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Nebraska could be the first in outlawing treated seeds in ethanol plants

Nebraska could be one of the first states to make it illegal to use treated seed for ethanol production if byproducts are unsafe for livestock consumption or land application under proposed legislation that advanced Thursday.

Bruce Bostelman, a Republican from Brainard, tells Brownfield his one-of-a-kind bill came about following pesticide contamination at the AltEn Plant near the eastern town of Mead. “I think it’s significant for the state and Saunders County. We need to get the process of ethanol production and treated seed corn to stop,” he said.

He says the bill is a preventive measure and not an attack on the ethanol industry. “No other ethanol plant, except one, in the United States may even using this process so this is really nothing in opposition to ethanol and it’s nothing that deals with ethanol plants across the state,” he says. “They do a really good job.”

Bostelman says clean up from a digester pipe that broke spilling millions of gallons of polluted water into ditches is almost done adding toxic distiller’s grain cleanup is in progress.

The state of Nebraska has filed suit against AltEn for violation of environmental standards. The plant has since closed.