A one-of-a-kind chemical processing company will move its operations from Nebraska to Peoria’s South Side after agreeing to a range of conditions to address economic and environmental concerns.
A rezoning request and special use permit application approved Tuesday by the Peoria City Council will allow Viridis Chemical to build a plant next to the BioUrja facility along the Illinois River for production of renewable ethyl acetate.
Eric Lawrence, the plant manager for the current Viridis facility in Columbus, Neb., told the council the company had been looking for a more convenient location.
“We have been taking ethanol from Peoria for the last two years, and so it made sense to move next to your supplier to improve the business process,” Lawrence said.
Peoria city attorney Patrick Hayes called the move a “tremendous opportunity” for the city and noted Viridis received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Chemistry Challenge Small Business of the Year Award.
“By all indications, this — as an industrial expansion — is sensitive to the environment, leading-edge technology, and the type of advancement that we can use to build business, build jobs, build the South Side of Peoria back as an industrial manufacturing center, but in an environmentally sensitive way,” he said.
Approval came after city staff and lawyers for both companies worked earlier in the day with representatives of the Peoria Joint Commission on Racial Justice and Equity (RJE) and the Southside Community United for Change (SCUC) to develop a list of special conditions related to employment and environmental protections.
“The city really stepped up here and to involve our group, in particular our environmental justice work group, in their efforts to make sure that we achieved some degree of protection for the community that went beyond just what the zoning ordinance would provide for, and I think we accomplished that,” attorney Tim Bertschy said on behalf of the RJE.
“We would like to have the opportunity to be a part of the hiring process for those people that would be working in a plant,” added SCUC representative Antonio Lipscomb. “We want to be reassured the South End shares in the economic benefit of this new plant.”
District 1 council member Denise Jackson commended all the parties for working together to reach an agreement that satisfies all sides.
“I hope this collaboration is the impetus for bridging a gap and creating a positive relationship and an opportunity to educate our community about BioUrja and hopefully its efforts to bring forth more transparency in the future,” Jackson said.
Ethyl acetate is a colorless and highly flammable solvent traditionally derived from fossil fuels and used widely in making paints and other products. On its website, Viridis says the new plant will use BioUrja’s corn-based industrial alcohols to produce its ethyl acetate.
“There's only one in the entire U.S. that has this technology that takes ethanol to make ethyl acetate,” Lawrence said. “Normally it's done by oil-based products, and we are the first one to develop something of this nature.”
The city’s planning and zoning commission last month recommended approval of BioUrja’s request to rezone the portion of its land that formerly held a railroad spur, as well as the special use permission.
That approval was subject to issuing appropriate building permits and coordination with the Peoria Fire Department in developing a hazmat emergency response plan.
Council member Chuck Grayeb voiced concerns over the addition of special considerations between the planning and zoning recommendation and the council vote.
“It just seems like it's been done in a backward fashion. I just think it’s wrong,” said Grayeb, who ultimately voted in favor. “We appoint Planning and Zoning Commission members to give it their best shot to evaluate projects like this. They then make a recommendation, and then — as I said, ‘at 11:59’ — all of a sudden, today, we have something that supposedly is going to allay our anxieties about this development down there.”
The agenda measure passed on a 9-1 vote, with Mike Vepsa absent and Kiran Velpula in dissent.
Velpula, a Ph.D. and assistant professor of cancer biology and pharmacology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria, remained unsure whether the risks outweigh the potential benefits.
“We rush on things, not knowing where we are going to,” Velpula said. “Environmental cleanup is the most costliest thing, and are we prepared for that?
“The zoning people say that, ‘OK, this is a good opportunity.’ But did we do enough research to really see is it — we are jumping off the gun saying, ‘Oh, this is a good opportunity for South Side.’ I really don't know what kind of jobs and how many jobs they're going to provide.”
