Bion opts to suspend NNY plans for ethanol

Bion Environmental Technologies has suspended its plans for a $180 million ethanol and beef cattle operation in St. Lawrence County.

"The whole investment community has kind of closed down," said Jeffrey H. Kapell, Bion vice president for project development and renewables. "It forces us to hone our focus on more short-term projects."

That does not mean the company's plans for an 84,000-head beef cattle finishing operation and ethanol plant in St. Lawrence County are dead, but Mr. Kapell said Bion instead is focusing on a project to manage nitrogen and phosphorus discharge from a Pennsylvania farm into the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Mr. Kapell said the results of the Pennsylvania project might be of use when the company returns to its plans in St. Lawrence County.

"Our intent is that upon successful completion of the project in Pennsylvania and a return of the credit markets, that we will in the future be in a position to come back and work toward the development of a project in St. Lawrence County," he said.

County Economic Development Director Raymond H. Fountain said he is disappointed, but not surprised, that Bion put its plans on hold.

"The financial times we're in, and the fact that they are an alternative fuel project and the cost of gasoline started to drop, I think it makes those projects a little harder to fund," he said.

Mr. Fountain said Bion's decision to back away from the proposal should not discourage the county from pursuing similar projects.

"We have property and land, and we're an agricultural area, so just because this one failed doesn't mean we should stop pursuing these types of things in the future," he said. "We have to move forward."