Penn-Mar Ethanol Plant, Greene Township, Franklin County

STATUS: Killed

OPPOSITION: NIMBY groups (Citizens for a Quality Environment)

PROSPECTS: Dead

BACKGROUND: On February 7, 2005, Penn-Mar Ethanol signed a $2.24 million sales agreement to buy a 55-acre tract within the Cumberland Valley Business Park, a 1,400 acre community of businesses that is roughly five miles from Interstate 81, for the purposes of building an $80 million ethanol plant. The plant was originally planned for Conoy Township, but Penn-Mar pulled the Conoy application due to local opposition and decided to relocate to Franklin County. The plant would make ethanol from corn, and sell it as a gasoline additive. Almost immediately, a group calling itself "Citizens for a Quality Environment" immediately sought to block the project. The group mounted local opposition and filed a lawsuit grounded in local zoning laws. An injunction was granted against the proposed plant, and on November 29, 2005, Judge Richard J. Walsh issued an order stating that Penn-Mar Ethanol's plant was not a permitted use. The proposed plant's investors could not work out the details by the sales agreement's expiration date, and ultimately the deal fell through. Investors publicly blamed Citizens for a Quality Environment for the death of this project.

SOURCES: Citizens for a Quality Environment (NIMBY group) (http://www.c4aqe.net/); WGAL-TV (http://www.wgal.com/money/9412462/detail.html).