Minnesota lawmaker introduces bill to strengthen biofuels environmental review

In Minnesota, a bill was introduced in the state legislature to increase the toughness of the environmental review for new biofuel plant approvals. Rep. Ken Tschumper said, in introducing the bill, that he was concerned, among other issues, with the 2 billion gallons of groundwater usage by the state’s 17 ethanol plants. Other lawmakers said the proposal would leave first-generation biofuel plants untouched and only slow the conversion to second-generation plants by adding significant time and cost to their development process.

The Minnesota state Environmental Quality Board is already examining water usage by ethanol plants after a plant in Granite falls, which had been allocated sufficient groundwater for its proposed needs, began pumping water from the Minnesota River. With 16 new ethanol plants in the proposal or construction stage, the state is facing a doubling of water demand from ethanol producers. The Board plans to look at whether ethanol producers have understated their needs, or ground water reserves are less than projected.

A report from the National Research Council suggests that ethanol production could affect water levels in the Ogalalla aquifer, which runs from west Texas to South Dakota and Wyoming. A report in Reuters quoted Jerald Schnoor, a University of Iowa professor of environmental engineering, who chaired the committee that produced the report. Schnoor said that extensive parts of the aquifer are showing drops in the water table of more than 100 feet.

US ethanol production is centered, however, on the much deeper Prairie Du Chien-Jordan and other aquifers, which supply Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota were not under threat, according to the report.

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