AltEn site e’s “wet cake” and wastewater lagoon cleanup

MEAD, Neb. — Cleanup of a large amount of contaminated discarded grain at the AltEn ethanol plant is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, officials responsible for the cleanup said Tuesday.

Representatives from the facilities response team said about a third of an estimated 150,000 tons of grain had been shipped to Omagh following a year-long “pilot program” to test how to remove the material, known as “wet cake.” A landfill near Ha.

This summer, approximately 37,400 tons of wet cake was solidified and trucked to the Pheasant Point landfill near Bennington. As of September 20, a total of 47,608 tons of wet cake, or 2,240 truckloads, had been shipped from the former AltEn ethanol plant.

“It’s been a busy summer with trucks hauling wet cake off the site, and FRG is encouraged by the work being done,” said Bill Butler, senior engineer at NewFields, which manages the cleanup for a group of corn seed companies. jobs, these companies finance the jobs.

The Mead community is delighted

Meade Village Board Chairman Bill Thorson said the cleanup is progressing faster than the community expected.

“We’re very pleased with how things are going so far,” Thorson said, adding that the village has not received complaints about the stench at the site.

“This is not like how this place was run,” he said.

Former state Sen. Al Davis, who oversees Altern’s cleanup, said Tuesday that he remains concerned that any rainfall could cause new contamination because spray shields covering wet cake piles have broken in places.

The Altern ethanol plant made national headlines after it was revealed that chemically coated expired corn seeds were used to produce ethanol instead of typical field corn. After local landfills stopped accepting discarded grain byproducts from ethanol plants, the byproducts began piling up on the property.

The rancid odor emanating from the dump, which covers an estimated 14 acres, has prompted citizen complaints and raised concerns about public health and contamination of groundwater and nearby streams.

Factory to close in 2021

The state of Nebraska ordered the plant closed in February 2021 after a leak at the plant caused millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater to leak into nearby streams and adjacent land, leading to retention ponds miles downstream. of fish die.

The company that owns AltEn failed to comply with several state directives to properly clean wet cake piles and wastewater lagoons.

Butler told the Examiner that a more efficient process found during the pilot scheme involved using a mechanical excavator to mix and solidify the wet cake with bentonite. The mixture is then wrapped in plastic in the bed of a truck and taken to a landfill. Each night, the disturbed sections are sprayed with a mortar-like coating to further reduce odor and dust, he said.

Butler said work will be paused from around mid-November through spring because the wet cake cannot mix effectively in cold weather.

He didn’t know how much money had been spent so far to clean up the site.

“It’s definitely a huge amount of money,” Butler said.

Other activities planned for spring 2025 include water treatment in the wastewater lagoon, groundwater testing and removal of the lagoon liner, according to cleanup officials.

Officials said the Altern plant’s water treatment plant has treated more than 100 million gallons of water so far, and an estimated 38 million gallons of water have been used on about 1,100 acres nearby.

On-site water treatment is expected to be completed by the end of this year, and land applications will continue in 2025 until all treated water has been used.

website alteninfo.com Detail the efforts being made to clean up the site.