An ethanol plant for years polluted a Nebraska town. The health impacts still aren’t fully known

MEAD — Jody Weible sat on her couch, pulled out her phone and scrolled past photos of her grandchildren before landing on a picture taken a few years ago of her neighbor’s adult daughter. Pus leaked from the woman’s eyes.

Weible kept scrolling. There were photos of a massive contaminated dirt pile, screenshots of complaints sent to environmental regulatory agencies, and a video of her German shepherd, which one day developed allergies — seemingly out of the blue.

Less than a mile from her home, a facility called AltEn spent years in the business of turning pesticide-coated seeds into ethanol. The method created 85,000 tons of contaminated byproducts that polluted the neighboring village of Mead, and spurred widespread fear for the health and safety of thousands of people.

It took a lawsuit, public outrage and dozens of violations before the plant was shut down in 2021. Last month, the final truckload of solid waste known as “wet cake” was hauled off the AltEn property. Work is still underway to clean three lagoons on the site that hold millions of gallons of contaminated water.

Even as the state and village move forward, there’s a lingering question to reckon with: Will the health impacts of AltEn ever be fully understood?

The known and unknown

Professor Eleanor Rogan is still looking for answers. The researcher with the University of Nebraska Medical Center more than a year ago pulled data from a medical service organization called CyncHealth. The group shared with her basic hospital and clinic information on residents within all Saunders County zip codes going back to 2015.

Rogan and her team are working to analyze the more than 125,000 records. So far, she’s found the data supports what many Mead residents said to be true. In the past decade, respiratory problems were significantly higher among residents in Saunders County compared to neighboring populations.

“I certainly think it was valuable for the College of Public Health to view this as a public health concern,” Rogan said of the AltEn research. “If we hadn’t done this, nobody would really have a clear picture of it.”

The CyncHealth project is one of multiple studies conducted by a team of Nebraska researchers in recent years. It’s also a toned-down version of an ambitious, multi-year study that never quite got off the ground due to a lack of funding. The original plan called for a 10-year study organized by scientists from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Creighton University.

A small-scale survey of homes in Mead was conducted in the summer of 2022. Air and dust samples from eleven houses showed detectable levels of insecticide particles called neonicotinoids both in and outside the homes. Samples taken from another small rural community much farther from AltEn found negligible levels of the pesticides.

In early 2022, an analysis of urine samples found that Saunders County residents had measurable levels of neonicotinoids in their systems. Exactly how neonicotinoids impact human health isn’t widely known. Studies have shown an association to birth defects, fluctuating testosterone levels in men and women and damage to the immune system.

“In no case could you know at this point whether or not there will be long term illness, chronic illnesses,” Rogan said. “This is way too soon, for example, to know if a bunch of people are going to turn up with cancer. I’m not saying that they are, but we don’t know that yet. It’s too soon.”

The polluter next door

AltEn’s woes began with an innovative idea. The nation’s largest seed companies had a massive surplus of unsold seeds. AltEn had the means to cheaply turn those seeds into ethanol. Around 2013, a deal was struck.

AltEn assured the seed companies and the state that the facility would follow proper protocol in disposing of the byproduct created by the pesticide-coated seeds. Instead, the solid waste piled up and began to rot.

The smell was the first indicator to Weible that something was off about the ethanol plant that operated on County Road 10, about a mile from her home.

“When it smelled, it was deadly,” Weible said. “It smelled worse than a dead animal because it had an acidic, sour smell to it.”

She developed sores in her mouth. She knew of friends and neighbors who would experience headaches, nausea and bloody noses. Her dog developed an itching allergy and nearby bee colonies were dying. There was nothing a doctor could point to as the cause. Both her physician and vet said the ailments appeared to be environmental allergic reactions.

State regulators issued AltEn dozens of violations over the course of just a few years, but business kept rolling.

AltEn’s waste, or wet cake, was sold to farmers as field fertilizer until 2019, when it was found to be contaminated with levels of pesticides, specifically neonicotinoids, far above the legal limit.

A 97-page lawsuit filed by the state of Nebraska in March 2021 alleged that AltEn ignored orders to properly dispose of the waste. Settlement talks are ongoing.

Four days after an order was issued from the state to fully cease operations, a frozen pipe spilled millions of gallons of wastewater onto local properties and into waterways.

Months later, the seed companies that once supplied AltEn stepped in to lead the cleanup of the site. The effort has taken more than two years and millions of dollars.

The cleanup

In late August, John Vybiral drove the last truckload of contaminated wet cake from the former AltEn property to a landfill in Douglas County. The Wahoo resident worked at the plant when it was still producing ethanol. After it closed, the construction company he now works for was occasionally hired to assist in the cleanup.

Hauling away the final load of wet cake “brought a sense of relief,” Vybiral said.

“At first it seemed like such a great idea, right? Use this seed corn to create ethanol instead of just throwing it into the landfill to begin with,” Vybiral said, “but then at some point they decided that they're just going to basically screw everybody.”

The former owner and operators of AltEn abandoned the property days before the spill in February 2021. Seed companies, which filed their own lawsuits against AltEn, stepped in to handle the cleanup. They formed a specialized team called the Facility Response Group.

There’s more work to be done. The Facility Response Group has turned its attention to lagoons on the property that hold more than 100 million gallons of contaminated water. Earlier this month, the team submitted a construction permit for an EcoVap Tower on the site to help with evaporation and stormwater treatment.

Whatever comes next, Weible is optimistic about Mead’s future.

On a recent autumn morning, the quiet rumble of farm equipment could be heard from her little neighborhood off of County Road 10. Colorful plastic toys for her grandchildren sat in the corner of Weible’s living room. Photos of her daughters hung on the walls. Down the road, ground that once held tons of contaminated byproducts were covered with truckloads of clean soil.

It took state politicians and state regulators years to address the concerns raised by Weible and other Mead residents. There’s progress now, she said, but there’s also lessons to be learned.

“Listen to the little people,” Weible said. “Listen to your constituents if you’re in a political position. I knew it could be won, I just didn’t know what it was going to take.”