Penn Mar continues quest for ethanol plant
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Article RatingPenn Mar Ethanol paid a $20,000 deposit at 11 a.m. Tuesday to extend its sales agreement for a 55-acre tract in the Cumberland Valley Business Park west of Shippensburg.
The deposit gives the farmers' cooperative 90 days to pay the balance of $2.18 million and close the deal.
Scott Welsh, Penn Mar project manager, says the cooperative intends to move forward with its plan to purchase the property for a plant to manufacture ethanol, a fuel additive distilled from corn, despite legal challenges from a citizens' group.
"With oil over $70 (a barrel) now, a lot of things are pointing to the direction of renewable fuels," Welsh says. "We need it."
Penn Mar has paid $60,000 in three increments to extend its Feb. 7, 2005, contract with Letterkenny Industrial Development Authority, which manages Cumberland Valley Business Park, says LIDA executive director John Van Horn.
Penn Mar will lose its deposit if the deal is not consummated, Van Horn says.
Also, Van Horn says, although the original agreement hinged on approvals from Greene Township and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, "at this point ... no further contingencies apply."
If built, the $85 million plant is projected to produce 50 to 60 million gallons of 200-proof ethanol annually and provide 35 to 40 jobs.
Penn Mar would sell the product to oil companies or distributors to be blended with petroleum distillates and used in automobiles.
Distillers grain, a by-product of the production process, would be sold for animal feed.
Penn Mar lost a zoning challenge in Franklin County Court in November and is waiting for a court date for oral arguments in its appeal to Commonwealth Court.
In the Franklin County decision, Judge Richard J. Walsh ruled that Penn Mar's proposed plant is not a permitted use in Greene Township's heavy industrial zone.
Walsh also overturned a May 26 Greene Township Zoning Hearing Board decision granting a height variance to allow portions of the plant to be taller than 45 feet.
If the appeal is unsuccessful, Penn Mar will have to start over in the local approval process.
"We remain convinced that this project will never become a reality," says DeEtta Antoun, director of Citizens for a Quality Environment, the grassroots group opposing the plant.
Tuesday's deposit "was required under the agreement with LIDA, and they wanted to keep their option on this land open," Antoun says.
"Penn-Mar still must overcome some significant obstacles. They must convince the Commonwealth Court to overturn the Franklin County Court decision; go through the lengthy township approval process from the beginning again; move through the PADEP permitting process with its hearings and reviews; somehow support their choice to locate next to Letterkenny Army Depot's Patriot missile, maintenance, and munitions operations; and raise the remaining $84,980,000 that they have not been able to come up with in the four years since the project began."
