillion gallons of stored water and the lowest water usage of counties in the region.

The estimated amount of wastewater generated by the plant – 411,000 gallons a day, or 150 million gallons annually – also came to light during the trial. The figure was included in engineering documents from Vogelbusch, an Austrian company that has designed numerous ethanol plants in the United States and around the world.

To allay residents’ concerns about groundwater contamination and runoff from the plant, which would be capable of producing 100 million gallons of ethanol a year, GBE is now proposing a “no-discharge” system that would treat wastewater, hold it in storage lagoons for up to 60 days and gradually release the effluent onto 75 acres of irrigation fields.

Last month, GBE hired Ray Hamilton with engineering firm Carter & Burgess to design the innovative system. Hamilton, who’s based in Denver, said he is the firm’s leading wastewater engineer, although he’s not yet licensed in Missouri.

The system would incrementally release treated wastewater onto the fields, which would drain and dry out in between applications, he explained.

More storage would be necessary during wetter winter months, Hamilton said, noting that the plant’s storage facilities would occupy about six acres.

If the no-discharge system is not feasible, Hamilton has recommended that GBE remove about 12 acres of earth and replace it with more appropriate soils for a fast-release irrigation system.

Plant contractor recruits newcomers

The general contractor GBE has selected to build the plant – Walton Construction Co. – actively recruited both Hamilton and Kaiman, a semiretired chemical plant manager who lives near St. Louis.

Kaiman said he has 33 years of experience with St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. and various companies that spun off from the agricultural technology behemoth. He was most recently vice president of operations for Israel Chemical Ltd. before retiring in July.

“I think the company realized in order to move forward they needed someone with experience with startup companies,” said Kaiman, who occasionally did consulting work before taking the helm at GBE.