Mar

Another Black Eye for Biofuels–Pollution

Posted by admin Published in Biodiesel

A product made from corn or soy couldn’t possibly pose an environmental risk, could it? After all, you can eat the stuff. And according to the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, biodiesel is biodegradable, nontoxic, and suitable for sensitive environments.

But as today’s “New York Times” reports, residents of River Bend Farm, an Alabama suburb lying approach a biodiesel plant, noticed a black fetid goo that was fouling the Black Warrior River. It turns out that the stuff was 450 times higher than permit levels allow and that it had drifted two miles downstream.

It was a mixture of oil and glycerin, byproducts of biodiesel production. They deplete oxygen in waters very quickly, killing fish. And they’re just as deadly to birds as the Valdez spill. Alabama isn’t alone in that problem. In January a Missouri businessman was

indicted by a grand jury for a discharge that killed 25,000 fish and wiped out the population of fat pocketbook mussels, an endangered species.

Only yesterday, a study from the University of British Columbia predicted that a boost in corn production for ethanol will worsen the so-called “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area with so little oxygen that sea life suffocates. And today’s “Des Moines Register” reports that Cargill, Inc., will pay a $100,000 environmental fine–the largest ever charged an Iowa biofuels plant–for multiple violations surrounding illegal discharges.

Sources: New York Times, Des Moines Register, Voice of America

Photo: Creative Commons