The company formerly known as Pacific Ethanol Pekin will fund a $125,000 environmental restoration project and pay a $75,000 civil penalty as part of a consent order ending legal proceedings over refinery pollution on the Illinois River.
The settlement with Alto Pekin ends an eight-year legal process after the attorney general’s office brought charges at the request of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in 2018.
The state filing came after the Prairie Rivers Network and Sierra Club initiated a case over repeated permit violations. The claims focused on thermal pollution, alleging discharged wastewater reached temperatures 40 degrees above the permitted allowance.
Alto will provide the $125,000 for Ducks Unlimited to pursue a wetland restoration at Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge, approximately 40 miles southwest of Peoria in Fulton County. Under guidance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ducks Unlimited will replace a water control structure to restore natural flood pulses that sustain waterfowl.
Robert Hirschfeld, director of water policy at Prairie Rivers Network, said it’s encouraging to see the state protect “its namesake river.”
“Rivers can't speak in court, so we speak for them,” Hirschfeld said in a news release. “This settlement holds Alto Pekin accountable for polluting the Illinois River while helping restore natural floodplain function across 320 acres of wetlands at Emiquon.”
Alto Pekin neither admitted nor denied the alleged violations. The company will be required to comply with the temperature standards of the plant’s renewed wastewater discharge permit and prevent future violations.
