Ethanol plants losing their allure

SPARTA, Wis. — When plans were announced for a new ethanol distillery on the outskirts of this city of 9,000, residents complained that it would mar the view from the municipal golf course. They worried that its emissions would taint the milk-based products made at nearby Century Foods International, one of the community's biggest employers. They even argued over whether the plant would reek like burned molasses or blackened popcorn or fermenting beer.

The T-shirts that opponents printed up told the story: "Good idea. Bad location."

For years, the arrival of an ethanol distillery in agricultural America was greeted mainly with delight, a ticket to the future in places plagued by economic uncertainty. But in the nation's middle, the engine of ethanol country, the glow is dimming.

In Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and even Iowa, the nation's largest corn and ethanol producer, this next-generation fuel finds itself facing the oldest of hurdles — opposition from residents who love the idea of an ethanol distillery so long as it is someplace else.

These are not the better-known philosophical opponents to ethanol, those who question the efficiency of corn-based ethanol as an energy source, blame ethanol for rising food prices, or disagree with the federal subsidies that have long held up the industry.

These people are farmers. Or they know a farmer. Or their grandfather was a farmer and, as in so many farm families, ethanol has meant new hope for the fading towns built on cornfields. The biggest complaints are cousins of the gripes brought about by proposed paper mills, landfills, prisons and the like: an increase in noise, traffic, odor, emissions and demand on the water system.

Industry advocates play down the size of the opposition and suggest the increase in objections to new plants is simply a factor of math; 131 plants are now operating and more than 70 others are under construction, and the vast bulk of them are in the Midwest.

That is a marked increase from less than three years ago, when Congress enacted an energy law that included a national mandate for the increased use of renewable fuel in gasoline, setting off the ethanol rush. In January 2005, more than a quarter-century after the commercial ethanol industry got started, just 81 plants were functioning.