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$30 Million Biofuel Plant Now Considered For Century, Not Jay
October 19, 2010
An Orlando company now wants to bring a $30 million biofuel plant to Century after plans to locate in Jay failed to materialize without the backing of the Town of Jay and Santa Rosa County.
Integrated Energy Partners had asked the Santa Rosa County Commission to back the issuance of revenue bonds to finance the facility in the Jay Industrial Park. Since the county’s name would be used to obtain financing for the company, Commission Chairman Gordon Goodwin told a company official at a July meeting that he wanted more information before making a decision about a project using the county’s name. Weeks later, Santa Rosa County still had not received the additional IEP financial information.
The Integrated Energy Partners (IEP), Inc. facility would use agricultural products to create biodiesel fuel, kerosene, propane and electricity. The plant would provide about 30 jobs and eventually employee about 50 people in five years.
Now, IEP is asking the Town of Century to sign off on a memorandum to back the bond issue, without an financial risk to the town. Mayor Freddie McCall said IEP’s Jeff Ates formally approached him Monday asking for the town’s help.
“He’s showed interest in wanting to come into our town,” McCall told the town council Monday night. “He never did get it through with Jay.”
The council approved sending the IEP request to the town’s attorney for review prior to taking any action on the bond agent request.
“I am not a lawyer, and I want some help with this before I make a recommendation,” McCall said. “I now what he told me, but I can’t take what he told me to the bank.”
McCall said IEP would potentially join Century Lumber and Land, LLC, Railmark Holdings and Milton Timber in the old Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company complex. After two delays in financing, Century Lumber and Land, LLC is set to cut the ribbon and being making improvements at the old lumber facility on Friday.
According to documentation provided by Integrated Energy Partners to the Santa Rosa County Commission, the company would use seeds from the Camelina plant in the winter and other traditional year-round crops, including cotton seed, to produce their biofuels. In addition, municipal and other waste products would be used as fuel.
The company said it has secured purchase agreements with farmers involving about 10,000 acres in the Florida Panhandle and has an “in principle” agreement with a municipality for their waste.
The company is not dependent on local farmers; instead, “IEP can exist in any industrial park that has adequate and infrastructure,” according to the company. IEP emphasizes the word “offering” in their presentation to the commission about a potential relationship with local farmers by offering a market for their production under a U.S Department of Agriculture.
The company also said that there will not be any permitting problems in locating the plant because they will not need an air discharge, wastewater discharge or wastewater treatment system permit from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
At startup, the IEP planned to have a 5-12 megawatt electricity generation capacity. They would be able to produce, according to documents provided to the commission, a yearly output of 3 million gallons of biodiesel, 9 million gallons of kerosene, 353 thousand gallons of cellulosic alcohol, 437 thousand gallons of propane and 47.8 MWH of electricity.
IEP stated in documents presented to the Santa Rosa commission that federal law stipulates that a local utility must purchase electricity offered by an independent power producer. The company states that a local utility is “ready to purchase all of our power production”. IEP is also in negotiations to sell their liquid fuel to wholesalers.
Comments
16 Responses to “$30 Million Biofuel Plant Now Considered For Century, Not Jay”
I would love to just shop in Jay but with half of “down town” boarded up or falling down and just recently Myrtle’s resturant closed and is up for sale. Price of gas is anywhere from 5 to 10 cents higher per gallon than Flomaton. I do like that Greer Tiger grocery store has remodeled recently. The hardware store looks like its in limbo for the past 6 months. If Jay wants us to buy locally it needs to have it businesses open. I know times are tough and this farm community is just as bad off as the rest of the nation is, but we have to have hope. Seems like last time the town was a boom was in the 70’s when a FEW became wealthy from oil. Next time around the town needs to see that it benefits the entire community and all of its citizens.
Navtive Floridian….
you said a mouthful….hope someone will listen to you…
They don’t seem to listen to me.
No one here takes the time to take pride in their commu nity and make
it somewhere where ppl will go..
Clean it up….buy local and stop using Walmart……
NO GAIN COMES WITHOUT PAIN…..
30-50 potential jobs is not worth the town sticking it’s neck out for this kind of risky “up front” investment. A fast food restuarant would employ that many!
Do we have “EASY MONEY” written on our city hall door?
All these fancy financial bond deals ending up here in Century is no accident.
I bet the indictments aren’t far behind. “NO FINANCIAL RISK”, or “EASY MONEY”, yeah right! Risk and reward go hand in hand. Watch your back around these slick no risk talking folks, and keep your hand on your wallet and sign nothing.
Believe it when I see it with my own two eyes! Didn’t have any faith in the company, Jay or SRC.
Why is McCall making a public statement about this at this point in time??
DJ you’re being reasonable.
Come to a Jay Town Council meeting or call one of the Mayor or one of the council members, better yet call a county commissioner and ask them to tell you why.
Jay never said “no”, nor did Santa Rosa County. IEP and Jeff Ates have never provided the requested documentation.. Ie; the 3-5 year business plan (not a summary), financials,etc. I know this because I was at meetings, and heard the requests and then the results of those requests. He just dropped it and went over to Century to fish in another pond.
IEP/Jeff Ates wanted use a “bond Scheme” and everything was positioned as “for 2 years farmers will get guaranteed $60 a bale for this product”. Well what happens after 2 years and the gov’t doesn’t prop up the price for that? Will the energy plant still be viable?
These were not “hard” questions, but IEP and Jeff Ates could never be pinned down on these things.. They just wanted the county to go.. “OOOHHH development lets do it”!
Also folks, ya wanna make Jay better??.. we need to start shopping local instead of going to Walmart, yes it will be painful withdrawal at first… Jay will never be an industrial “hub”, we have no railroad, no port, no interstate.. So we have to make Jay a “destination” where people want to come and shop, buy groceries,etc.. Remember when you shop local 75-80% of your money remains in the community
GRATEFUL WHITFIELD…………Your are correct we do elect our officials and once again we won over all the rest of them that wanted change in the voting process. As far as your son getting a job the town of Century isn’t that far of a drive. Most people who live in Jay work over 30-40 miles away from home anyways, or you can move your son closer to the jobs….It’s up to you!
Maybe SRC was just a little too selective, or negligent?? What’s 30 jobs to SRC? It’s like we can afford not to get 30 jobs and later another 50?? What’s up SRC in loosing 30 jobs for us, my son hasn’t had a steady job since construction went bellyup and that hurts me!! Im all about being cautious and careful and Im all about questioning our Leaders about why they acted they way they did so they remember they were elected not appointed.
Careful what you wish for. I recall an incident where a major league baseball team told a Florida county and city that I once resided in, that “if the county and city didn’t make huge improvements for their summer practice field that they would find another city to practice in”. Turns out, the majority of people who paid for the tickets which went to the team owners) to watch the summer practice sessions were all snow birds who didn’t pay a dime of county or city taxes..the local citizens raised all kinds of a stink about the threat and offered them their walking papers….they stayed put.
It must not be a very established company, I googled “integrated energy partners” and could not even find a website.
If Santa Rosa County and Town of Jay would not back them, there is something not right with this. They want industry as much as Century so this tells me something is not right. But of course Century is ready to once again give the store away. Citizens need to voice their opinion on this, this is our Town and our money that the council and mayor are so willing to give away.
THANK YOU JAY FOR NOT BACKING THE “IEP!”
Be careful it could be a flim flam like the auto plant was.
Sure, Century will do it with no questions asked because wasn’t it just a month or so ago that Century was issuing bonds for a private company that was renovating airports? At least this company will be locating here and the town’s people can actually benefit from the jobs that’ll be created.