The first time the public got a chance to weigh in on a $120 million corn-to-ethanol plant proposed for Conoy Township in 2007, so many people yearned to speak that only those deemed to be directly affected by the distillery were allowed to comment.

That plan is now on hold, pending a court challenge.

But, when another grand ethanol proposal — this one using beets as its energy source — was introduced at a public hearing in Rapho Township last June, only a handful spoke up.

That's because, suggested Supervisor Lowell Fry, "There was just plain curiosity. We all wanted to know what it was."

Indeed, where did Lancaster County businessman Paul Wheaton's nearly $100 million first-of-its-kind-anywhere idea come from?

Turns out this latest ethanol plant — approved in August by Rapho Township supervisors with 98 conditions — is on its third stop.

And, this revolutionary proposal is facing a variety of financial and environmental concerns and questions.

Since 2007, farmers and residents in two different Canadian provinces got excited when they thought they were to host the beets-to-energy prototype.

Disappointment and claims that the owner of Lancaster Propane Gas in Mount Joy since 1994 did not pay all his bills have followed the entrepreneur from Canada back to Lancaster County.

And the project's unique biofuel source — beets — this week ran into hot water.

The ethanol is to be fermented from a newly created genetically modified sugar beet that is resistant to the popular herbicide Roundup.

But, on Tuesday, a federal judge overturned the U.S. Department of Agriculture's approval of Monsanto's Roundup Ready beet two years ago.

Five environmental and organic farming groups had sued the federal government, saying the hybrid beets could contaminate organically grown beets and harm the environment.

Judge Jeffrey White ordered the agency to produce an environmental impact statement examining the issue.

Wheaton said Wednesday neither the environmental nor the financial hurdles will hamper the Rapho Township project.

The hybrid beets can be used without coating them with the herbicide-resistant chemical, he said. However, he predicted the Roundup Ready beet will again be approved after the USDA submits the environmental impact statement.

Wheaton, a 53-year-old resident of East Hempfield Township, maintains beets-based ethanol will revolutionize the race to find a sustainable and safe alternative to foreign oil.

Wheaton says his Maibach Agri-Energy Center on the outskirts of Mount Joy will have no pollution, no smell, will generate its own electricity with beet byproducts, would get the water it needs from the beets themselves, would recapture nutrients and use them as fertilizer and would help keep Amish farmers anchored in Lancaster County by providing them with a new cash crop.

"We want to be a good steward of the land and environmentally friendly," says Wheaton, who owns Maibach LLC with his wife, East Hempfield Supervisor Heidi Wheaton.

All this, and America's national security will be bolstered by the making of a non-oil alternative biofuel that's much cheaper than that produced from corn, Wheaton says.

Shifting home base

In 2007, 14 farmers started growing 2,100 acres of beets on Prince Edward Island, first choice for Wheaton's Atlantec Bio-Energy company.

But he pulled the plug when the provincial government announced a several-month moratorium on biofuels plants and said it wanted to take a closer look at beets-generated ethanol.

The locally-based businessman then moved the project to adjacent Nova Scotia, Wheaton's native home, and paid more than 40 farmers there to begin growing the genetically modified "energy beet" for fuel.

Initially, the project was to set up in a former iron works factory. But after a dispute with a union, another industrial complex was leased instead.

A mini-test plant was set up in 2008 and the first round of beets has been processed into ethanol. The yields were even higher than expected, according to company officials.

But now, no large-scale production plant is planned to follow, says Wheaton: "It's going to be more of a research and development project."

Atlantec has been promised $6.7 million in grants from a foundation that distributes Government of Canada funds for "innovative technological solutions."

Wheaton said Atlantec will continue to receive government money for research and development, even though there are no plans to build an ethanol production facility in Nova Scotia.

"We confirmed everything. We were so close," laments Gary Malone, Atlantec's former manager who says he "parted ways" with Wheaton's company in June because financing had not been secured for the project.

He wishes Wheaton success in Lancaster County.

"It's good for the farmers, it's good for the environment and it's sustainable," he says of the beets technology.

The beet

Beets are grown now in several states in the United States as a source of sugar.

The inedible, genetically modified hybrid beet that Wheaton plans to use is even higher in sugar, which is easier to ferment into ethanol than corn and grains. That simplifies the process to produce the alternative fuel additive and the cost of production.

Former Atlantec officer Malone coined the phrase, "energy beet."

"I'll tell you, we are going to need those kinds of innovations in the industry to continue to grow," says Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group.

Penn State University began research into growing various species of beets in Pennsylvania in 2007 after a beets-to-ethanol proposal surfaced in Luzerne County (since abandoned.) PSU is also testing seeds that Wheaton's company would use here in Lancaster County.

"They grow pretty well in Pennsylvania," reports Gregory Roth, professor of agronomy at Penn State.

Results also show per-acre yields every bit as good as those grown in the beets capital state of Michigan, he says.

The possibility of growing a hybrid beet that could grow in winter months was planted weeks ago for testing at Penn State's Landisville Research Farm near Manheim.

The particular beet favored by Wheaton was developed in 2007 by Monsanto. It has been approved for use in the United States, Canada and Europe.

It's considered a breakthrough by some because it won't be killed by the herbicide Roundup that farmers use to kill weeds that invade beet fields.

But not in the eyes of the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Center for Food Safety, the Organic Seed Alliance and High Mowing Seeds, which sued the federal government, alleging it approved the genetically modified beet without thoroughly examining its impact.

The groups fret that seeds from the new beet will contaminate organic orchards of table beets and chard, ruin heirloom species of beets, result in much higher herbicide spraying and eventually could spawn a new "super weed."

"Beets and chard on your dinner table is what's at risk," says Zelig Golden, staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety in San Francisco and lead attorney in the case.

In 2007, the groups successfully got a federal judge to order the USDA to conduct more studies into the effects of Roundup-resistant alfalfa.

And, on Tuesday, they won an initial victory in their case on the Roundup Ready beets.

"The potential elimination of farmers' choice to grow nongenetically engineered crops or consumers' choice to eat nongenetically engineered food...has a significant effect on the human environment," Judge White wrote in San Francisco.

In an interview several days ago, before the decision, Wheaton said the concerns are unfounded. The beets grown for ethanol will be harvested before they go to seed, he said.

Claims of nonpayment

A company that did work for Wheaton on Prince Edward Island said several days ago that he and others have been owed tens of thousands of dollars since the plug was pulled on the project in August 2008.

"There is more than one (company)," he said on the condition that his name not be used.

The official said representatives from Atlantec showed up unexpectedly at his office recently and will meet with him next week. He said he hopes it is to settle debts.

Island Coastal Services Ltd. of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was in line to do construction work had the project gone forward.

Blair MacLauchlan, owner of the company, said he gave Wheaton a $200,000 personal loan that was supposed to have been paid back by the end of 2008.

No payments have been made, MacLauchlan said.

"I would have hoped to have it back before this," he said, adding that he has the loan agreement in writing.

The overdue loan notwithstanding, MacLauchlan says he does not fault Wheaton for moving the ethanol project from Prince Edward Island.

"The government didn't get their act together," he said.

Wheaton said Wednesday that as far as he knows he does not owe anyone related to the project in Prince Edward Island.

A Prince Edward Island farmer who grew beets for Atlantec for two seasons called this newspaper two months ago alleging he and others involved with the ethanol project had not been paid by the county businessman.

Since then, the farmer says he has been instructed by his attorney not to comment because there is now a signed agreement with the company.

"We released money from a lawyer to him two months ago," Wheaton said. "It's absolutely been cleared up. He's been trying to charge double."

Ernie Mutch, who also grew beets for Atlantec and is president of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture, said the 13 other farmers were treated fairly by Wheaton.

"I met Wheaton several times. He seems sincere. He spent a lot of his own money here."

Project status

Though a host of local, state and federal approvals still must be obtained, Wheaton says construction details are being finalized and he hopes for a spring or summer groundbreaking next year.

The bulk of financing for the facility will come from Wheaton's own money and a $25 million low-interest loan that has been committed by the USDA.

Wheaton says he has begun contacting farmers within a 60-mile radius of Mount Joy to grow beets. About 6,000 acres of beet fields will be needed to start up the plant in 2011, with about 25,000 acres needed when the plant is in full production.

Eventually, Wheaton hopes to build other beets-ethanol plants in Pennsylvania. Developers in Ohio, California and Florida also are interested, he says.

Wheaton says the biofuel he plans to produce is needed to reduce reliance on foreign oil until hydrogen-based energy is perfected.

He predicts cellulosic ethanol from food and wood waste — "We might even get into that later" — and flex-fuel vehicles that will be able to run on electric batteries and biofuels also will be part of the solution in weaning the country from an oil-based economy.

"It's just a good American thing to do to support our local economy."

acrable@lnpnews.com