Early this year, the Guardian reported that residents of Mead, Nebraska \u2014 a tiny town of 600 near Omaha \u2014 were getting sick, and also noticing livestock and bee fatalities. The cause? All signs point to AltEn, a neighboring ethanol plant found to be processing thousands of pounds of unused pesticide-treated corn seed from all across the country.<\/p>\n
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Early this year, the Guardian <\/span>reported<\/a> that residents of Mead, Nebraska \u2014 a tiny town of 600 near Omaha \u2014 were getting sick, and also noticing livestock and bee fatalities. The cause? All signs point to AltEn, a neighboring ethanol plant found to be processing thousands of pounds of unused pesticide-treated corn seed from all across the country.<\/p>\n Residents say they had no idea that treated seeds would be processed in the factory when the city approved the new plant in 2018 <\/span>\u2014 they assumed AltEn would be using untreated field corn. As it turns out, the ethanol plant became one of just two in the country to process seeds coated with pesticides, after entering into long-term contracts with multinational seed companies like Bayer, Syngenta, and Dow. By 2020, AltEn was processing 98% of the treated seed discard in the U.S. \u2014 600,000\u2013<\/span>900,000 pounds daily. <\/p>\n In 2019, state environmental officials recorded levels of neonicotinoids <\/span>\u2014 a common seed treatment known to be harmful to pollinators \u2014 in one of the large hills of waste on the property. Regulatory benchmarks suggest that anything over 70 parts per billion (ppb) is unsafe; researchers found levels at a shocking 427,000 ppb. <\/p>\n Over the last three years of the plant\u2019s operation, Mead residents <\/span>\u2014 some who live less than a mile from the factory \u2014 began to report all kinds of health problems like sudden nosebleeds, passing out while out on a jog, and constant coughing. Since 2018, over 50 community members have made formal complaints around these concerns, as well as livestock health concerns, fatalities, and \u201cbee kills\u201d (sudden colony collapse). For a community of less than 600, 50 complaints is extremely high.<\/p>\n Early this year, state regulators finally ordered the plant to shut down until it can dispose of its piles of waste, which AltEn had originally sold back to farmers as a soil conditioner before receiving a \u201cStop Sale\u201d order from the state. The plant had until March 1 to remove its waste <\/span>\u2014 but AltEn chose to ignore those orders. To make matters worse, in late February, a frozen pipe burst on a four-million-gallon tank in the now-shut facility, which resulted in a spill that traveled more than four miles from the plant. <\/p>\n Now, the State of Nebraska is suing AltEn for failing to clean up its mess. Yet residents who have watched neighboring industries go out of business before, are worried the plant will go bankrupt and the waste will never be cleaned up.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\tNot your typical ethanol plant<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n\tCommunity concerns <\/span><\/h3>\n