Iowa ethanol plant emitted cancer-causing toxins for years. Residents were among last to know

SHELL ROCK — The general manager of an ethanol plant near Shell Rock was emotional — and borderline tearful — as she explained that her company would never intentionally poison the community’s air and threaten the health of its residents.

At a recent City Council meeting, Kristin Clay sought to show the wary crowd of about 60 residents that she cares about them.

She was raised in the area and graduated from a local school. Her parents and her best friends live in nearby Clarksville. And one of her top responsibilities is keeping her employees safe, Clay said.

“The health of everybody is personal to me,” she said, her voice cracking.

But the angst of the crowd spawned two main questions: If that is true, why wouldn’t her company, POET Bioprocessing — the largest producer of ethanol in the United States — test for potential air pollutants from every industrial process it uses in its facility? And why, after years of emitting cancer-causing toxins into the atmosphere, didn’t the company tell residents about it?

“We did what we were required to do,” Clay explained.

“That ain’t what I asked ya!” resident Troy Graybill shot back.

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The situation has exposed fissures in the regulation of harmful air emissions and how state departments communicate with each other when problems surface. And it has sown fear among residents, some of whom have long suspected that an unseen force had sickened people in their Northeast Iowa town of about 1,300.

POET insists the emissions from its plant northwest of town couldn’t have significantly harmed them. An analysis it commissioned of the emissions showed no danger to residents, the company says. Residents admit it’s likely impossible to prove they did.

Can’t test everything

For about three years until August 2023, the POET plant emitted elevated levels of ethanol and acetaldehyde — a hazardous, cancer-causing compound — directly into the atmosphere, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Acetaldehyde is used to manufacture other chemicals and a variety of products, including pesticides, cosmetics and glue, according to the National Library of Medicine. People also expose themselves to it by smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.

The problem in Shell Rock went unnoticed because the Iowa DNR relied on an engineer’s estimates that didn’t foresee the extent of the pollution.

It vented from a newly developed process in the facility that extracts protein for animal feed from the leftovers of ethanol production. That equipment was installed by the facility’s previous owner, Flint Hills Resources, to derive more income from the plant.

State records show that Flint Hills applied in 2018 for a permit to add the equipment, and that it indicated no emission control equipment was necessary because the pollution was expected to be low.

It flowed from a 12-inch-wide stack about 48 feet above the ground, the records show. Based on those numbers, a “stack test is not required for this unit,” a departmental review of the permit application concluded.

The Iowa DNR often relies on those estimates and state and federal documentation of emissions from similar facilities to determine if testing is required, said Brian Hutchins, an air quality supervisor for the department.

“We really don’t have the capacity to stack test absolutely everything that gets permitted,” he said. “This particular process really wasn’t expected to have this level of emissions.”

The culprit was ethanol that lingered in the leftovers. Jake Reint, a spokesperson for Flint Hills, said the protein extraction process was “a first-of-its-kind technology,” and that the company was unaware of the potential for it to emit harmful chemicals.

“We relied on the best predicted emission data at the time of permitting,” he said.

Documents associated with the permit indicate the prediction was based on emissions from a tank of stillage — the material left over from producing ethanol — that was measured in 2014.

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Nebraska figures it out

The problem initially was discovered at an ethanol facility in a Nebraska town in 2022, according to that state’s Department of Environment and Energy. But it wasn’t until over a year later that word got to Shell Rock.

That department issued a construction permit for a protein extraction process similar to POET’s for a Green Plains ethanol plant near Wood River. The process began operation in September 2021, records show.

Months later in February 2022, department staff observed initial performance tests of the stack that emits gasses from the protein process. Like Iowa, Nebraska does not always require tests for new permits.

“Generally speaking, initial performance testing requirements are determined on a case-by-case basis,” said Amanda Woita, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, which monitors air quality compliance in that state.

The tests at Wood River revealed emissions that were “significantly exceeding” what was allowed by the permit, documents show. One test showed volatile organic compounds were about 185 times the permit limit.

About seven months later in September 2022, department staff notified a POET plant near Fairmont in southeast Nebraska that its protein process might also be emitting too much pollution. POET agreed to test the emissions, but didn’t for nearly a year. It installed testing ports in May 2023 during an annual maintenance shutdown and tested in August.

The tests revealed elevated emissions of acetaldehyde — at a rate about 45 percent higher than what was discovered at the Shell Rock facility — along with significant amounts of ethanol, documents show.

POET shut down the protein processes in Fairmont and Shell Rock as a result of those test results, and notified state regulators in Iowa and Nebraska. By that time, the Nebraska site had been freely emitting the pollution for about five years, and Shell Rock for more than three.

The Nebraska facility was ordered by the Department of Environment and Energy to pay about $103,500 in fees for unreported emissions. States charge major emitters the fees — based on how much they emit — to fund air quality programs.

In Iowa, POET paid about $43,000 in back fees and a $10,000 fine.

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, which advocates for ethanol, said ethanol producers have had to adapt their emissions controls over time as they’ve learned more about them.

That included the widespread installations of thermal oxidizers to burn pollutants before they reach the atmosphere. Before that, the air near ethanol plants often smelled like baked bread, Shaw said.

When POET learned of the unexpected emissions from its protein processes, it redirected those emissions into thermal oxidizers to fix them.

“There's a lot of innovation going on in the industry right now,” Shaw said. “It sounds like these plants had something unexpected happen, and when they found out about it, they fixed it. We can’t always see the future, but when you have new information, you act on it.”

Similar to the Shell Rock situation, POET acquired the ethanol plant in Fairmont from Flint Hills after the protein process had been installed. The plants were the first two facilities owned by Flint Hills to get the equipment, Reint said.

Fairmont city officials said they were unaware of the yearslong problem until The Gazette contacted them about it.

‘Not harmful’

Don Moses, chair of the Fairmont Board of Trustees, initially was doubtful that it happened. “I am kind of surprised that no one has told us,” Moses said during a phone call last month with The Gazette. “I hate to say anything bad about the ethanol plant — it’s great for our community.”

The facilities are often major employers in rural areas.

Moses later met with the manager of the facility, who he said had dispersion models that indicated residents were not affected by the uncontrolled emissions. Those models attempt to predict the concentrations of airborne toxins as they dilute in the atmosphere and are carried by wind.

“They said we’ve got nothing to worry about,” Moses said. “I talked to them and they showed me everything, and everything looks good.”

There was also a lack of communication in Iowa. The Shell Rock site didn’t disclose its excessive pollution to the town and its residents until nearly a year after it was discovered — after news reports about the fine in July.

There were no news reports about the problem in Fairmont, Moses said.

Clay, the manager of the POET site near Shell Rock, sent an email to the city Aug. 9 that said tests of the emissions from the protein process showed the concentration of acetaldehyde in its exhaust pipe before it reached the outside air was lower than a federal human exposure limit.

“Once that vapor is released out of the pipe into the atmosphere it disperses quickly decreasing the concentration,” part of the email said.

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That federal limit is based on immediate effects of overexposure, such as eye and respiratory irritation. It is not based on long-term cancer risks. Federal regulators sought to cut that limit by half in the late 1980s, but a court ruling blocked it from taking effect, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Had that limit been in effect, the POET emissions would have exceeded it.

It’s unclear what concentrations POET’s 54 Shell Rock employees might have been exposed to. The Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration did not look into it.

“We can’t find that OSHA was informed or did an investigation,” said Hilary Foster, a spokesperson for the agency.

It’s also unclear whether the dispersion models accounted for the ethanol that was released into the air, which can oxidize and become acetaldehyde. POET did not address questions from The Gazette that sought more-specific information about the situation, but the company said the emissions were too low to be harmful to people.

“The actual testing numbers were in violation of the permit but they were not harmful,” said Erin Branick, a POET spokesperson. “They were well under OSHA’s suitable standards for humans being around them.”

Shell Rock Mayor Mike Klinefelter said he’s satisfied with the information POET has provided showing concentrations were too small to be a danger.

“From what I've been told — and granted it's from POET — they've never exceeded those limits,” he said.

But many people in the area don’t trust the numbers and want a larger investigation, including groundwater tests.

Concerned residents

Shell Rock lies in a four-county area with a cancer rate that is higher than the state’s average, according to the Iowa Cancer Registry at the University of Iowa. The state has the second-highest number of new annual cancer diagnoses in the country, behind Kentucky.

Lisa Epley, a Shell Rock resident, is seeking more specific data about her town. She wants UI researchers to conduct a cancer cluster investigation. The Iowa Cancer Registry has investigated two other locations in Butler County, but found no abnormal cancer incidence.

“We have a lot of cancer in our area,” Epley said. “Maybe this might wake everybody up.”

She created a Facebook group called “SHELL ROCK POLLUTION” to discuss the POET situation and to tally the town’s cancer cases. The group has about 150 members.

Epley moved to town about five years ago and says her health has declined since. She installed a home water treatment system, takes dietary supplements and uses a sauna and acupuncture to remove toxins from her body.

She was among the 60 people who attended the Sept. 3 City Council meeting for the POET presentation — an uncommon agenda item that the mayor sought to assuage their concerns.

Also at the meeting was Graybill, who was nearly expelled by Mayor Klinefelter for repeatedly interrupting the presentation with questions. Graybill and his wife, Deb, moved to town about five years ago in part to escape the air pollution of larger cities. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer about three years ago.

“You're saying I didn't get any of these cancer causing chemicals in me?” he asked at the meeting.

Clay, the plant’s manager, told residents they might be more at risk of exposure to acetaldehyde and other dangerous chemicals in their own homes, where chimneys, perfumes and air fresheners can emit them. Because of that, she said it’s impossible to say that emissions from the POET facility caused any ailments among residents.

“We expose ourselves to that every day through the products that we're using, and so it's difficult for the (Environmental Protection Agency) to say accumulatively that this is one source that caused a problem, especially when the levels are far below” safety thresholds, Clay said at the meeting.

She said the excessive emissions and the subsequent outcry from residents exposed flaws in how state departments communicate with each other, specifically the Iowa DNR and the Department of Health and Human Services, which she said “don’t interact very well with each other.”

Clay said those departments are developing plans to inform residents when worrying emissions are discovered and to evaluate the risks.

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What now?

The Iowa DNR has begun a review of the dispersion analysis commissioned by POET, said Hutchins, the air quality supervisor.

He is unaware of any other ethanol producers in the state that might have similar protein processes that are freely emitting the toxins, based on a review of construction permits. There is one other facility in Shenandoah that has the process, but its emissions are controlled, Hutchins said.

The two state departments are discussing how to handle the situations in the future, but Hutchins declined to speculate about what that might yield.

Alex Murphy, an Iowa Health and Human Services spokesperson, did not comment specifically on those talks but said his department “cultivates strong partnerships with other state, local and federal agencies to form open lines of communication.”

“The DNR and HHS are working together to determine if there are any known health concerns for residents near the plant,” he said.

POET has bemoaned the Iowa DNR’s boilerplate language in the department’s order that fined the company $10,000. Under a section of the order that evaluated the “gravity of the violation,” the order said: “Actual harm to the environment and public health likely occurred due to the amount of pollutants that were emitted.”

POET has insisted that the sentence, which is included in other department orders regarding air quality infractions, overstated the threat to the public.

But Hutchins disagreed: “These pollutants can be harmful for human health,” he said. “When it comes to specific impacts to an individual, that’s not really something DNR can assess.”

Kendra Janssen, who lives on an acreage about 3 miles north of the POET facility and attended the City Council session, said doctors found and removed a large tumor on her 8-year-old daughter’s pancreas last year. She has sought to purge her home of any toxins that might have contributed to its development by consuming organic food, switching skincare products and laundry detergents, and installing air and water purifiers.

Her family moved there about six years ago from the Des Moines area because “we love small farming communities,” and they tend honey bees and chickens and tap maple trees for syrup.

“I just want to know: Are we in a safe environment?” Janssen asked. “I feel like we would be negligent parents if we don’t know.”

Comments: (319) 368-8541; jared.strong@thegazette.com