EVANSVILLE - It’s been a year since an Evansville government board gave Earthcare Energy two additional years to pay its $200,000 loan, but no principal payments have been made and the Texas company apparently is kaput.
Earthcare, which later became Enviro Energy, owes the Department of Metropolitan Development $183,693.32. In 2012, amid some fanfare, Earthcare joined Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and local economic development officials in announcing plans to employ about 120 people at a green energy facility in the former Whirlpool plant on U.S. 41. It would build generators that would convert energy from natural gas into electricity.
Those plans fell apart amid revelations about troubled financial histories of Earthcare and its executives.
The $200,000 Earthcare received was from the U.S. Economic Development Administration Revolving Loan Fund, which assists high-risk, startup companies not eligible for commercial loans.
The Evansville Department of Metropolitan Development administers the federal funds locally. The Loan Administration Board, an arm of DMD, voted 3-1 in March 2014 to extend Earthcare’s note from two years to four. City officials at the time said they were hopeful Earthcare, or Enviro Energy, could find a business plan elsewhere to generate revenue and refund the money.
But company founder Kenneth Haney filed a personal bankruptcy last year, listing the DMD as a creditor. That bankruptcy was discharged in February.
Enviro Energy is listed as inactive on the Texas Secretary of State’s website.
“I think the company is finished,” said Haney’s bankruptcy lawyer, Peter Johnson of Houston.
Haney could not be reached for comment. Johnson said it’s his understanding that Haney felt Evansville breached its contract with Enviro Energy. Johnson, though, said he has not spoken to Haney recently, and did not know the substance of that allegation.
City attorneys, in asking the Loan Administration Board last year to extend the company’s $200,000 note, said they thought suing to retrieve the money was not their best choice.
News that the company apparently is now defunct is “disappointing,” Nick Cirignano, an assistant city attorney, said Thursday. “Our best bet to recover that loan would be for them to be viable and have a project with some other municipality or utility and enable them to generate that revenue and pay back the loan.”
Cirignano said the city will consider next steps and “we’ll have to see what we think our best option is.”
Enviro Energy is shown by the Texas Secretary of State as having “forfeited existence” as of Aug. 1, 2014. The company had been created in 2011 under the Earthcare Energy name.
DMD Director Kelley Coures, who was appointed last year to the position, said he wants to take a fresh look at the city’s Revolving Loan Fund program in a manner that would lend greater scrutiny to entities applying for the federal funds.
Coures’ idea is to have a commercial bank in Evansville, named through a request for proposals process, evaluate a company’s application and make a recommendation to the Loan Administration Board.
That report would analyze a company’s “assets, their liquidity, their capital and if (the bank) thinks ‘Company A’ would have the capacity to repay the loan over a number of years,” Coures said.