MEAD, Neb (KMTV) — Since 2021, work has been happening at the AltEn plant outside of Mead to clean up toxic byproducts that comes from producing ethanol with seed corn treated with pesticides known as neonicotinoids.
The group organizing the clean up, known as the AltEn Facility Response Group (FRG), has been working to contain the waste and now they have a plan for moving that waste off site.
“The on site solidification and the off-site land filling is the most effective alternative for managing this,” said Bill Butler Senior Engineer with Newfields.
The main target of the new pilot project is the wet cake material that had been piling up at Alt En for years before the plant shut down.
The plan in place now will have organizers solidify the wet cake on site by combining it with a natural clay called bentonite to remove moisture from the mix.
Then, with plenty of precautions in place, it will be trucked off to the Pheasant Point landfill northwest of Omaha.
“The first part of that loading process is to line the trucks with a polyethylene plastic liner, before the truck leaves the site it will go through a mechanical wheel wash, then there will be an inspection of the truck by a physical employee," said Mike Hey with Nebraska WM. "The contractor will then also have a street sweeper up there lining the street. Its a last line of defense, if we see tracking we can shut things down and correct the situation."
The clean up organizers, who are covering the entire cost of the clean up, say that testing shows the wet cake only contains a fraction of a percent of neonicotinoids by weight. That means it's not classified as hazardous waste.
Even though it isn’t considered hazardous, WM will still set aside a portion of its landfill just for the AltEn waste.
The pilot project is set to begin in a few weeks but even if it's successful, the Facility Response Group will still have a lot of work to do before the clean up is considered complete.
“If the pilot test is a success we will still stop over the winter months," Butler said. "It gets too cold, we get the water and everything freezes and we can’t solidify it. So we will wait until March before we would go again."
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