Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Water use: Biofuel plants' thirst creates water worries

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Water use: Biofuel plants' thirst creates water worries
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:30:30 -0600


Water use: Biofuel plants' thirst creates water worries
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/BUSINES
S01/706030323/1001/NEWS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

June 3, 2007


State regulators fear some parts of Iowa won't have enough water to handle
the booming biofuels industry.

Plant operators say they have reduced the amount of water needed to produce
ethanol, but the facilities still need abundant local water supplies. A
single plant producing 100 million gallons of ethanol a year - a capacity
quickly becoming the norm - uses as much water as a town of approximately
10,000 people, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reports.

That's 400 million gallons of water a year for one plant - and scientists
aren't sure the state has enough water to handle the ethanol boom and other
expanding industries.

The last statewide water-use inventory was a dozen years ago. Back then,
biofuel plants used less than 5 percent of the state's water. The
percentage is 7 percent now and could grow to 14 percent by 2012, after
planned expansions and new plants come online, according to an October
study by the Minnesota-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

"It frankly is one of our important natural resource issues," said state
geologist Robert Libra of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "We
haven't paid attention to the water supply in a long time. We need to do so
before there is a panic."

The Legislature this year allocated $480,000 so the DNR can update water
records that haven't had a full review since the mid-1990s.

Those studies suggested water resources were already poor in most of
west-central and southern Iowa, fair in the state's northwest corner and
good in the northeast.

Meanwhile, local water supplies are dictating industry growth in Iowa and
other states.

In Buena Vista County near Alta, Oregon Trail Energy recently requested
permission to pump up to 788 million gallons of water a year for a 120
million-gallon-a-year ethanol plant. State officials approved the request,
which includes water for future expansion.

In Minnesota, plans to build a plant in Pipestone were abandoned because
the area lacked the 350 million gallons of water a year that was needed to
make 100 million gallons of ethanol, a report by the Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy found. Plants built in Heron Lake and Atwater
moved from locations with water supply problems.

In Grand Island, Neb., an ethanol plant won approval only after its water
demand was offset by cutbacks in water use in an agricultural area 15 miles
away, the trade and policy institute reported.

"Ethanol won't dry up the state," Libra said of Iowa. "But it raises local
questions, especially with other development."

Power plants, the state's largest water users, consume far more than
ethanol plants. But while power plants return water to streams and rivers,
ethanol plants are a different story. They recycle some water, but export
much of it in steam.

"I doubt very much of that water comes back down in rain in Iowa," said
L.D. McMullen, who runs the Des Moines Water Works. "It could land in
Pennsylvania."

Ethanol plants use so much water that the DNR plans to study how much water
the state's rivers and underground supplies can provide under various
conditions. The supply changes significantly with rain and with drought.

Budget cuts have reduced the state's network of stream gauges to 130, for
72,000 miles of streams. With stream flows varying wildly and the deep-well
Jordan aquifer dropping more than three feet a year, the state would do
well to get a better handle on how much water is available, Libra said.

"Today, biofuels are a small part of the groundwater demand, but a growing
one," Libra said.

Iowa's environmental-protection chief, Wayne Gieselman, said one scenario
highlighted the demand issues. In Sioux County, the state approved new
wells - just a couple of miles apart - for two rural water systems, one of
which serves an ethanol plant. But the system will be required to
temporarily shut down wells if the water table falls to a certain level, to
make sure there is enough water to go around. The area already had 16
crop-irrigation operations approved. A 10,000-animal cattle operation also
has been proposed, but hasn't requested permission to withdraw water.

"We are lacking the scientific basis for some of our water-supply
decisions," Gieselman said.

Greg Krissek, director of governmental affairs for Kansas-based ICM, an
engineering firm that has worked on many Iowa plants, said the industry has
become more efficient in its water use.

Producing a gallon of ethanol took six gallons in 1998, compared with six
to 11 gallons for gasoline. Water use dropped to three to four gallons per
gallon of ethanol produced by last year, and is expected to drop below
three gallons this year, Krissek said.

Production of biodiesel fuels uses even less water: An average of one to
two gallons of water per gallon of fuel, he said.

Plants are looking for ways to use wastewater from municipal plants, and
maybe even livestock operations, to reduce the amount needed from
underground supplies. However, Krissek said limits on chloride and other
salts in discarded water may make that recycling difficult.

Dennis Keeney, a senior fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy who led an analysis of the issue last fall, offers another warning.

"We don't know what's out there and what the water table is" in Iowa, said
Keeney, who once ran the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa
State University. "This is true for all development. We need to know what's
out there before we go willy-nilly into something."

Reporter Perry Beeman can be reached at (515) 284-8538 or pbeeman@dmreg.com





  • [Livingontheland] Water use: Biofuel plants' thirst creates water worries, TradingPostPaul, 06/11/2007

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page