MEAD- A troubled ethanol plant near Mead that uses chemically treated seed corn has been ordered to shut down until it can dispose of excess, contaminated wastewater generated by the facility. On Thursday, the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy issued an emergency order to AltEn, the operator of the plant, to immediately cease discharges into its wastewater lagoons, saying that the company was "likely to cause and may have already caused" pollution of the air, land and water.

The department's order said that inspections of the ethanol plant's three lagoons on Monday indicated that all were holding more wastewater than permitted, and that liners on two of the lagoons were badly damaged and had not been repaired, as required by a state order in 2019. The company, AltEn, have been given 30 days to develop a plan to dispose of the water, which had unsafe levels of pesticides and fungicides used to coat seed corn. AltEn was also ordered to cease more discharge into the lagoons, which normally averages 100,000 gallons per day.

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