Minnesota Ethanol Plant Fined $25K for Air Pollution and Noise

- Decem­ber 11, 2014, Asso­ci­at­ed Press

The Corn Plus ethanol plant in the south-cen­tral Min­neso­ta city of Win­neba­go has agreed to pay a $25,000 penal­ty and take steps to reduce its air pol­lu­tion and noise levels.

The cor­rec­tive actions announced by the Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency on Wednes­day mark the lat­est step by offi­cials to bring the plant into com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal regulations.

Corn Plus has paid about $660,000 in state and fed­er­al penal­ties for air and water qual­i­ty vio­la­tions and agreed to envi­ron­men­tal improve­ments cost­ing near­ly $700,000 since 2009.

Corn Plus has an appli­ca­tion pend­ing with the MPCA for renew­al of its envi­ron­men­tal per­mits. Under its lat­est agree­ment with the agency, the com­pa­ny must sub­mit more infor­ma­tion for that appli­ca­tion to move forward.