Iowa ethanol plant emitted cancer-causing toxins for years. Residents were among last to know
POET Bioprocessing — the largest producer of ethanol in the United States — operates an ethanol plant, pictured Oct. 16, near Shell Rock in Northeast Iowa. For three years, the plant violated a permit and emitted cancer-causing toxins into the atmosphere. It paid about $43,000 in back fees and a $10,000 fine to the state, and insists there was no danger to public health. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)
Oct. 27, 2024 5:30 am
SHELL ROCK — The general manager of an ethanol plant near Shell Rock was emotional — and borderline tearful — as she explained that her company would never intentionally poison the community’s air and threaten the health of its residents.
At a recent City Council meeting, Kristin Clay sought to show the wary crowd of about 60 residents that she cares about them.
She was raised in the area and graduated from a local school. Her parents and her best friends live in nearby Clarksville. And one of her top responsibilities is keeping her employees safe, Clay said.
“The health of everybody is personal to me,” she said, her voice cracking.
But the angst of the crowd spawned two main questions: If that is true, why wouldn’t her company, POET Bioprocessing — the largest producer of ethanol in the United States — test for potential air pollutants from every industrial process it uses in its facility? And why, after years of emitting cancer-causing toxins into the atmosphere, didn’t the company tell residents about it?
“We did what we were required to do,” Clay explained.
“That ain’t what I asked ya!” resident Troy Graybill shot back.
Shell Rock resident Troy Graybill questions a POET Bioprocessing representative during a Sept. 3 Shell Rock City Council presentation the mayor had called for to address health concerns from residents. (Jared Strong/The Gazette)
The situation has exposed fissures in the regulation of harmful air emissions and how state departments communicate with each other when problems surface. And it has sown fear among residents, some of whom have long suspected that an unseen force had sickened people in their Northeast Iowa town of about 1,300.
For about three years until August 2023, the POET plant emitted elevated levels of ethanol and acetaldehyde — a hazardous, cancer-causing compound — directly into the atmosphere, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Acetaldehyde is used to manufacture other chemicals and a variety of products, including pesticides, cosmetics and glue, according to the National Library of Medicine. People also expose themselves to it by smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.
The problem in Shell Rock went unnoticed because the Iowa DNR relied on an engineer’s estimates that didn’t foresee the extent of the pollution.
It vented from a newly developed process in the facility that extracts protein for animal feed from the leftovers of ethanol production. That equipment was installed by the facility’s previous owner, Flint Hills Resources, to derive more income from the plant.
State records show that Flint Hills applied in 2018 for a permit to add the equipment, and that it indicated no emission control equipment was necessary because the pollution was expected to be low.
It flowed from a 12-inch-wide stack about 48 feet above the ground, the records show. Based on those numbers, a “stack test is not required for this unit,” a departmental review of the permit application concluded.
The Iowa DNR often relies on those estimates and state and federal documentation of emissions from similar facilities to determine if testing is required, said Brian Hutchins, an air quality supervisor for the department.
“We really don’t have the capacity to stack test absolutely everything that gets permitted,” he said. “This particular process really wasn’t expected to have this level of emissions.”
The culprit was ethanol that lingered in the leftovers. Jake Reint, a spokesperson for Flint Hills, said the protein extraction process was “a first-of-its-kind technology, and that the company was unaware of the potential for it to emit harmful chemicals.
“We relied on the best predicted emission data at the time of permitting,” he said.
Documents associated with the permit indicate the prediction was based on emissions from a tank of stillage — the material left over from producing ethanol — that was measured in 2014.
Shell Rock is seen Oct. 16 in an aerial photo. About 54 employees work at the POET Ethanol Bioprocessing plant, visible in the top right, just outside of town. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)
The problem initially was discovered at an ethanol facility in a Nebraska town in 2022, according to that state’s Department of Environment and Energy. But it wasn’t until over a year later that word got to Shell Rock.
That department issued a construction permit for a protein extraction process similar to POET’s for a Green Plains ethanol plant near Wood River. The process began operation in September 2021, records show.
Months later in February 2022, department staff observed initial performance tests of the stack that emits gasses from the protein process. Like Iowa, Nebraska does not always require tests for new permits.
“Generally speaking, initial performance testing requirements are determined on a case-by-case basis,” said Amanda Woita, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, which monitors air quality compliance in that state.
The tests at Wood River revealed emissions that were “significantly exceeding” what was allowed by the permit, documents show. One test showed volatile organic compounds were about 185 times the permit limit.
About seven months later in September 2022, department staff notified a POET plant near Fairmont in southwest Nebraska that its protein process might also be emitting too much pollution. POET agreed to test the emissions, but didn’t for nearly a year. It installed testing ports in May 2023 during an annual maintenance shutdown and tested in August.
The tests revealed elevated emissions of acetaldehyde — at a rate about 45 percent higher than what was discovered at the Shell Rock facility — along with significant amounts of ethanol, documents show.
POET shut down the protein processes in Fairmont and Shell Rock as a result of those test results, and notified state regulators in Iowa and Nebraska. By that time, the Nebraska site had been freely emitting the pollution for about five years, and Shell Rock for more than three.
The Nebraska facility was ordered by the Department of Environment and Energy to pay about $103,500 in fees for unreported emissions. States charge major emitters the fees — based on how much they emit — to fund air quality programs.
In Iowa, POET paid about $43,000 in back fees and a $10,000 fine.
Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, which advocates for ethanol, said ethanol producers have had to adapt their emissions controls over time as they’ve learned more about them.
That included the widespread installations of thermal oxidizers to burn pollutants before they reach the atmosphere. Before that, the air near ethanol plants often smelled like baked bread, Shaw said.
When POET learned of the unexpected emissions from its protein processes, it redirected those emissions into thermal oxidizers to fix them.
“There’s a lot of innovation going on in the industry right now,” Shaw said. “It sounds like these plants had something unexpected happen, and when they found out about it, they fixed it. We can’t always see the future, but when you have new information, you act on it.”
Similar to the Shell Rock situation, POET acquired the ethanol plant in Fairmont from Flint Hills after the protein process had been installed. The plants were the first two facilities owned by Flint Hills to get the equipment, Reint said.
Fairmont city officials said they were unaware of the yearslong problem until The Gazette contacted them about it.
Don Moses, chair of the Fairmont Board of Trustees, initially was doubtful that it happened. “I am kind of surprised that no one has told us,” Moses said during a phone call last month with The Gazette. “I hate to say anything bad about the ethanol plant — it’s great for our community.”
The facilities are often major employers in rural areas.
Moses later met with the manager of the facility, who he said had dispersion models that indicated residents were not affected by the uncontrolled emissions. Those models attempt to predict the concentrations of airborne toxins as they dilute in the atmosphere and are carried by wind.
“They said we’ve got nothing to worry about,” Moses said. “I talked to them and they showed me everything, and everything looks good.”
There was also a lack of communication in Iowa. The Shell Rock site didn’t disclose its excessive pollution to the town and its residents until nearly a year after it was discovered — after news reports about the fine in July.
There were no news reports about the problem in Fairmont, Moses said.
Clay, the manager of the POET site near Shell Rock, sent an email to the city Aug. 9 that said tests of the emissions from the protein process showed the concentration of acetaldehyde in its exhaust pipe before it reached the outside air was lower than a federal human exposure limit.
“Once that vapor is released out of the pipe into the atmosphere it disperses quickly decreasing the concentration,” part of the email said.