What happens when you mix pesticide-coated seeds and a rogue ethanol plant? An environmental disaster that could poison the water for a decent chunk of the Midwest. This is the reality for people in Mead, Nebraska, who live near a now-shuttered ethanol plant that used pesticide-laden seeds to make ethanol, then stored the toxic byproduct in “lagoons” that ended up polluting the air, water, and soil of the town. Incredibly, the use of pesticide-coated seeds, both in ethanol production and to grow food, is completely legal, and the EPA has refused to regulate these toxic seeds, probably because it does not want to step on the toes of big agribusinesses. We should be concerned not just for the environmental and human health damage caused by this pollution, but the human health impacts of using pesticide-coated seeds to grow our food.
A processing plant located in Mead, Nebraska used seeds coated in neonicotinoid pesticides as part of its production process for ethanol, a corn-based fuel that is mixed into gasoline. A byproduct of this process was a toxic fermented seed mixture that the company, AltEn, sold to farmers as a soil “amendment” to boost fertility. What it couldn’t sell, it stored in massive “lagoons.” After the plant was closed down by state regulators for multiple environmental law violations, a ruptured pipe sent 4 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into local waterways, contaminating local wells and groundwater, and potentially contaminating an underground aquifer that supplies water across the Midwest.
After this catastrophe, Nebraska passed a law banning the use of pesticide-coated seeds in ethanol production, but it is the only state to do so. It isn’t clear how many of the US’s 210 other ethanol plants use pesticide-treated seeds; the practice isn’t illegal. As you can see in this map of ethanol refinery locations, most refineries are located in the Midwest in states like Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas.
Ethanol plants like the one in Mead typically use high-starch grains like corn; the byproduct from ethanol production, known as distillers mash, is sold as livestock feed. But AltEn did things a bit differently. For decades, the company collected leftover seeds from around the country that were coated with pesticides. AltEn even advertised itself as a “recycling” location where seed companies could offload their excess pesticide-treated seeds. This gave them a free supply for their ethanol production, but the byproduct from the chemical-treated seeds was too toxic to sell as animal feed. Instead, the company stored the lime-green mash of fermented seeds in huge lagoons and distributed some to local farmers to apply to their land. For years, AltEn also left an 84,000-ton pile of fermented seed waste in an unlined waste pit, allowing water-soluble noenicitinoids to seep into soil and reach groundwater; when it rained, runoff from this pile would contaminate local waterways, and during dry spells, toxic dust could carry contaminants off the pile and through the air.
Residents describe the stench of the fermented seed sludge as “acidic, rotten, dead.” If you lived near the plant, you couldn’t open your windows. Birds stopped coming to feeders. People reported nosebleeds and eye irritation. A dog who ate some of the seed mash became sick, exhibiting neurological symptoms. Bee colonies collapsed: a University of Nebraska researcher reported that every single beehive on a university farm located a mile outside of Mead died off, the timing coinciding with AltEn’s use of chemical-treated seeds. The researcher supplied video of butterflies and birds in the area that appear neurologically impaired.
Your Food Grown From Poison-Coated Seeds
How the use of pesticide-coated seeds led to an environmental catastrophe that turned a small American town into a virtual Superfund site.