*This article ran in the Sioux City Journal on 10/5/06

DES MOINES – Gas pumps across the state tout ethanol as the fuel choice that means “cleaner air for Iowa.”

While the corn-based fuel benefits Iowa’s air quality, environmental downsides to ethanol production exist – everything from the emissions of ethanol plants run on fossil fuels to soil erosion.

Environmentalists are hoping the state’s booming ethanol industry can expand in ways that are sustainable and don’t harm the state’s air, water or world-renowned fertile soil.

“We love this revolution,” said Rich Leopold, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council. “We think it’s a great thing that this is happening. We just want to do it in the right way.”

The council, a diverse coalition of groups interested in conservation, has put out a policy statement encouraging the emerging biofuels industry to adopt practices that minimize the adverse effects ethanol production could have on Iowa’s environment.

The industry so far has been a challenge to regulate and is a “fairly big emitter of contaminants,” said Wayne Gieselman, the administrator of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ environmental services division.

“It is one of the ironies of this, because it is cleaner air through gas pumps, but the whole technology and the industry that manufactures this is big business,” Gieselman said.

Chad Hart, a scientist with the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, said the ethanol industry has moved toward better environmental practices.

Ethanol producers are looking at ways to reduce the usage of coal or natural gas to power production plants. At least one is using switchgrass to supplement the powering of its coal-powered plant, Hart said. Distillers grain, a byproduct of corn-based ethanol production, also can be used as an energy source to run the plant.

“I think they’re trying. Now whether they’ll succeed is still an open question,” Hart said.

Ethanol makers defend their practices and say they are continually improving what they do.

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said the industry is pleased it can produce fuels in an environmentally friendly way. The association represents Iowa’s ethanol and biodiesel producers.

He points to many innovations producers have developed to become more energy efficient.

“We are very proud of the fact that we are good neighbors,” he said.

Robert Anex, an Iowa State University associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, said the use of ethanol – even when it is produced using fossil fuels – still means an overall reduction in greenhouse gases.

“Environmentally, you’re going to have fewer emissions using either coal or natural gas to make ethanol than a car burning gasoline,” he said.

Advocates acknowledge Iowa’s ethanol plants are doing a better job of reducing harmful emissions. And Leopold hopes the ethanol industry will continue to be forward-thinking.

“Once we have that infrastructure in place, it’s there for 30, 40, 50 years,” Leopold said. “We’re making some big decisions right now. The decisions that we’re making are going to have impact for generations.

Iowa State University graduate student Andy Heggenstaller is searching for the next cash crop in the ethanol boom with an eye on the environment.

The agronomy student is not only trying to help Iowa farmers with their bottom lines, but is looking for crops and practices that are beneficial for Iowa’s fertile topsoil and its waterways.

“I think new demand for energy from agriculture can create new opportunities for environmental improvement in agriculture,” Heggenstaller said.

As Iowa ramps up its capacity to produce corn-based ethanol, Heggenstaller is experimenting with biomass crops that could reduce soil erosion and the runoff of harmful levels of nitrates into Iowa’s rivers, lakes and streams.

A farm field in Boone County is playing host to his experiment, where he is growing perennial grasses and exotic crops from other parts of the world in test plots.

He wants to see whether combinations of two crops grown in a single year can create more biomass used as a raw product for ethanol than a single crop of corn #- with fewer side effects for Iowa’s environment.

Heggenstaller isn’t alone in searching for the solutions.

His research is the type of innovation conservationists are searching for as the state jumps headlong into the forefront of renewable fuels production.

Leopold is looking ahead to a time when biomass crops such as switchgrass will be used to make ethanol instead of corn. But he fears during the transition period that corn will become entrenched as the main source for biofuels.

“It’s not like we’re against corn, you know,” Leopold said. “We want to maximize the environmental benefits, and corn might not be the best way to do that in the long term.”

More than 200 waterways in the state are on the impaired waters list, many polluted by sediment and nutrients carried in runoff from Iowa farm fields.

Leopold said if prices for corn are driven up, that could encourage farmers to put more farmland into corn production. That could potentially lead to additional soil erosion and “nitrate leaching” into groundwater if proper farming practices are not used.

Leopold said the state already has lost on average about half its rich, fertile topsoil because of farming over the last 50 or 60 years.

“We have the best soil on earth, and we continue to degrade that resource,” Leopold said.

Heggenstaller’s research has rotated corn in a single year with triticale, a winter cover crop that is a cross between rye and wheat that creates a large amount of biomass as well as providing soil cover to reduce erosion.

“I see sort of corn and soybeans as what we do now, and switchgrass, or perennial biomass grasses, is what I see us doing in 10 or 15 years,” Heggenstaller said. “But I think the transition between corn and soybeans and that is going to be rocky.”

Already, his experiments have sparked interest and visits by representatives from corporate agricultural giants interested in what he is growing and learning.

Heggenstaller realizes the results of his research at this point are speculative unless there is a bio-refinery willing to buy the end product.

“Until that happens, this is really just me talking into thin air,” Heggenstaller said.

Water supply

Environmentalists also are concerned about the amount of water used by ethanol plants, even though it amounts to a small percentage of the state’s overall water supply.

Leopold said anecdotal evidence of a supply problem exists, although he acknowledges they don’t have scientific evidence to back that up.

He is calling for a comprehensive water study to be done and a statewide water plan completed to be guaranteed the water will be there now and in the future.

Gieselman, the state environmental official, said he supports a survey of the state’s water supply. He said ethanol production does bring the potential for long-range impacts on Iowa’s water supply and neighboring wells.

“They may draw down the level of the groundwater to the point where somebody else’s well could go dry. At least that’s the concern we have in some of these spots,” Gieselman said.

Shaw said the available water supply already is a deciding factor on where ethanol plants are located. State rules decide whether a local water supply would support an ethanol plant, and some sites have been rejected because of that issue, he said.

“We don’t want to build plants where there’s going to be a shortage of water, because you can’t make ethanol without some water,” he said.

Shaw points to at least one Iowa plant that uses the “gray water” from city treatment plants that normally would be headed back to a local waterway.

“Instead of going into the river, we divert it and we actually use it as cooling water at the ethanol plant,” Shaw said.

Plants also are using less water than they had in the past. Shaw said it now takes less than three gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol, and some newer plants take less than two gallons.

“We’re just scratching the surface on how efficient these plants can be, so we’re going to continue to see improvements there,” Shaw said.

*This article was written by Charlotte Eby, who can be reached at (515) 243-0138 or chareby@aol.com.