Biodiesel plants, touted as a largely non-polluting source of renewable energy, are causing water pollution in Iowa, Missouri, Alabama and probably other states, reports The New York Times.
"The discharges, which can be hazardous to birds and fish, have many people scratching their heads over the seeming incongruity of pollution from an industry that sells products with the promise of blue skies and clear streams," Brenda Goodman writes. But a Missouri official "said she was warned a year ago by colleagues in other states that biodiesel producers were dumping glycerin, the main byproduct of biodiesel production, contaminated with methanol, another waste product that is classified as hazardous. . . . In January, a grand jury indicted a Missouri businessman in the discharge, which killed at least 25,000 fish and wiped out the population of fat pocketbook mussels, an endangered species. "
An engineer for the National Biodiesel Board told Goodman that some producers of the fuel have had problems complying with environmental rules, "but says those violations have been infrequent in an industry that nearly doubled in size in one year, to 160 plants in the United States at the end of 2007 from 90 plants at the end of 2006," Goodman writes.
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