By MIKE PERKINS, Huntington Herald-Press Editor
The Park 24 industrial park on Huntington's far northeast side is being considered as a site for a biofuels production facility.
A Fort Wayne-based company has as many as 100 acres in the park are under option, many of those through Lime City Economic Development. Lime City operates under the umbrella of the Huntington County United Economic Development (HCUED) agency.
"We are interested in Huntington," said a company representative, who spoke to The Herald-Press Friday on the condition that his name not be disclosed. He said the plant will cost "tens of million of dollars" to build and would provide "approximately 100 high-paying, good jobs."
Information provided by local business contacts on the condition they not be identified characterizes the operation as a biodiesel production plant. That fuel is produced from soybeans, vegetable oil, and other renewable resources, including animal fats. Biodiesel facilities usually obtain their raw material for the production process from nearby agricultural suppliers.
"We will announce the project when we are certain that Huntington is the right place, that we have a(n incentives) package from the state in place, and that the other pieces of the puzzle are in place," the company representative said.
The Park 24 site affords an industry the opportunity to link via spur to the Norfolk Southern tracks on the south side. The park is off Thurman Poe Way, with access to four-lane U.S.-24.
HCUED Director Carol Pugh said Friday that her office was approached several months ago by the company, which asked for information on the industrial park. The area under option lies both within and outside the city limits. Pugh said the acreage inside the city is zoned IP, and industrial category permitting manufacturing and/or warehousing use. The area outside the city is zoned for heavy industry.
The Herald-Press has also learned that a group of neighbors is concerned about a biofuels facility at Park 24 and is exploring the environmental ramifications of such a project.
"Community support is very important to us," the company representative said. "If we encounter serious opposition we would have to consider taking the jobs elsewhere."
Mayor Terry Abbett, contacted Friday while on vacation, said the city spent $10,000 in CEDIT funds on a feasibility study of the park in spring 2005, on behalf of the unnamed industrial prospect.
"We were told that, if the study determined that the land was not suitable for their use that we would not be reimbursed, but if it was suitable that we would get our money back," Abbett said.
Late last year the French company Louis Dreyfus Corp. announced plans to build the world's largest biodiesel plant near Claypool, in Kosciusko County. That facility is expected to produce 80 million gallons of fuel a year, most of it from soybeans.
Other new Indiana biodiesel plants have been announced for Shelby County and Lake County. At least 35 biodiesel plants are already in operation nationwide.