Rajasthan communities protest proposed ethanol plant that would suck up groundwater

In India, the Hindu newspaper reports that local communities in the Hanumangarh district in Rajasthan have been protesting for the past 15 months against the proposed ethanol plant under development by Dune Ethanol due to concerns about groundwater scarcity and pollution. The facility, deemed to be Asia’s largest ethanol plant, would use 6 million liters of fresh groundwater per day when up and running, using 22 million liters during the start up phase. Although environmental permitting documents claim the region to be barren, it is surrounded by paddy farming that rely on the groundwater resources for farming.