Petition sets back ethanol plant in Kossuth County

A setback for Midwest Grain Processors in its effort to locate an ethanol plant in northern Iowa. A local group has presented a petition calling for a vote on the 5-million-dollar bond issue.Midwest Grain Processors would like to build a 57-million dollar ethanol plant near Lakota, in northern Kossuth County. The project got a setback today when local organizer Floyd Bode presented the county board with petitions from residents who don’t want the county’s tax money guaranteeing a loan.Bode says a five-million-dollar bond the county’s offered would risk tax money that shouldn’t be going to support private enterprise. Petitioners needed 900 signatures to halt the bond issue, and handed in more than 11-hundred. Midwest Grain Processors Project coordinator Brad Petersburg says the call for an election puts the plant behind schedule by a month. He says that’s disappointing, but it doesn’t kill the process.The head of the Kossuth County Economic Development Corporation says the county is the loser today with the call for an election on a bond issue to secure financing for the proposed ethanol plant. Maureen Elbert says if the petition hadn’t been presented, Midwest Grain Processors would have purchased and signed the land agreement with the county today, and start construction next week. After the signatures on the petition are verified, county supervisors meet Thursday to set a special election on the bond issue to secure the loan to M-G-P.